Chapter 44 - Lake Superior
September 15,1999
8/19/99 Backtracking a bit from the Boundary Waters, we headed southwest to see some of the Mesabi iron range. From Ely, we took SR 1 and 169 and then US 53, stopping at The Gilbert Sherwood Forest Campground, in Gilbert, Minnesota. We picked this place out of the campground directories from among the rather sparse listings in this area, with no other information, but it turned out to be outstanding.
It is run by the city of Gilbert, and was built as a joint venture between the city and the state agency which reclaims old iron mines. The RV park has 34 RV sites spread out over a large grassy slope dotted with young (15' high) pines, overlooking an attractive lake which presumably was a huge open pit iron mine (this is in the middle of the Mesabi mining district). Across the lake, we can see only forested hills, where nature is rapidly hiding the scars left by the mining operations.
The high-grade ore in the Mesabi Range is gone, but with new techniques, low-grade ore is still being mined. This ore is locally concentrated into taconite pellets (about 65% iron), and shipped to Duluth by rail. During the first half of the century, peaking during World War II, this area provided a large percentage of the iron ore for the entire country, making Duluth one of the busiest and highest tonnage seaports in the world.
Iron World, near Chisholm, is an odd place that is half amusement park and half museum. The site is on the edge of one of the very large old open-pit mines. An antique electric trolley runs through the entire site, providing views of the abandoned mines and transportation among the various exhibits. We spent two hours here, learning what a mining town was like in the early part of the century. There was much more to see and learn, but we ran out of time. It's worth a full day, particularly with children.
Olcott Gardens, in Virginia, Minnesota, is a small area of well-tended outdoor plantings, and a funky old WPA-era greenhouse full of very well-tended and well-displayed plants, with a huge open city park adjacent. There's a weird WPA or CCC cut-granite sunken garden and fountain in the middle of the park - don't miss it.
8/20 On to Duluth - an easy hour and a half down US-53. We're actually staying in Superior, Wisconsin - adjoining Duluth to the south, just across the St. Louis River.
8/30 We've been lazy, seeing the sights in a leisurely way, going out for a few hours, and sometimes staying home all day. Highlights of the Duluth area include:
Lake Superior Maritime Visitor's Center is an Army Corps of Engineers facility, a museum focussing on the history of shipping in the Great Lakes and also on the history of the Corps of Engineers. Most of the exhibits are fascinating - very informative and very well presented. We spent most of an afternoon here. We've lived most of our lives near the Great Lakes, but much of this material was new to us.
Lake Superior covers an area equal to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world, by area, and second only to Lake Baikal in Siberia, by volume. Ten percent of the world's fresh water is contained in this one lake. If spread out, it would cover all of North and South America a foot deep.
The origin of the Great Lakes was described in this museum as part of a huge geological fault called the Mid-Continent Rift, subsequently shaped by several periods of glaciation over the past million years. Older references don't mention a rift, but instead speak of river valleys scoured and deepened during the glacial period. Whatever the origin, Lake Superior is remarkable. The entire region is still rebounding from the immense weight of ice during the last glacial period - rising at a rate of a foot every century.
Duluth is one of the largest shipping ports in the world, shipping the highest tonnage of any port in North America. It is almost entirely bulk cargo - iron ore, coal, and grain. It is also the most inland seaport in the world, 1900 miles via the St. Lawrence Seaway. Until the Seaway was completed in 1959, The Great Lakes had had a large shipping fleet which was entirely landlocked. Now, ocean-going freighters come from all over the world. While we were at the harbor entrance, a freighter from Cyprus arrived to take on a load of grain. (We do not know where the grain was to be delivered, of course, - Cyprus just the port of registry of the ship).
The Visitor's Center is adjacent to the main channel into the harbor. Twice, while we were there, large ships arrived, and were announced over the public address system in the Center - a long description of the ship, its cargo, its nationality, which dock it would be using, etc. Video displays showed a schedule for all ship traffic for the day.
