7/17 - North to Copper Harbor

Yesterday I said today's activities would be a surprise. The surprise is that we drove back up the peninsula 100 miles to Copper Harbor. I was trying to spare Jim the 200-mile drive so was prepared to do something around Ontonagon, but he pointed out that it is unlikely we'll ever get back up here so we should do Copper Harbor in spite of the distance. It was worth the drive. We have now been from the bottom of Michigan to the top.


Before I get on with today's drive, here's a bit more information about the Porkies since I have this picture of them from our campground.

A long-distance shot of the Porkies

How many people know Michigan has MOUNTAINS?  We didn't before this trip but we sure do now.  The popular Porkies ski area has 19 trails covering 11 miles and 100 acres. With nearly 200 inches of snow a year there are endless opportunities for winter fun. It's a whole lot more fun to live up here in the winter than in NC. All you have to do is put up with an average high of under 30 and average low of under 15 for three months, plus the blasts of wintery wind off the lake. In exchange you've got all the winter sports you could ever want.

Now, to get on with today.....copper is a really big deal around here. The Keweenaw Peninsula is called Copper Country for good reason. It has the largest deposits of native copper in the world. (Native copper is an uncombined form of copper which occurs as a natural mineral.) In spite of the millions of tons of copper removed by mining on the peninsula, there is still a huge amount left. As long as open-pit mining is so much cheaper, extraction of Keweenaw copper will not be cost-effective. 

The upper Keweenaw is made up of ridges and valleys scoured out by glaciers. (They are very visible on Google satellite....look up Copper Harbor to see the terrain.) We drove up the west side of the peninsula, through Eagle River (very little there) and Eagle Harbor which is a lovely little village. The area is supported by tourism and winter sports with a smattering of commercial fishing thrown in.

Holy Transfiguration Skete Society of St. John

It was quite a surprise to find this magnificent building on the lake between Eagle River and Eagle Harbor.  We thought it must be an Eastern Orthodox church (wonder why?) and couldn't figure out where the parking was for the congregation or why there were no signs out front with its name. I found it on the internet and discovered it isn't a church at all; it's a monastery belonging to the Skete Society of St. John, an Eastern Christian group. It certainly is beautiful.

Next up the coast was Eagle Harbor, a lovely little village.

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse

We got right up to the lighthouse but found no way to get a good picture of it until we left town.  

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse from north of the village

This is a really striking scene with the bright red lighthouse standing out across the bay.

As a result of my reading TripAdvisor, we took a detour to get to Copper Harbor by going up Brockway Mountain Road. The reviews just talked about the view, not about the road itself. It was paved but very narrow and extremely rough, not something anyone should try in an RV or pulling a trailer or with cats in their vehicle. (Fortunately for our cats, they were comfortably immobile back in the RV.)  After driving about five miles and wondering if the end result would be worth it, we reached the overlook at the top and discovered it was really spectacular.

 Lake Superior from the Brockway Mountain overlook

Lake Superior, little Lake Bailey and one of the Keweenaw ridges

We started driving down to Copper Harbor and found the road to be even worse. In addition to being narrow and very rough, it went up and down like a roller coaster. Seriously up and down. Coming from mountains it wasn't a big deal to us but we could only imagine the horror of the flatland touristers who had never encountered such grades and curves. And all this in MICHIGAN.

Copper Harbor and Lake Fanny Hooe (on right) from Brockway Mountain Road

Copper Harbor is a natural refuge for ships and became the area's port when the copper boom started in the 1840's. It brought in men and supplies and carried out copper until other methods came along. A lot of miners came from Europe, particularly Finland. Hancock (across from Houghton) has been called the "focal point of Finns in the United States."  Finlandia University is located there.

Tamarack Inn Restaurant, Copper Harbor

By the time we got down the roller coaster and into Copper Harbor it was past time for lunch. Although this tiny town lives on tourism, there aren't many restaurants. We got lucky and found one that wasn't packed (until after we'd been there a few minutes). The food was good and service was cheerful so what more could we want?

After lunch we were going to check out Fort Wilkins which was built to protect the mining industry from Indian attack only to find the Indians weren't interested and never bothered. The fort is still there and is now a state park. When we got there we decided to skip it and head for home since we had another 100 miles to drive and needed to get fuel and a few groceries on the way. 

We did stop at the Quincy Mine again on our way south because they had a very handy restroom. There's no such thing as rest areas along these country roads.

While stopped at the mine I took this close-up of one of the buildings to show the interesting red and white patterns in the limestone which was used to build so many places in Copper Country.

The rest of our drive was uneventful. We filled up with diesel at the only Walmart for over 100 miles (in Houghton) and got our groceries in the local chain (Pat's Foods) in Ontonagon. Everything is in order for our move west tomorrow to Saginaw, Minnesota, a short distance past Duluth.