Michigan Upper Peninsula (Part 1)

 Hello again!

We left the North Shore of Lake Superior and headed South and West to Michigan's Upper Peninsula!  We have learned about weird lines for time zones, "Yoopers", Pasties and that folks on the UP don't think much of their Michigan brothers "south of the bridge".

Our first stop in the UP was Houghton.  This was a long drive from Grand Marais so we made a stop to hike to the Lake of the Clouds in Porcupine Mountain State Park.  This was a lovely area!

Arriving in Houghton we had reservations at The Vault.  This building used to be a bank, now a hotel.  It was super cool - the decor was art-deco ... the 70's ... lots of gold and clean lines.

Houghton and Hancock (it's neighbor across the river) are mining towns. We toured the Quincy Mine.  This was very interesting.  We learned about the history, machines and people who made a living bringing copper out of the ground.

This is the hoist.  It is used to bring rock out of the 6,000 foot deep mine to the surface to be processed.  It is powered by steam engines on either side.  One side goes down, while the other goes up.  In addition to moving rock they had "man-sleds" to take the men from the surface down to the level they were working on.

This is more of the machinery...

This is the actual mine - 

This tour included actually going into the mine.  We were on the 7th level - about 360 feet below ground.  The conditions we encountered were much better than the men that worked the mine in the 1800s.  In the 1840s when the mine opened many of the men working had emigrated from Cornwall and other places in Europe where they had been miners.  They worked by the light of candles - usually only 1 or 2 - hitting a long rod with a 10 pound sledgehammer to create 3 ft holes into the rock.  Once they had about 18 holes, they filled them with black gun power, tied the fuses together, lit them and ran like hell!

The dangers of this job are both obvious and too numerous to list.

This is the tour guide, Finnegan.  He was an earnest young man - he did a great job, providing lots of information.  At one point he extinguished all the lights - let me tell you it was PITCH dark.  Holy-cow!  This sled is filled with rock simply to illustrate how the rock was carried away from the work area.  The empty sled weighed 500 pounds and was usually filled with 1500 pounds of rock.  It is on rails but was pushed by hand.  These workers went home tired!

After the tour we took a walk around the town. Here we have a picture of a local.

Next we drove from Houghton to Christmas, MI - the place we stayed was not as nice as The Vault.  It was actually attached to a gas station.  Oh well, it was clean and pretty quiet.  We survived!

We went kayaking to see Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  The lake was super choppy near PRNL so, while we saw it from the boat we did not kayak in that area.  Instead we kayaked the shore of Grand Island which, of course, has similar rock formations.

The various colors in the rock formations are deposits of iron, copper, manganese and limonite.  

It is amazing how the trees find enough soil to hang on....

Also, the water was very clear ... and very cold!

Obligatory selfie!

This was a very nice day!

Before we left Munising we had a Pasty - this is a sort of meat pie (a cross between a pot pie and an empanada without the spices) that the miners coming from Cornwall introduced in this area when they emigrated to work in the mines

Now we are in Paradise, MI on the eastern end of the UP, near Whitefish Point.

Take care,

Sheri & Carsten