The Depot is a large, beautifully restored 1892 train depot which now houses a cluster of museums. The largest area currently has a very interesting traveling exhibit about all aspects of Antarctica - geology, history of exploration, flora and fauna, etc. The Lake Superior Museum of Transportation is also part of this complex, and despite its broad name, is really a railroad museum, housing a large collection of locomotives and cars spanning the history of this area. The first locomotive in Minnesota has been restored and is on display.
The most impressive display is a Baldwin Yellowstone class 2-8-8-4 articulated locomotive, one of the largest locomotives ever built. It was designed especially to haul the long, heavy trains of ore cars from the Mesabi mines to the Duluth docks. It weighs 556 tons and is 128 feet long. It is so long that it is sort of hinged in the middle. Actually, the upper part is a rigid boiler running the entire length and mounted rigidly to the rear set of four driven axles. The front set of 4 driven axles, with their associated steam pipes, pistons and linkages, can slide sideways relative to the boiler, allowing the long locomotive to get around the corners, but allowing the front of the boiler to hang far out on the outside of the curve when the wheels move in to follow the tracks around the curve. This beast burns up to 12 tons of coal per hour to generate 6000 drawbar horsepower. It burns coal so fast that coal is automatically transported from the coal car into the boiler on a large continuous conveyer belt running under the engineer's feet.
The building also houses the Duluth Children's Museum, an art exhibit from the Duluth Art Institute, and the St. Louis County Historical Society's exhibit of local history. The latter included an interesting section telling the story of the large number of European immigrants who came here to homestead, work in the lumber industry, and later, work in the mining industry.
Harbor Tour: Like other seaports, to fully appreciate Duluth it should be seen from out on the water. This is even more true here than for most other major seaports, because shipping-related business is a very high percentage of Duluth's total industrial base. In spite of the huge amount of shipping, it is still in many ways a small town - with a population of only 78,000. We took a 2-hour ride on the Vista King, doing a loop through the major areas of the harbor, and under the unique lift bridge out into Lake Superior.
As first built, this wasn't really a bridge at all. A high superstructure spanning the channel supported a gondola, suspended just above the water. This gondola was drawn back and forth across the channel by cables, carrying passengers and vehicles. Many years later, the superstructure was strengthened and the gondola was replaced by a bridge span which lifts vertically 130 feet above the water to permit passage of the largest ships.
Huge bulk-cargo ships, up to 750 feet long, can be loaded with over half a million tons of cargo in as little as 5 hours, with only two humans directly involved. The big grain elevators are largely automated, and have multiple conveyers which can simultaneously load into several of the ship's holds. On the ship, one man monitors an array of electronic gauges to insure that the cargo is being uniformly distributed from end to end and side to side, avoiding damage to the ship. The other person is in a control room high up above the conveyer system, controlling the flow of grain (or coal, or ore) into the ship and moving the dispenser spouts as needed. The empty ships sit high out of the water, and settle about 20 feet lower as thousands of tons of cargo are transferred in.
Tweed Museum of Art is on the University of Minnesota campus and normally houses a small but well-balanced collection of art spanning the 13th to 20th centuries. When we were there, a substantial part of the permanent collection was in storage to make room for a special exhibition called Botanica - a collection of very diverse art linked together loosely by all having plants as a theme. We found the exhibit as a whole only mildly interesting, but with a few pieces that we really enjoyed.
Fairlawn, an 1890's Victorian Mansion built by a lumber baron turned Mayor, has been restored so well it is hard to believe it wasn't built yesterday, except that few people could afford to build in that grand style today. Originally built with a commanding view of the harbour and barrier islands, a feud between the mayor and another resident resulted in Barker's Island being built from harbor dredgings right in the middle of that great view, spoiling it forever. After my tour, I stood between the stone lions on the porch steps and mourned the loss, 90 years after the feud.
Duluth has several miles of landscaped Lakewalk, a path along the shore and through a rose garden at Leif Erickson Park. Views of ocean vessels, ore carriers and pleasure craft on one side were balanced by the roses, a delicate wrought iron gazebo, elaborate scrolled stone benches, an odd Scandinavian style fountain and a statute of Leif, himself, striding boldly westward.
