My photographer’s alarm rang at 6:00am on Saturday July 30, 2022. While my companions seemed eager for the day’s journey to begin, I didn’t have the usual bounce in my step; there was no enthusiasm whatsoever. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Tom and Vicki had planned to spend the entire day in and around Copper Harbor in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. In my mind, that remote area of Michigan was where fun goes to die.
The three of us boarded the Jeep and we left Ishpeming at roughly 8:15am. For the next 85 miles, all I saw from the opened camera case on the back seat were trees, fluffy clouds set against a blue sky, and an occasional hillbilly riding an old ATV along a road-side trail. The civilization was so remote during the seemingly endless drive that we didn’t see a single Dollar General store until we reached Houghton at a few minutes past ten o’clock.
Although they had planned on driving straight to Copper Harbor, as soon as my companions caught an amazing view of the Portage Lift Bridge in Houghton, they decided to stop and admire the scenery. It turned out the Houghton-Hancock Bridge, or Portage Lift Bridge, was the heaviest and widest double-decked vertical lift bridge in the entire world. That historic bridge was the only way people are able to drive over the Portage Waterway and into the city of Hancock on what’s known as “Copper Island”.
Our destination, once we made it over the Houghton-Hancock Bridge, was Copper Harbor that was a little over 45 miles to the north. I thought for sure, at some point during our long ride, we would get to see some amazing views of Lake Superior. After all, the Keweenaw Peninsula is a narrow 10-mile-wide finger of land that’s surrounded by the largest of the Great Lakes. But all I saw were trees and an occasional small town that looked like its best days had long passed. I also had hoped we would see some of nature’s woodland creatures, such as white-tail deer or a Sasquatch. Just outside of Phoenix, Michigan, I thought I may have caught a glimpse of a squirrel smashed along the roadside. I was surprised the hillbillies hadn’t snatched up the roadkill for a batch of homemade soup.
At high noon, we finally arrived at Copper Harbor, Michigan, which was only about five miles from the furthest tip of the peninsula. It seemed to be a quaint little town that was geared towards meeting the needs of tourists; but overall, it was nothing special. I had to chuckle to myself because I thought Tom and Vic were a bit disappointed by Copper Harbor as well. A little over a mile east of town, we stopped at a small park called Astor Shipwreck Park where we caught a view of the Copper Harbor Lighthouse from a distance. There was no public access road to the lighthouse, which forced the three of us to view the historic light from a half-mile away at the small park.
One of Vicki’s personal goals was to see the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, but that didn’t happen either. When we got to the spot where U.S. Highway 41 ended, we were still about four miles from the peninsula’s tip with only narrow logging roads and ATV trails ahead of us. Tom attempted to access a map on his phone, but once again he had no service because we were in what’s commonly known as “The Middle of Nowhere”! At the cul-de-sac where the highway ended, we saw an informational marker that stated we were at the beginning of U.S. 41. Had we been adventurous and driven the entire highway until it ended, the three of us would’ve wound up in Miami, Florida some 1,990 miles away. Thankfully, that never happened – at least on that trip!
We spent over three hours in the Copper Harbor area before we drove back to the small town of Calumet, Michigan where we found a place to stay at about 3:30pm. It’s been said in the past: “Pictures are worth a thousand words”. Here are 16,000 worth of words from our time in and around Copper Harbor, Michigan.
As luck would have it, Vicki finally had enough internet service on her phone that allowed her to find a tolerable price for a hotel in Calumet, Michigan. And when I say tolerable, the $180 for that Saturday night’s stay at the AmericInn by Wyndham was barely tolerable in Tom’s mind. I had to laugh to myself because it was only two years earlier when my companions paid nearly $500 for a night’s stay on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, so a ‘buck-eighty’ was cheap in my eyes.
My photographer and his wife were registered and they had the Jeep unpacked by four o’clock. For dinner, the three of us drove several blocks into “downtown” Calumet where Tom and Vicki enjoyed fine Mexican cuisine. No, it wasn’t Taco Bell this time. Instead, they basked in the ambience of Carmelitas where Tom wolfed down three tacos and some rice while his wife enjoyed chicken fajitas. As for me, I just stood on the table and shook my head, which was made easier thanks to my new spring.
With full stomachs and a lot of daylight left, Tom and Vic decided to drive around and explore Calumet, which was settled in 1864 as a Copper mining town originally known as ‘Red Jacket’. My photographer also felt he had just enough room left in his “hallow pit” for some ice cream. However, when their search for an ice cream parlor failed to materialize, we ended up in front of a private residence along U.S. 41 where we saw a small front-yard stand that featured a variety of local rocks and minerals for sale. It was no surprise to me when Tom returned to the Jeep with a very cool looking copper-banded agate he had purchased. Not only did the owner mention Tom’s agate was found at the nearby Quincy Mine, but she also told my photographer the mine’s property was still open to interested visitors and it was only 12 miles away.
It was about 5:40pm when Vicki parked the Jeep in the parking lot at the Quincy Mine. There wasn’t a cloud in the late evening sky as the three of us began a self-guided walking tour of the grounds. At first, I rolled my painted resin eyes at the thought of visiting an old, dilapidated copper mine. But after a few minutes, I quickly changed my tune. “Old Reliable”, as it was once known as, operated from 1846 to 1945; and some activities continued into the 1970s. As I thought of the mine in a historical context, the Quincy Mine had been in operation for 14 years when Abraham Lincoln became President of the United States. Please take a look at the images taken by my photographer during our evening walk around the grounds of Quincy Mine.
When the three of us finished our self-guided tour around the grounds of the Quincy Mine, I had a greater appreciation for the history of the place. The Quincy Mining Company established that mine in the Hancock area in 1846, which was when James K. Polk resided in the White House. But more importantly, the mine was a huge source for the copper used in munitions during the Civil War and likely played a huge part in the North’s victory.
It was nearly seven o’clock when we returned to the hotel. During the entire 12-mile drive back to Calumet, however, I felt unfulfilled. I couldn’t rationalize my feelings, but something definitely felt amiss after our tour of the Quincy Mine grounds. In the room, my photographer placed me alongside the television set before he went to work on his computer. I could tell something was going on because he usually checks his fantasy baseball scores on his phone. Out of nowhere I heard Tom say to his wife: “Would you want to go down into the Quincy Mine first thing tomorrow morning? It looks like there are plenty of tickets left for the 9am tour and I think it would be a cool experience to go underground. There’s some built-in wiggle room on our agenda where we can make that work, but that means we have to be out of the hotel by 8:15 so we can get tickets for that first tour of the day. If we can’t get on the 9am tour, then we won’t go at all – we’ll just head towards Wisconsin instead.”
When I heard what my companions had planned on doing in the morning, I immediately knew that was the missing link for me. You can’t visit a mine and not go underground; that would be like going to Dallas and not seeing Dealey Plaza or turning on the radio and not hearing ‘Dominique’.
It had been a long day – one that started out a bit slow for me, but one that ended on a historical high note. The lights in the room were extinguished at 9:30 and Vicki fell asleep shortly after. My photographer and I watched the movie “Pride of the Yankees” on TV before he turned in for the night. Throughout the rest of the night, I stood alone on the entertainment center where my mind became flooded with questions about the Quincy Mine. What will it be like underground? Could the mine collapse and crush us? Will my photographer accidentally drop me down an abandoned shaft? Did the mine’s name have anything to do with John Quincy Adams? How many miners were killed there? Are their restless spirits still haunting the mine?
I couldn’t wait to find out!
