Keweenaw County

By Jennifer Billock and Jo Urion

Although the largest Michigan county with land and water combined, Keweenaw County is also the most sparsely populated at least during the vicious winters. The population blooms in the summertime when seasonal residents come in droves to enjoy their little slice of heaven. The county was formed in 1861 as an offshoot of Houghton County and now encompasses the top half of the Keweenaw Peninsula, where Michigan s Upper Peninsula juts north into Lake Superior. Throughout the 1800s, the area was at the center of the copper mining boom, spurring construction of Fort Wilkins in Copper Harbor. The military outpost served to keep order among miners and the area s native inhabitants, the Ojibwa. Moving through time, Keweenaw County would also serve as a hub for the maritime, fishing, and lumbering industries before becoming the resort community it is today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: May 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781439645130

Jennifer Billock

Jennifer Billock is an award-winning writer, bestselling author, editor and owner of the boutique editorial firm Jennifer Billock Creative Services. She has worked with businesses and publishers, including the Smithsonian, the New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Disney Books, The Atlantic, Kraft Foods, Midwest Living, Arcadia Publishing and the MSU Press. She is currently dreaming of an around-the-world trip with her Boston terrier. Check out her website at www.jenniferbillock.com and follow her on Twitter @jenniferbillock.

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INTRODUCTION

On a cold morning in early March 1861, Keweenaw County found its independence from the county that once enveloped it, Houghton County. Settlers gained an unparalleled piece of land, although the county is more water than earth. Only nine percent of Keweenaw County is land; the rest lies underneath the sparkling waters of Lake Superior.

Keweenaw County sits at the most northern tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, on what is widely known in the area as the Copper Island, or, as the Finnish settlers called it, Kuparisaari. The island was set off from the main portion of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when the Portage Lake and Lake Superior Canal Company dredged and constructed the Portage Canal in the 1860s. The waterway was an extension of an existing river that residents used for fishing, shipping, and transportation. In fact, Keweenaw is an Ojibwa word meaning the crossing place.

The Ojibwa were among the first native inhabitants of the county’s land. About 7,000 years before any settlers arrived, the native people were already mining and digging copper up from Lake Superior’s shores. They used the mineral sparingly. When Europeans finally came to the county’s rocky shores, giant pieces of mass copper could be seen sticking up from the ground and shining under water along the lakefront. The copper industry would gain steam shortly afterwards, with thousands of people arriving to work in modern mines, at locations guided by the American Indians’ original mine pits. At the height of the copper boom, Keweenaw County’s population peaked at 7,156 in 1910. Throughout the Copper Country, more than 14 billion pounds of copper were mined.

Mines on Isle Royale were a major player in the copper boom, even though the island attempted to defect from Keweenaw County in 1875, when it positioned itself as a new county, Isle Royale County. The designation did not last long, and in 1897, Isle Royale County dissolved and became part of Keweenaw County once again. Isle Royale was, and still is, the largest natural island in all of Lake Superior. The island sits only 15 miles from the Canadian shoreline. The land was originally given to the United States in a 1783 treaty with Great Britain, although the British continued to control it until after 1812. Legend has it that Benjamin Franklin bartered the island into the United States’ control because he wanted to make use of Isle Royale’s rich copper deposits in his electrical experiments. Yet another theory says that inaccurate maps were used during the treaty, causing the island to appear in the center of Lake Superior, instead of closer to Canada. Throughout this time, the Ojibwa people considered the island their property, which they ceded to the United States in the 1842 Treaty of La Pointe. However, according to recent Isle Royale explorer Bryan French, the United States did not actually take control over Isle Royale until 1854, when the Isle Royale Extension to the Treaty of La Pointe was enacted. French asserts that the United States paid $400,000 for the island over 25 years, along with giving the Ojibwa hunting and fishing rights. The Ojibwa referred to the island as Minong, which means the good place, the beautiful place, or the place of abundance, depending on which tribe member translated it.

Although immigrants from about 20 countries came to Keweenaw County in the early days, the Finnish people maintain the most enduring culture and largest population in the area. Saunas, cottages, and farms dot the landscape, and the ethnic group is celebrated every year with the arrival of Heikinpäivä, the midwinter Finnish American festival. Area Finns even created their own snow god, named Heikki Lunta, to account for the massive amounts of snowfall the county receives during the winter.

Keweenaw County is not a place one comes to on accident. As the northernmost tip of the Upper Peninsula, only one road connects the Copper Island with the US mainland, which early residents claimed to be disconnected from. A population of only 2,215 makes Keweenaw the least populated county in Michigan, averaging out to about 4.3 people per square mile. Copper Harbor, which sits at the north end of US Route 41, is 251 miles away from an interstate highway, making it the farthest town from one in the continental United States. Even though a sense of isolation can prevail, the county’s roots stretch out across the states and into other countries, as so many early residents immigrated from overseas and so many current summer visitors stem from a family history in the mining industry. The old miners may have moved away after the fall of the copper boom, but their roots remain.

In the summers, the old mine towns blossom into a thriving resort community. Residents flock to the area to take their place at cottages and camps, spending days on the water or hiking to see the world’s oldest known lava formations and enjoying nights by the bonfire. Canoers and kayakers frequently pass through on their way around Copper Island, a designated loop route and one of the most celebrated trips among boaters. Rock piles from former mines turn the county into a rock hound’s paradise, with all manner of natural ore and minerals available to find. The rock piles and stamp sand dunes from former copper mills lend an otherworldly, ethereal quality to the summer landscape. The beauty does not end with the departure of warmer weather. Every autumn, vast amounts of trees shed their green for stunning shades of yellow, orange, red, and purple. Tourists come from the world over to see the famous fall colors. Snowfall in the