Glensheen, a 39 room Jacobean style mansion built right on the lake, is perhaps one of the most accurate depictions of the elegant period of estate building (1890-1920) by the nation's newest millionaires. Nearly every item in it is original to the Congdon family that built it, lived in it, and maintained it well right up to the time it became a museum. If you are into Circassian walnut paneling, onyx and other marbles from Africa, Steinway pianos custom built to match the décor, English bone china, the best of everything that was available in the early 1900's, then this is the place for you. The tour guides, dressed in period costumes, must have been students from a nearby acting academy. The young butler greeted us with a heavy English accent and the flirtatious parlor maid, caught dusting, pointed out some of the more precious artifacts. The grounds were in poor condition with unpruned shrubs, rough paths, and general neglect evident. The ongoing restoration of the patio overlooking the fountain and lake should remedy some of that problem, when it is completed.
The North Shore Scenic Drive is indeed scenic, often winding very close to the rugged and undeveloped Lake Superior shoreline. When we originally planned our summer, we had intended to continue on through Ontario, covering the entire 500 miles or so of North Shore coastline. Later, we decided that we would instead do the South Shore, which Helen hadn't seen before. So we did a 75 mile (round trip) day trip from Duluth, to enjoy at least a small piece of this coast.
Split Rock Lighthouse is one of the most scenic old lighthouses we've seen. It's built right at the edge of a sheer rock cliff, 100 feet above the lake. When originally built, this was a very isolated spot, with no settlements and no roads. All construction materials had to be brought in by boat and lifted up the cliff. A steam engine was cleverly used, with pulleys attached at the top, to lift itself up the cliff, and then became the motive power for a huge derrick, which lifted the construction materials for lighthouse and keeper's houses, and was subsequently used for many years to bring supplies up from the lake.
Gooseberry Falls State Park. A series of very interesting waterfalls, reached by well-maintained trails through the forest.
We stopped in Two Harbors to visit the 3M/Dwan Museum, which "chronicles the history of 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company)", and in particular, the history of sandpaper - one of the early 3M products. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for renovations. The consolation prize was the Lake Country Historical Society Museum. The museum itself wasn't of much interest - but outside, they had a very early wood-burning locomotive and another example of the huge Yellowstone-class Baldwin locomotives mentioned earlier.
9/1 Back on the road towing our house, but a short drive today - east on the sparely traveled two-lane highways across northern Wisconsin to Apostle Islands National Seashore. This is not a prosperous region. The income seems to come mostly from tourist services. Beyond tourist-oriented businesses, we saw very small amounts of commercial fishing, lumbering, mining, and little else. Per-capita income for the Washburn ZIP is $10,700 ($23,000 per household), and other nearby ZIP's are similar.
As we passed through Bayfield before hunting up a campground, we stopped at the Visitor's Center for the National Seashore. Here, we read about the history of the area, discovered a list of local campgrounds (many of which weren't in our directories), and also got information on a boat tour of the islands. The only camping in the National Seashore is on the islands - accessible only by boat. We made reservations for the 3-hour evening boat tour, and then drove another 12 miles along the lake to the most interesting-sounding of the area campgrounds, in Washburn.
The kids are back in school and already the campgrounds and tourist facilities are less crowded. We pulled into Memorial Park about 3 PM. and had our choice of half a dozen large beautiful campsites right on Lake Superior. This is one of two (count'em - two!) campgrounds on the lake operated by the small town of Washburn, WI. We're in a grove of huge pine trees on a little bluff - about 30 feet above the lake. We backed the trailer right up to the edge of the bluff, so we are almost surrounded by the sound of the waves chuckling against the rocks below us. Adjacent to our campsite on the north, a little stream (now dry) has cut down through the bluff, creating a sandy beach in a little hidden cove on the shore and a narrow densely forested valley inland. Surprisingly, our site has a 30 amp electrical outlet, so we have all the comforts of home - at least for the five days or so until our fresh water runs out and our sewage tanks fill.
