Full disclosure: My maternal grandmother Nina was born in Sault Ste. Marie, MI. I still have relatives there. I love pasties — the ones you eat with ketchup. So I guess that makes me a Yooper, at least at heart.

That’s why it was like Christmas when I got the new “Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Almanac,” published by the University of Michigan Press — and, if you buy the Almanac, you will see on page 325 that Christmas is a village of about 400 in Alger County in the north central section of the Upper Peninsula. You’ll know you’re there when you see the 35-foot Santa.

That’s not the only thing you’ll learn in this 580-page paean to the U.P. by veteran Northern Michigan authors and journalists Ron Jolly and Karl Bohnak.

Pick a page, any page, and there will be some fascinating tidbit about the U.P., whether it’s weather, people, history, culture, sports or almost anything that comes to mind. For certain, the sports, culture, tourism and architecture sections will be earmarked for additional reading.

Jolly is a morning talk-show host at WTCM-AM in Traverse City and Bohnak is the meteorologist at WLUC- TV in Marquette. Bohnak has previously published “So Cold a Sky” about the U.P. weather, and Jolly is the author of the “Northern Michigan Almanac.”

Of course, for University of Wisconsinschooled meteorologist Bohnak, the section on snow, rain, drought, high winds and other weather oddities is his favorite. Did you know the highest recorded wind in the Upper Peninsula of 90 miles per hour was at Mackinac Island in November 1998, or the most continuous snowfall of 61 inches was recorded at Sault Ste. Marie in December 1995?

The weatherman also spent considerable time compiling entries on U.P. shipwrecks, wildlife and historically significant locations and events, such as the building of the Soo Locks.

“The hardest thing about doing the book was limiting what we put in it. It originally started out as 250 pages. We knew we would leave things out,” Bohnak said.

The sports chapter is also filled with tidbits, such as the 40 points Bob Gale scored for Trout Creek against Covert in the 1966 Class D finals.

Or did you know the largest burbot ever caught in Michigan was in the St. Mary’s River? It was a whopping 18.25 pounds and measured 40 inches.

The two men worked mostly by e-mail or by phone and only met a few times while writing the book. Both men were struck by the diversity of the ethnic groups that settled the U.P.

“The U.P. was diverse before it was cool,” Jolly said.

He also was impressed by the once- cosmopolitan nature of the Houghton area during the pre-Civil War copper era.

“At one time Houghton had a population of more than 90,000,” Jolly said. Today, it stands at 6,924, but in the mid-1850s the likes of Sarah Bernhardt played the Calumet Opera House.

“The residents made a civilization out of nowhere,” Jolly said.

Clearly, the allure of the Upper Peninsula has attracted some big names over time.

Henry Ford was a member of the Huron Mountain Club, even though his initial membership was rejected; Rudyard Kipling took a rail tour of the Eastern U.P. in the late 1800s and the towns of Rudyard and Kipling are named after him.

Everyone will have his own favorite listing, but mine has to be the day the Rolling Stones came to Marquette (page 464). In 2002, the longtime road manager of the Rolling Stones, Chuch Magee, died and the Stones flew to the funeral in Marquette. They sang one song, “Amazing Grace,” and left not a dry eye in the place.

The two authors have done an admirable job of compiling a readable and accurate collection of facts about a treasured place in Michigan: Huron Mountain Club, a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired bowling alley, the Mackinac Bridge — it’s all there for the taking.