While many people are only familiar with ultraviolet lights from movies in which they’re used to find stains from blood and other bodily fluids, there are actually plenty of fun uses for UV lights. Artists have used UV lights to reveal secret images in their paintings. Pointing UV lights at a stove to find hidden grease stains is a hell of a good time, according to some. Over-the-counter vitamins are also apparently cool to look at under a black light.
One of the best things to do if you have a UV flashlight is to take it out in nature, which is exactly what Erik Rintamaki was doing when he discovered Yooperlites on a beach near Lake Superior in 2017. Since then, he’s grown Yooperlites into a full-blown trademark and business, one that’s caused some controversy with other locals of the region. Today, you can buy your own Yooperlites, Yooperlite apparel, Yooperlite jewelry, and much more.
At this point, you may be wondering, What the hell is a Yooperlite? Well, in this article, you’ll learn what exactly a Yooperlite is, how they got their name, and how they became the internet sensation that they are today.
What Is a Yooperlite?
When it comes down to it, a Yooperlite is a rock. If you were walking along the road and looking around with your naked eyes, you probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish a Yooperlite from any other rock out there. However, put a UV flashlight up to a Yooperlite, and it will illuminate with speckles of spectacular orange and yellow light.
Yooperlites are syenite rocks that are rich in fluorescent sodalite. The chemical composition of syenite is very similar to that of granite; however, unlike granite, they are deficient in quartz. Syenite’s name comes from Syene, Egypt, the place where this type of rock was first discovered and classified by ancient Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder. Today, though, if a syenite rock is found with high concentrations of sodalite, it goes by a new name: Yooperlite.
Why Is It Called a Yooperlite?
If you’ve never spent a significant amount of time near the Great Lakes, you may not know that the northern of the two landmasses that make up the state of Michigan is known as the Upper peninsula, or the U. P. colloquially. From there, people from the U. P. started referring to native citizens of the Upper Peninsula as “yoopers.” In fact, after one man tried to use the word in a Scrabble game and got shut down, he incessantly wrote letters to Merriam-Webster for years and eventually got the term “yooper” added to their dictionary.
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has its own unique culture and character. The region has strong Finnish and Scandanavian roots which can be heard in the yooper dialect of the English language. Yoopers are typically hardworking, tough, kind, and proud to be yoopers.
So, that’s where the “Yooper” comes from, but what about the “lite” part of the name? Well, that part comes from those fluorescent speckles of sodalite that shine under UV light. Duh.
Where Can You Find Yooperlites?
When Erik Rintamaki first discovered Yooperlites, he was walking along the beaches of Lake Superior in Brimley, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. And while this was the first recorded discovery of Yooperlites in Michigan, there are certainly other places in the state where you can find them.
The Grand Marais area in Alger County on the eastern side of the Upper Peninsula is a popular place to go searching for Yooperlites. Beaches on the Keweenaw Peninsula, the northernmost landmass on the Upper Peninsula, is also a great place to look for Yooperlites, not to mention a great place for hiking and sightseeing.
If you want to go searching for Yooperlites, make sure you get yourself a fairly powerful UV flashlight as well as a normal flashlight, since the best time to hunt for Yooperlites is at night. You should also dress warmly and bring some snacks and water because the cold in the Upper Peninsula can be intense (especially if you aren’t a yooper).
If you don’t want to travel to the Upper Peninsula and you’d rather get Yooperlites the easy way, you can now purchase them online.
Where Can You Buy Yooperlites Online?
After his astounding discovery, Erik Rintamaki trademarked the name Yooperlites and started an online business that will ship Yooperlites all over the world. They’ve even sent Yooperlites to Japan and Australia. In addition to just selling the rocks as they found them, they also use Yooperlites to make fun products like rings and keychains.
You can also sign up for a tour of the Lake Superior beaches hosted by none other than Erik Rintamaki himself. He’ll take you around the area and point out places where you can find Yooperlites. Erik isn’t just some guy who stumbled upon Yooperlites either, he’s a life-long rock hound with a ton of information to share about the geology of the region.
But even though Erik is a clear rock-lover, some have questioned the morality of profiting off of the naturally occurring features of Lake Superior’s beaches. This has led to some serious yooper-versus-yooper controversy.
What’s This Yooperlite Controversy All About?
About one year after Erik Rintamaki discovered Yooperlites for the first time, a fellow yooper started trying to use the trademarked name to sell the sodalite-rich rocks on Etsy. As a result, Jason Asselin, the owner of the Etsy shop received a cease-and-desist letter from Rintamaki’s lawyer.
Asselin, a YouTuber and content creator who is also from the Upper Peninsula, later released a video claiming that it’s disrespectful to the people of the Upper Peninsula that Rintamaki is trying to profit off of his trademarked word. In response to this claim, Rintamaki said that his decision to trademark the name was entirely business-motivated and that he would have faced lawsuits if he hadn’t gotten the trademark.
Anyone can apply to be a licensed seller of Yooperlites on Rintamaki’s website; however, Asselin believes that Rintamaki should not have complete control over who can and cannot sell Yooperlites. So, in what seemed like an act of defiance, he made a push to start selling these rocks under the name “Lake Shore Emberlites” and even started a GoFundMe page to try to obtain a trademark. The GoFundMe page has now gone defunct, but Lake Shore Emberlites are still available for sale on Etsy.
To make sense of all this, Asselin is not violating any trademark law by selling his Emberlites online. Everyone has a right to sell sodalite-rich syenite rocks from Lake Superior online. However, you may only advertise these rocks as Yooperlites with Erik Rintamaki’s permission.
Should You Buy Yooperlites?
If you want to support Erik Rintamaki, a man who has spent a good part of his life looking for rocks and now gets to make a living off of his passion, go ahead and buy Yooperlites. They’re a pretty cool product that’s entirely natural and are a great example of how truly incredible the natural world can be.
However, at the end of the day, you’re kind of just paying for a rock. If you think you’ll enjoy pointing a UV flashlight at a rock every night before you go to sleep for the rest of your life, getting a Yooperlite is probably a great investment. If you think you’d get bored of it in, let’s say, five minutes, then maybe it’s not for you.