The boat tour was delightful. There are 18 Apostle Island (not 12, as the French explorers thought when they chose the name). Most are fairly large, and some are several miles across. The largest, Madeline Island, is outside the park and has a permanent population - roads, a village, tourist accommodations, a State Park with camping, and a regular car ferry. The other islands were historically sparsely populated with fishing camps, a few lighthouses, a stone quarry, and in recent times, some summer homes. When the National Park Service established the park here, existing residents were offered a choice of selling their land immediately, or of receiving their choice of a 25-year or lifetime (of the current owner) lease. That was about 1974, and there are now only a few scattered leaseholders, largely invisible in the forest.
Some of the islands are bounded by colorful wave-carved sandstone cliffs. Devil's Island, the furthest from the mainland and most exposed to the waves, has impressive cliffs studded with sea caves - a major attraction for sea kayakers who can paddle into the caves. The lighthouse here, as well as several others and an old fish camp, have been restored and are popular attractions for visitors (those with boats). Primitive campsites are available (only by reservation) on many of the islands. Two of the smaller islands support rare plant or bird habitat and have been placed off-limits for humans.
Bayfield, Wisconsin, is a very attractive town. It was built before the turn of the century, mostly with logging money, and has an impressive collection of massive "brownstone" (a local sandstone) buildings, mostly restored. It is a tourist town, but reasonably tasteful and less offensively "touristy" than most such places.
9/2 Browsing the brochure rack at the Chemogequan National Forest Ranger Station in Washburn yielded a very detailed and interesting brochure for a self-guided tour of the Mooqah Pine Barrens. This afternoon, we did the 50-mile drive. This unique biosystem is the result of well-drained dry infertile soil - ancient sand dunes dating back a million years or so when this was the shoreline of an ocean. Any topsoil that had developed since then was scraped off by the most recent glaciers.
Jack and red pine grow sparsely. Ferns, huckleberries, and prairie grasses flourish. The land is broken up by small erratically-shaped hills and depressions - all due to the random mixture of sand and huge ice blocks left behind as the glaciers melted. The Forest Service is working to return this area to something approximating its state before modern loggers and farmers arrived - setting controlled fires frequently and cutting down jack pine plantations planted by the CCC in the 1930's.
The farmers didn't stay long. They migrated here from the east, bought the freshly logged, stump-studded land cheaply, and quickly discovered that crop yields from the infertile sand and the short growing season were very low. Most of the farmers moved on, letting the land go back to the local governments for taxes. During the depression years, the Federal government bought up the land and created the National Forests. This was historically, and has again become, prime habitat for the sharp-tailed grouse and supports a large population. At two different points, we saw a grouse walking along the road.
The surrounding forests, on slightly more fertile land, are being managed by the NFS for wildlife and tree harvests (yielding both lumber and wood pulp for paper). Clearcuts and/or prescribed burns are creating dense stands of fast-growing aspen, which initially become habitat for deer and smaller animals, and eventually become fodder for the paper mills or chipboard factories. White pine, which needs shelter when young, grows up through the aspen, eventually displacing it and becoming valuable lumber. Although the barrens are unusual, the surrounding forest is typical of tens of thousands of square miles of similar forest growing across Michigan, Wisconsin and northwestern Minnesota, quite a bit of it studded with small lakes. Nearly all of it is public lands managed for tree harvests and recreational hunting and fishing. A few small areas have been designated as wilderness, and will, over the next two centuries, be allowed to return to approximately the same conditions that existed before the arrival of Europeans.
9/3 The Labor Day weekend is starting, and we've been worrying about what to do and where to go - campgrounds are expected to be jammed full for this traditional last fling of the season. We considered just staying where we are through the long weekend - it would be hard to find a nicer place. We also considered making a run for Helen's brother's driveway, on 8-Point lake, near Clare Michigan - still 1200 miles away, but we could make it in a two-day forced march, with one night parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
We finally decided to take our chances, trust to serendipity, and just continue wandering along the Lake. Today, at least, the gamble paid off. After a lovely drive along nearly deserted state highways, through forests dotted with pristine lakes, occasionally along the Lake Superior shore, we saw a roadside sign advertising camping in the Ontonagon Township Park. We followed a series of small signs which led us through Ontonagon, Michigan and then a couple of miles east along a little country road to the park, which stretches along hundreds of yards of clean sandy Lake Superior beach. We arrived at 4:00 p.m., after losing an hour. We're back in the Eastern time zone for the first time in almost two years. It's interesting to note that the time change was not at the Michigan/Wisconsin border as we expected, but was well into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).
