The Bergland plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
−8° on Nov. 15, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1888. Next is −6° in 1950.
Bergland’s center stands about 1,330 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 1,190 ft to 1,600 ft, a difference of 410 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Summit Peak, about 1,970 ft, 14 miles northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Portage Lake Volcanics; Rhyolite at Bergland, from the Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old.
The section below crosses 9 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 21×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Shale, siltstone, arkose. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1 to 1.6 billion years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Rhyolite. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Quartz-feldspar-schist. Age: Neoarchean, 2.5 to 2.8 billion years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Mesoproterozoic, 1.1 to 1.1 billion years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 3 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Bergland reaches Lake Superior by way of Lake Gogebic, the West Branch Ontonagon and the Ontonagon: about 60 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Lake on the way: Lake Gogebic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Bergland; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Bergland has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 2° in February. A normal year brings about 180 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 43 inches of water.
On November 14 Bergland normally reaches 39° and falls to 24°. The record high is 67°, in 1999; the record low 4°, in 1911. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1949.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1888 at Bergland Dam, here. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.