Chris Moore I was just rereading TCW Wasn't There, and on the second page of Chapter 15 (paperback version) Qwill and Polly had just called Brodie out on a Sunday night, and after they had talked to him, the book says that Brodie then left to go home and watch "the eleven o'clock news". Eleven o'clock is the near-universal time for local news on Eastern Time Zone TV stations. I'm pretty sure that there are virtually no stations in the Midwest Zone that would wait an hour after the last prime-time show finished to put on their local news. So isn't that pretty definitive that Pickax is in Michigan? Michigan is the only state in the "Eastern Upper Middle West", or however it's put, that can have part of it that could even remotely be considered "400 miles north of everywhere". Also, there are mentions made in some of the books about "going down" to Chicago or Minneapolis, and the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan is the only place in the Eastern Time Zone where reference could be made to those cities in that way. The North shore of the UP has two or three counties where one can stand on the shore of the lake (Superior) and look out over the lake at the sunset, as is described in one of the books. Maybe the Eastern part of Marquette County, or Alger, or Luce? What do the rest of you think?

Nick Fuoco About the location of MC....I lean toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The 11 PM news is one clue, but here's another--the prevalence of closed mines. The UP is full of shuttered iron and copper mines. My brother-in-law is from the UP and agrees.

Ben Hartley On the "Frobnitz and Family" FAQ page, you include the following about the city in which the early "Cat Who..." stories take place. "A reader contacted me to say that 'Could Read Backwards' talks about a certain character going to Michigan, which would rule out Detroit for the 'third person' reason listed above. Can anyone confirm this?" Well, on an admittedly cursory rereading of "Could Read Backwards," I find no references to a character "going to" Michigan. I did, however, find the following in Chapter 11, pg. 139 of the 1986 Jove paperback. Scene: "The Happening" at the Penniman School Sculpture Studio; Chars: Mrs. Buchwalter to Qwilleran: "Mountclemens is a frustrated artist. Of course, you know he wears a prosthetic hand--remarkably realistic--actually made by a sculptor in Michigan." I don't think the "third person rule" applies. The phrase is best understood to mean simply "...[ here in ] Michigan," or possibly, "... [ here in ] Michigan, [ but not in Detroit ]." Hmmm... With all her artsy pretentiousness -- "art" with a capital "F", mayhap? -- I wonder what Mrs. Buchwalter would have said had she known that Mountclemens' prosthesis was made of plastic? Qwilleran, on pg. 152, clearly states that it was.

Linda Guyan I was just looking at your web site - specifically the section about "where is Moose County?" Well, I have to admit that I haven't read the books, but my mother used to tell me so much about them that I feel I know them well. She adored those books! And, she used to tell me about Pickax - and I believe I know just where that is... so, I'd like to offer my suggestion on the location ---- it's Michigan in the upper peninsula - a wonderful little place called Mackinaw City which is located on Lake Huron. From what my mother used to describe to me, this is definitely the place!

Joe [concerning Breakfast Island in Came to Breakfast] Somewhere up [in Michigan's upper peninsula] is an island tourist trap that my school used to occasionally take field trips to. I never went myself, not really getting the whole appeal of getting out of school only to get to be bossed around even more by your teachers. Well, one of the main attractions there is, did you guess it....fudge! One thing I found very interesting, was the fact that automobiles are banned on the island!...Note too the stores listing, the categories being 'Fudge | Gifts | Retail' While I'm sure not all that unique for touristy islands, there's also a ferry service. The fact that there's tours by carriage is also interesting!

Angel Kropf Being a Michigan dweller myself, I am familiar with Mackinaw Island and there's another similarity [to Breakfast Island].....the rocking chairs on the porch of the hotel on Breakfast Island sound suspiciously like the rocking chairs that are on the porch of the Grand Hotel, the large, expensive hotel on the island. [Note: more complete info on the above two pieces can be found in the Insights section.]

Crystal Wood [Crystal Wood kindly brought to my attention the following snippet from the December 20th issue of Publishers Weekly: "Journalist Qwilleran has evolved into an independently wealthy columnist and generous benefactor for almost every worthy cause in Pickax, Mich." Their source for this information isn't revealed - could be from Putnam, could be from elsewhere - but a pronouncement from a publication with the reputation and regard of Publishers Weekly has to be given some pause.]

Megan Linnea Glaros I have always been torn between Michigan and Minnesota as to where Pickax is actually located. I am glad to see that some other people share my opinion that it is in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I am a meteorology major at IU and I think that due to the lake effect snow, the "BIG ONE" snow that they always talk about would be more likely in that overwhelming capacity in the Upper Peninsula.

Jo McNichols Whenever Qwilleran and/or Riker and/or Fran Brodie are going on a trip down below, they always mention taking a shuttle to Minneapolis before going on to Chicago or wherever. If Moose County is in Michigan, wouldn't they take a plane to Detroit? It wouldn't make sense to fly to Minneapolis first if that were the case.