The campground attendant, after being apologetic about not having a beach campsite available, offered us our choice of two large campsites back in the woods - perhaps 100 yards from the beach. He explained that Ontonagon has a big festival this weekend, and that it is the busiest weekend of the year for this area.
So, apparently, finding campsites on Labor Day weekend isn't going to be a problem. We're settled into a beautiful site in a birch/hemlock forest. The park is almost entirely sand - gentle sand dunes only a few feet high, so we can see over them and have a view of the lake through the trees. We're paying $8.00/night, with water and 30-amp electricity. A honey wagon (a mobile service which comes to our trailer to drain our sewage tanks.) is available as needed and costs $4 per use - not a big expense since it's only needed once or twice a week.
We're in a heat wave again - in September at the northern border of the country. Inland, our thermometer was indicating 90 degrees most of the day. Even here on the shore of icy Lake Superior, it is 80 degrees, and feels much warmer because of the very high humidity. A dip in the lake would cool us off - but we passed on that thrill, having experienced these cold waters years ago. The lower levels of this lake remain at 39 degrees year-round. Frequent storms stir up the lake and bring cold water to the surface. During calm periods, the shallow areas do warm up somewhat, and we saw children playing in the water - but they didn't stay in for very long at a time.
9/4 Today dawned hot and humid again. Normally, we'd hitch up the horses and head up (either up in altitude or up (north) on the map to escape the heat. But 380-mile-long Lake Superior is north of us, blocking easy escape. We did go up in altitude as much as possible - to Porcupine Mountains State Park. "Mountain" is of course a flexible word, defined in relation to regional topography. The highest point here is about 2000 feet above sea level, 1400 feet above Lake Superior - perhaps the highest point in Michigan. It is scenic, but didn't help relieve the heat.
The state park contains one of the few remaining large tracts of virgin maple/hemlock forest, as well as very interesting geology. The "mountains" rise steeply out of Lake Superior, pushed up by an ancient slip fault. Most of the area is nonesuch shale, a hard, finely-layered sedimentary rock over a billion years old.
We drove up to Lake of the Clouds Overlook - climbing steeply from Lake Superior. The overlook is 800 feet above the lake and about 1.5 miles inland. Lake of the Clouds is 400 feet below our overlook in a steep-sided valley which extends for many miles, parallel to the Lake Superior shore. All the area inland (south) from our viewpoint for about 10 miles, and for about 20 miles further to the west is virgin forest. Several major hiking trails pass through this forest, making it a mecca for backpackers.
We also drove the South Boundary Road all the way across the park to Presque Isle Park, at the mouth of Presque Isle River. (After seeing places named Presque Isle all over the Northeast, we finally discovered that "presque" is French for "almost", so it is a relatively common name for pieces of land that are "almost islands".)
Because of the uncomfortable heat index, we did only short hikes and enjoyed much of the park from the air-conditioned comfort of the truck. The hike along Presque Isle River is lovely. In the first mile upstream from the lake, the river rises 150 feet, cascading over three large waterfalls and several smaller ones. The rock is richly colored unusually hard shale. Below each waterfall, we found many fascinating "swirl holes", ranging from a few inches to several feet in diameter and about the same depth.
These are almost perfectly circular cylindrical sharp-edged holes extending down into the rock. They apparently are formed when some upstream rock structure causes the water to form a small whirlpool, and a small hard rock gets caught in the whirlpool, spinning around, grinding against the softer shale. Gradually, a depression forms, further defining and strengthening the whirlpool, so that it catches more little rocks, speeding up the grinding action. The hole continues to be ground deeper until the fast current no longer reaches to the bottom. This process only happens at certain water levels and flow rates, so that many of these holes were currently high and dry, where we could examine the polished, geometrically precise, walls.
