West Iron Library’s Armchair Airline program brings Morocco to Iron River

West Iron District Library is turning its conference room into a low-cost passport stop for Iron River residents who want to experience Morocco without leaving town.

The library’s Armchair Airline program will take place Friday, April 24 at 11 a.m. at the West Iron District Library. The event is free, RSVPs are appreciated, and walk-ins will be welcome. Attendees will sample imported foods, hear an interactive presentation on Morocco, and take home a featured spice, making the program part travel talk, part cultural tasting and part classroom session.

Aubrey Moore, a 2009 West Iron graduate now living in Marquette, will speak about her 2014 trip to Morocco. The presentation will cover brief history, major sights and customs that help define the North African country, giving the audience a firsthand look at a place many residents may know only from maps, tourism brochures or television.

Erika Sauter, the library’s program coordinator, said the event gives the community a chance to sample the flavors and culture of Morocco from the library’s climate-controlled conference room. For a small-town institution, that kind of programming matters: it brings an international experience to Iron River at no cost and gives adults a reason to gather for something more than borrowing books.

The Morocco program will be the eighth installment in the Armchair Airline series, which has become a steady part of the West Iron District Library’s adult offerings. The series returned in October 2025 with Germany as the topic, and the library described that program as the seventh in the lineup. That growing sequence shows the library is investing in regular cultural programming, not just one-off novelty events.

Morocco’s draw extends well beyond the library walls. World Bank data puts the country’s 2024 population at 38,081,173. UNESCO lists eight World Heritage sites there, including the medinas of Fez, Marrakesh, Essaouira, Tétouan and Rabat, along with Meknes, El Jadida, Volubilis and the ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou. UN Tourism said Morocco welcomed 17.4 million international tourists in 2024, a 20% jump from 2023, making it Africa’s most-visited country.

For Iron County, that global reach will be distilled into one morning at the library, where a local speaker, a handful of imported foods and a single featured spice will bring a faraway country a little closer to home.