Keweenaw Peninsula- the U.P. of MI (9-14-10)

     When I was mentally composing my blog in my head this morning, my frustration was certainly evidenced in my thoughts. Every where around me, the word Eagle is incorporated into so many names- Eagle Point, Eagle Harbor, Eagle River, Eagles Rest Motel etc.- even the radio station is called Rockin Eagle. But there have been no eagles in sight anywhere! Then, this afternoon that changed. While on a bike ride, we were visited by a Bald Eagle while stopped in a small harbor to absorb the view. There was no way I could get a picture fast enough, especially since I wasn’t willing to take my eyes off him long enough to get the camera set up. Well, at least I got a good look at him this time. In fact, I saw him again later and he flew really close to me- I had the camera out, but when a bird is that close, its impossible to get the camera focused on him in time to snap. I did get a couple of pictures, but from a distance.

        We have been in Copper Harbor Michigan, at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula for the last few days (without cell phone and internet). I thought it would be a bigger town since I heard so much about it, but it’s a very small town. One of the ferries that goes to Isle Royale National Park leaves from here. Paul has been to Isle Royale before, and we were very interested in going there now, but seriously, when we priced it out, between the ferry, the hotel and meals, it would have cost us $1000 for 3 days. Not worth it this time around.

       We’ve managed to keep ourselves busy in this small town. We are staying in Fort Wilkins State Park, and the Fort has been partially restored, so we spent half a day exploring it. It is very well done, with lots of tidbits of interesting information about the people who lived here, the history of the fort, and what daily life would have been like back in the mid 1800s, when the fort was built. My favorite display had buttons that you could push to play “calls”. All the tunes that were used for various purposes during the day such as Reveille, breakfast call, etc were represented. There was a drum pad there, with 2 drumsticks, so you could play along on the drums, although for some reason, Paul wasn’t thrilled when I did that.
     We have driven up to the top of Brockway Mountain several times. The first time we did it during the day, so we could see the incredible views from the top. As a bonus, I discovered that I have cell reception up there, so I called the kids to make sure there was no crisis going on in anyone’s life.
     I had seen on a Space Weather website that the Northern Lights might make an appearance, so we drove to the top of the mountain again that night, at sunset, to see what we could see. Well, we saw a beautiful sunset, but that’s about it. We waited a couple of hours, then left. After talking to several local people, we have learned that the aurora borealis is usually seen later in the night, so last night we trekked up there again, but later this time, and stayed until after midnight. That’s about all Paul could handle, so we left again, after having seen nothing but a sky full of stars and a very prominent Milky Way.
      Today we actually got the bikes out and went for a ride to a forest Sanctuary. I was not pleased with how out of shape I am- we only rode 4 miles there and my legs were like rubber. Once there, we walked a couple of miles or so around the woods, and then biked back to the trailer. On the way back I realized that I hardly had to touch the pedals, since it was all down hill, so it made me feel better to realize the trip there was all uphill.   This afternoon Paul rotated the tires on the truck, and relaxed while I took the bike back to the harbor where we had seen the eagle, but apparently he had caught all the fish he could eat, since he was gone.

       Before arriving in Copper Harbor, we spent several days in Houghton, home of Michigan Technical College. Nearby is Quincy Copper Mine, which opened in the 1800s and closed in the mid 1900s. We’ve been in a silver mine and a coal mine, and Paul wanted to check out a copper mine. This mine went down 9000 feet and had about 90 work levels. Most of it has flooded since then, so we only went down to the 7th level.



Cable hoist-powered by steam



    Communication between people at the surface, and those down in the mine was difficult at best so a phone system was put in place back when telephones were a new invention. Unfortunately, most of the miners were immigrants from many different countries and did not speak each others languages, so the phones were useless, and instead, lights and horns were used to communicate. Hauling copper out from those depths was not an easy task either, and this mine used the largest steam driven hoist ever built to haul the copper (and also the men) up to the surface.

 

        In later years the mine was used as a school room for mining majors at Michigan Tech. There is an actual underground classroom, and the students practiced their techniques on the walls of the mine. I’m glad I didn’t have a class in that mine. The air temperature was 43°.