The trail to and along the river is entirely in old-growth forest. The largest trees are yellow birch, sugar maple, and hemlock, many of them over 400 years old. Along the river, occasional white or red pines towered even higher. The dense shade cast by these trees prevents almost anything from growing underneath, with the exception of maple seedlings and ferns. As a result, the climax forest will be almost pure maple, and the presence of other species indicates that the forest was disturbed by fire or tornadoes sometime in the past century or so.
The drive back to the campground at dusk was beautiful, but a bit tense. The forest comes nearly to the edge of the pavement with almost no shoulder, and is edged by dense foliage. The white-tailed deer in the east all seem to have a death wish, and become very active at sunset. They hide in the foliage close to the road, wait until just before a car passes, then dash out in front of the car - sort of a cervidean version of Russian roulette, performed either individually or in small groups. This happened several time as we drove back, keeping our speed down and my foot hovering near the brake.
The elk and mule deer further west do not often play this game. We've see these larger animals walk to the roadside, stop, look both ways, wait for traffic to clear, then walk calmly and slowly across the highway. Is it more intelligence, or just a different temperament? The day included about 100 miles of driving - most of it within the state park
9/5 We awoke to rain and a solid, low, overcast, then rolled over and went back to sleep. Rain is a remarkably effective soporific. At mid-morning, it was still raining sporadically. When asked about the weather forecast, the campground attendant shrugged and said "It's that time of year - it'll probably be like this for several days". We decided to move on, packed up, and headed off into the rain rather late - somewhat past noon.
There's no road along much of the Lake Superior coastline going East from Ontonagon. The rugged Keweenaw Peninsula basically has a single highway up the center, with occasional small, often dead-end, roads leading to either shore. So we headed somewhat inland on SR 38, then picked up SR 26 northeast to Houghton, the home of Michigan Technological University, which began life as Michigan College of Mining.
Across the river in the adjacent city of Hancock is Suomi College - founded in 1886 by Finnish immigrants who came here to work in the mines and lumber camps. Finland had a strong tradition of universal education (in the "old country", a young couple were not allowed to marry unless both could read and write), and started the college with the help of the Lutheran Church, to insure their children would have access to education. Today, Suomi is a general liberal arts college, no longer restricted to Finns.
Parking a 55-foot truck trailer rig on a university campus while school is in session was a major challenge (which in retrospect, we should have expected.) A helpful receptionist finally directed us half a mile up a steep hill to the far edge of campus, where we found a large empty parking lot behind the hockey stadium. (Hockey is by far the major sport in this almost arctic climate).
The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum, on the Michigan Tech campus, is just what it sounds like. The emphasis is on housing the valuable collections of minerals gathered over the past century by various professors at the college as well as by staff geologists from nearby mining companies. If you enjoy looking at rocks, there are more varieties here than you are ever likely to see again, including some huge and rare specimens - like one-ton formations of pure copper and massive natural gold deposits. (And there is also the inch-long single crystal of sucrose, found in the bottom of a maple syrup jug). The museum has a small section of tutorial presentations on geology, but this really isn't the place for a beginner to learn the fundamentals. We simply wandered through the huge collection, marveling over the infinite beauty and diversity of the mineral world.
The Keweenaw Waterway comes through Houghton, separating it from the city of Hancock. This waterway, consisting of two large lakes, interconnecting rivers, and a short length of man-made canal, cuts across the middle of the peninsula and was developed in the late 1800's to allow commercial shipping to avoid the hazardous trip out around the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, and also to shorten their trip by 100 miles. Today, it is too small to be used by the giant ore carriers and ocean-going freighters, and is primarily used by recreational watercraft.
After discovering that the campground we had chosen in Houghton was full, we consulted the directories and decided that since it was still raining, we would continue driving - and that considering it was Labor Day weekend, we'd call ahead. The first RV Park we called, at Copper Harbor, had space available - so that's where we headed. We pulled into Lake Fanny Hooe Resort and Campground about 4:30 p.m. and were offered our choice of several large attractive sites. It was still drizzling intermittently as we set up camp. A cold front passed over us just at sunset, with clear, dry air behind it. Tomorrow promises to be a great day for sightseeing. We celebrated by going out to dinner - steaks at Mariner North - an adequate but somewhat disappointing meal which didn't live up to their advertising.
