Great Northern UP Conference

This article is about the Michigan athletics conference. For the Wisconsin conference, see Great Northern Conference.

The Great Northern UP Conference, is an athletic conference for high schools in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was formed in 1965 as the Great Northern Conference and changed its name to the A-B-C Conference in 1984, and again to its current name in 1990. The football conference was disbanded in 2023, but all other sports continue.^[1]

Member schools

Current members

Team	Location	Colors	Enrollment	Class	Joined	Previous Conference
Escanaba Eskymos	Escanaba		690	B	1965	Great Lakes Conference (Independent from 1986 to 1988)
Gladstone Braves	Gladstone		428	B	2018	Mid-Peninsula Athletic Conference
Kingsford Flivvers	Kingsford		548	B	1965	Menominee Range Conference
Marquette Redmen	Marquette		896	A	1973	Great Lakes Conference
Menominee Maroons	Menominee		391	C	1965	Independent

Former members

Team	Location	Joined	Previous Conference	Departed	Successive Conference
Escanaba Holy Name Crusaders	Escanaba	1965	Independent	1970	N/A (football team abolished)
Iron Mountain Mountaineers	Iron Mountain	1965	Menominee Range Conference	1978	Mid-Peninsula Athletic Conference
Luther L. Wright Red Devils	Ironwood	1971	Menominee Range Conference	1987	Independent
West Iron County Wykons	Iron River	1968	None (School opened)	1988 (Independent from 1982 to 1986)	Independent
Sault Ste. Marie Blue Devils	Sault Ste. Marie	2016	Independent	2017	Independent
Stephenson Eagles	Stephenson	1965	Great Lakes Conference	1966	Land-O-Lakes Conference

Membership timeline

Football

This list of conference champions goes through the 2022 season. 2022 is the last year that the GNC had a football conference, it will be disbanded for 2023.

#	Team	GNC (1965–1984)	ABC (1984–1990)	GNC (1990–present)
1	Menominee	1969, 1971, 1982, 1983	1986-1988	1994, 1997–1999, 2003, 2005–2007, 2011, 2013–2016, 2021
2	Kingsford	1965, 1969		1990–1996, 2000–2002, 2004, 2008–2010, 2012, 2017, 2021
3	Escanaba	1966–1968, 1972, 1973, 1978-1982	1984, 1988, 1989	1994, 1998, 2018
4	Marquette	1975, 1976		2011, 2018–2021
5	Gladstone	1982	1985	1998, 2022
	West Iron County	1970, 1974, 1977		—