July 24, 2010

July 24, 2010

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan was not only iron mining country. In our visit to Keweenaw National Historic Park we learn that it was also copper country. On this peninsula virtually pure copper is buried just below the surface. No smelting is necessary. Copper has been mined here for thousands of years. Keweenaw copper mined here by Indians has been found throughout North America. With the start of the Civil War, Americans came and built modern mines atop the Indian ones. We start our rainy day visit with a ranger-led walking tour of the former mining town of Calumet. Although the ranger was very good, I found it mostly boring looking at old buildings of minimal historic value. A handful of these deteriorating structures are being renovated by the Park Service with our tax dollars. I know of hundreds of towns just as deserving. I wonder what the Michigan politicians traded for this pork.

In the afternoon we drive south to Houghton and take a tour of the abandoned Quincy copper mine. This is an underground hard-rock mine that is almost two miles deep. Most of it is now flooded. Normally a miner would ride a tiny cable car down a narrow vertical shaft. Instead we don hardhats and coats and are driven down the side of the hill where we enter the mine sideways along a shaft drilled to drain the first seven levels of the mine. Inside we see how the miners did their work. It was back breaking work. No thanks! Back topside we see the world’s largest steam-driven hoist that lowered the men into the mine and pulled the copper out.

From the Keweenaw, we drive west and spend the night just over the border in Wisconsin where I can finally buy beer without paying a huge bottle deposit. For dinner we eat a “pastie” we bought along the way. Pasties are a local favorite and are a meat and potato dish baked inside a piecrust. It was introduced by Cornish mining immigrants from England. A pastie was an easy and nourishing meal that could easily be carried into a mine. Ours was actually quite tasty.