We're at the end of the road, or perhaps it's the beginning. US 41 begins here at the tip of the peninsula, the northernmost point in Michigan, and ends, about 1500 miles away, in Miami, Florida.
9/6 Today's agenda was a long drive west along the north coast or the Keweenaw Peninsula, stopping frequently to take photographs of the scenic vistas and to explore beaches and waterfalls.
9/7 Another loop drive - this time starting by heading southwest down the center of the peninsula to Laurium, where Helen toured Laurium Manor - a large and ornately decorated mansion built in 1908 during the mining boom. Money was spent exuberantly on the interior decorations. Can you imagine dining room walls covered with embossed and gilded elephant-hide leather? Or the 7-foot gold-plated bathtub surrounded by hot-water-heated towel bars?
From Laurium, we, worked our way east to the coast, and poked back to Copper Harbor along local roads, staying as close to the water as possible. This side of the peninsula is flatter and less interesting, and relatively undeveloped. At one point, we drove out to the beach across a vast expanse of "stamp sand" - the waste product from a now-defunct stamping mill which concentrated low-grade iron ore. Apparently, it's not as toxic as the mother mine tailings we've encountered. The area had no posted warnings, and the material was simply dumped into the lake along the shore.
The last 10 miles or so at the eastern tip of the peninsula seems to have no roads at all, other than logging trails. We tried to take a shortcut to Copper Harbor on one of these logging roads, but quickly gave up - without 4-wheel drive (perhaps even with 4-wheel drive), it is impassible, particularly after the heavy rains of the past few days.
Moose, extinct in this area for much of the century, have made a spectacular comeback. A total of about 50 moose were airlifted across the lake from Ontario in 1985 and 1987. A decade later, they had increased to 500 and spread through most of the Upper Peninsula.
Out to dinner again. The Harbor Haus restaurant is a real gem - an imaginative menu, very well prepared food, good wine list, and every table has a beautiful view out across the Harbor into Lake Superior. We sat down just at sunset, a perfect time to enjoy the view. After dark, the clouds thickened, and a thunderstorm drifted across the lake in front of us. Dave had venison tenderloin, with oyster mushrooms in a wonderful rich dark sauce, topped with a tangy lingonberry sauce. Helen had a filet mignon, basted with a rich-flavored sauce and topped with mushrooms. Desert had to be ordered at the same time as the dinner so it could be custom prepared. We had a wonderful raspberry cobbler for two, which was served in the dish it was baked in, still hot from the oven.
We've learned a new word: "UPers", pronounced Yoopers. This is how residents of the Upper Peninsula speak of themselves, to differentiate themselves from the rest of Michigan "down below" in the Lower Peninsula. Many UPie jokes are told by the local people about themselves - generally slightly derogatory, like Pollack and Newfie jokes. The Upper Peninsula population has never really felt like it is part of Michigan.
9/9 We got up early to catch the 2 1/2 hour boat tour of Pictured Rocks National Seashore - an interesting 40-mile stretch of undeveloped seashore, much of which has high sandstone and shale cliffs which have been carved by the waves. Some areas are colored by impurities seeping down through the rocks - ranging from blue and green (copper) to red and brown (iron). In the afternoon, we drove back to Marquette to the Maritime Museum. Small but nice. A large section of the museum was devoted to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. But this familiar story reflects only the latest of hundreds of large ships which have gone down in storms in the Great Lakes over the past century. An entire wall was covered with brief accounts of each wreck - a photo or drawing and description of the ship and a description of the conditions under which it foundered. A very old and perfectly preserved native-built birch-bark canoe was on display. The craftsmanship required to build such a very light and durable boat without any modern materials and tools is remarkable.
The shipping passing along this coastline is a greater annual tonnage than the combined totals of the Suez, Panama, and Kiel canals.