Bob Naylor I have read half a dozen or more of the Cat Who... Books and have another open in front of me -- The Cat Who Robbed a Bank -- and after the second or third, I began suspecting that the big city paper Qwilleran had worked on was the Detroit Free Press and Moose County was probably in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You see, I was assistant Sunday magazine editor at the Free Press for a brief time in the early 1970s. Her name seemed so familiar. And I recognized some of the approximate places she describes. I am delighted to know that I was right and that Qwilleran's creator and I share a past. It is a good bet that Moose County is in the Upper Peninsula, sounds too civilized to be even the northern most parts of the Lower Peninsula. Little things in The Cat Who Lived High make me think her hero worked in Detroit, probably at the Free Press, given the availability of the paper from down state. The Detroit News has a huge circulation, but relatively little in the Michigan boonies. AND ... I believe the apartment house he was temporarily ensconced in and trying to protect [the Casablanca, in Lived High] was one called "The Palms" on Jefferson Avenue. I believe it is even on the National Registry of Historic Places because it is such an outstanding example of the earliest apartment hotel. I once had the pleasure of attending a party there. But then there have been other things that have put me off and pointed vaguely to Chicago. I believe she has intentionally made places composites because she does not want to be pinned down and picked apart by sticklers for unnecessary precision in naming and locating settings. As a bit of a writer myself, I do not blame her at all.

Mary Scott She is writing about cities I know about and spent part of my summers there. Mooseville is Caseville and Pickax is Bad Axe. My Mom was born in Pennipog, not to far from all of these cities.

Linda Lambert The bio of her early novels says she split her time between Caseville, Michigan and North Carolina. Saginaw, Michigan has Titabawasse Road and River. The Thumb has 2 octagon barns. One near Mayville has been converted to a house, The other closer to Caseville is being restored as a barn.

Carrie Ehresman I also thought that the Cat Who... series was the Upper Peninsula, but in one of the stories, Qwill talks about people sailing up from Chicago and that you can see across "the big lake" (or something similar), and see Canada. But he mentioned Grand Island Beach Resort and a Fishport. There is a Grand Island on the MI map and a Fairport. But not an easy sail from Chicago. I may be combining several books in this description. I'm thinking it is more near Mackinaw City, maybe even near Cedarville, MI or Pickford, MI. I've not visited this area, but just looking at a Michigan map and trying to calculate "400 miles north..." and yet still make a mention of seeing Canada. Didn't Polly and Qwill take a driving trip to Canada for a meal or something? I remember reading it. The author made the trip seem so easy, at least not a very long drive from Pickax.

Richard Royston It seems to me that it must be in the Keweena peninsula (Keweena and Houghton counties) in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Houghton is the town with an airport that is closest to Minneapolis, and it has loads of old mines, and Calumet seems to be a pasty center. Manitou Island is close by too.

Lee Ann Eary My husband grew up in the UP on the Keweenaw Peninsula, but we settled on the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix. We have made many visits to favorite haunts of his childhood. "Yoopers" always refer to those who live below the "Bridge" as trolls, and refer to places in the lower peninsula as "down below." My sister and I have had many good debates as to the setting for the novels. She is sure it is the UP of Michigan. I concur that it is a good possibility. However, after careful reading, rereading, and noting down many clues, I still lean a little more toward Northern Minnesota. The taking of the shuttle to "Minneapolis" is a strong point. I do agree that the point made about the prothesis refering to Detroit in the third person, so-to-speak, makes a good case for some place other than Michigan. However, I am willing to concede that point in Michigan's favor also. If the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is indeed the setting for the later books, I do think that the location is father to the west in the UP. I have studied the opinions of some of your other contributors, but I disagree in part with the easterly location. I know the western UP well, and there are many similarities. One has to be careful not to get too far west, as there is an area of Michigan's Upper Penisula that is on Central Standard Time. The point of the eleven o'clock news is well made. The Keweenaw Peninsula offers fertile ground for many of small towns. I would nominate Copper Harbor for the town of Brrr. Someone on your website mentioned the Whitefish Point Shipwreck Museum, as the shipwreck museum mentioned in one of the stories. I am not entirely sure, but I don't believe that the Whitefish Point Shipwreck Museum was open when "a shipwreck museum" was mentioned in the story...I think it was The Cat Who Went Underground.

Eirik Johnson On my third or fourth time reading through the canon, I became obsessed with the location of Moose County and dug pretty hard. There are solid textual reasons to eliminate every real state in the USA. It was my conclusion that not only is Moose County a fictional county, but that it is located in a fictional state in a fictional location--a sort of "twilight zone" state between Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Minnesota, perhaps bounded on the South by Wisconsin. It extends northward from the real-world southern coast of Lake Superior, pushing the Lake itself north by a few hundred miles into Canada. It was definitely part of the Northwest Territory, as demonstrated by its rigidly linear surveying patterns.

Yvonne-Lorraine Powell As someone who has lived around the Great Lakes her whole life, I maintain that Moose County is indeed in Michigan, but is most certainly a composite of both locations in the Thumb region as well as some in Northern Michigan, but in the Lower Penninsula, not the UP. And the Big Lake is Lake Huron.

Dlauriex2 Marquette prison in the UP used to have incredible flower gardens until someone decided prisoners shouldn't have to work.

Take me back to the main Moose County page.

Let's travel on back to the Ronald Frobnitz and Family homepage.

The Cat Who... series (The Cat Who Could Read Backwards and its sequels) and all its characters, places, and what-have-yous therein are the copyrighted property of Lilian Jackson Braun. Ronald Frobnitz and Family is an unofficial Cat Who... fan site and is not endorsed by or affiliated with Lilian Jackson Braun, G. P. Putnam's Sons, or anyone else involved with the production and publication of the Cat Who... series.