How it Changed Michigan Forever

Drilling Blasting Hoisting & Transporting

Stamping Smelting Casting & Shipping

copper ingots like these and the industry grew, and prospered

A newspaper article of September 12, 1971, depicts the death toll for the end of the great copper mining era of Michigan that lasted for more than a century. “Houghton – Salvagers have started to remove the rails of the Calumet Hecla Mining Company’s industrial railway, which once carried millions of tons of copper ore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.” from Michigan Ghost Towns of the Upper Peninsula Roy Dodge (1973) p.124

Even after most of the miners left Copper Country, many of their ancestors remain. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan still has one of the greatest concentrations of people of Finnish descent. Hancock, Michigan hosted the international Finn Fest in 2013.

The Keweenaw Waterway is a partly natural, partly artificial waterway which cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula; it separates Copper Island from the mainland. Parts of the waterway are variously known as the Keweenaw Waterway, Portage Canal, Portage Lake Canal, Portage River, Lily Pond, Torch Lake, and Portage Lake. The waterway connects to Lake Superior to Portage Lake. erway#mediaviewer/File:Portage_Lake_on_t he_Keweenaw_Waterway,_Michigan.jpg

Stamp sand is a coarse sand left over from the processing of ore in a stamp mill. In the United States, the most well-known deposits of stamp sand are in the Copper Country of northern Michigan, where it is black or dark grey, and may contain hazardous concentrations of trace metals. (Wikipedia) There is some controversy in the region about what should be done with the Stamp Sands.