After the museum, we wandered along the shoreline in Marquette, and happened to notice a large ore carrier moving toward shore. We drove along the shore toward where it was pointed, and discovered a large taconite loading dock, finding a spot where we could park and watch from only about 100 feet from the bow of the boat. This gigantic boat coasted to a stop a couple of feet from the dock, with no help from tugs and no other assistance. Several seamen then lowered themselves onto the dock with ropes, and tied up. By the time we left, an hour or so later, the boat had sunk many feet down in the water as ton after ton of the taconite pellets roared down the loading chutes. We didn't stay until loading was completed, but it looked as though the boat would be underway within a few hours. As we left, another ore carrier was docking on the other side of the loading dock.
9/10 We started out from Munising under a heavy overcast with sporadic rain, expecting to drive along the north shore of Michigan, through Grand Marais and on to Paradise. We were quickly disillusioned. The road deteriorated into patched, rough, blacktop, and then to washboard gravel. The trailer was taking a beating. Noting a state highway ahead, we persisted and eventually picked up a paved road again. Beyond Grand Marais, the road again deteriorated into gravel, then began to soften into native sandy soil - gradually becoming more sand and less gravel. It began to look like a very long, slow, day, dodging potholes as we crept slowly through endless miles of maple/birch/aspen second growth forest.
We decided to abort the plan and retreat, found a place to turn around (not easy with a 55 foot rig on a narrow shoulderless road), and headed back to Grand Marais, where we picked up SR 77 and headed south to Lake Michigan. After noticing towns named Grand Marais along the shore in both Michigan and Minnesota, we looked up the French. It means "big swamp" - not surprising there is more than one.
We followed US 2 along the Lake Michigan shore all the way to St. Ignace - a beautiful drive, often right along the water. The entire distance was relatively undeveloped - a few tiny villages, a few scattered homes, and a great deal of forest. We stopped for the night just short of St. Ignace, when we found Lakeshore Campground - on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan -pleasantly large sites, and modem-friendly. We have a great view of the Mackinac Bridge a few miles to the east, and of the continuous procession of shipping through the busy Straits of Mackinac. At night, the ships are brightly lighted, giving an interesting parade-like effect just a few miles off shore.
Lake Michigan has a lower water level than normal - with wide beaches and exposed rocks. Michigan has had a dry summer and the small interior lakes are also low. This seems really strange after finding Minnesota almost floating away, with the Boundary Waters lakes well above their normal levels. What a difference a few hundred miles can make!
9/11 Our travel distance today will be fairly short, so we spent a lazy morning in the campground, not getting on the road until just before noon. After hooking up, we stopped in St. Ignace for groceries and then for fuel, and then headed across the bridge.
The Mackinac Bridge was an engineering marvel when it was built (about 40 years ago?) and is still one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. It's also a bargain - we paid $3.50 to cross over the 3.5 miles of water with our big double axle trailer. There are two lanes each direction, and traffic was light, so we dawdled along enjoying the spectacular view. The bridge poses no problems for big rigs although during periods of high wind, speed limits as low as 20 mph may be imposed.
The drive down Interstate 75 through the center of Michigan is through almost uninterrupted forest. After passing a few dairy farms not far from Mackinaw City, we saw nothing but trees - typical second-growth hardwood forests, with paper birch, occasional scattered white pines and a few red pine or jack pine plantations.
At Higgins Lake, we detoured to the CCC Museum, located on the site of Michigan's first state tree nursery. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a huge, fascinating (and as far as we can tell, nearly 100% successful) depression-era social experiment, and we rarely pass up an opportunity to learn more about it. The people at this particular camp spent much of their time planting pine trees, rebuilding Michigan's forests which had been almost 100% logged off a couple of decades earlier. The site also contains an interesting self-guided tour showing the operation of the tree nursery, which operated until about 1960, shipping millions of two-year-old pine seedlings each year.
This segment of our trip ended at Eight Point Lake, about 15 miles west of Clare, Michigan. Helen's brother and sister-in-law, Merrill and Merne Hutchins, have a summer home on the lake, and we're parked in their driveway for a few days. It's a quiet, pleasant time to be here - docks have been dismantled and brought ashore, most of the boats have been stored away, and many of the cottages are already closed for the winter.
For the next several weeks, we'll be visiting relatives in Michigan and Ohio and attending a family wedding in Cincinnati, and then we'll go to Rochester NY to visit friends.