We skipped the expected anchorage after we left Marquette and went straight into Houghton as it was only 2 hours away and the weather was nice for travel. We got into the Houghton (Hoh-ten) Downtown free dock with electrical hookups on July 1 and were met at the dock by Joe, one of my training Captains. I was all aglow as he saw me parallel park this beast successfully just as he had taught me. He was kind of a proud papa too.

Houghton is the largest city on the Keweenaw Peninsula Copper Country on the U.P. In 1861 Houghton was incorporated as a village and in the first days it was said that “only thieves, crooks, murderers and Indians” lived there. The postwar boom and increased demand for copper wiring fueled the development of Houghton in the 1860’s and 1870’s. By 1880 Houghton became a major city and in 1883 the railroad was extended from Marquette. The last mine was shut down in 1968.

There is claim that Houghton is the birthplace of professional ice hockey in the U.S.

Copper mining was done by the native Americans thousands of years before Europeans settled in the area. The area was, and still is, populated by Cornish and Finish people who came to mine copper in the early 1800’s. Every city and town on the Keweenaw has origins in copper mining as it formed the backbone of the economy. The majority of mining is native copper and is 99.99% pure copper, which means that the byproduct were essentially benign, but there are still long lasting environmental impacts. The byproducts are essentially waste rock piles from mines, tailings from stamp mills, called “poor sand”, and slag piles from the smelters. The nice thing about the rock pile tailings is that it is crushed and used for roads, driveways, and landscaping. The downside is all the sand from the stamp mills was dumped into the lakes, rivers and streams which does not allow for anything to grow, thereby leaving huge areas of nothing living for miles. There has been a huge cleanup over the last 10 or so years which has resulted in large sums of clean up money to allow for dumping tons and tons of dirt on the sand and try to rebuild a base for thing to grow. There is some benefit seen from these efforts as there are trees, grasses and even fishes and wildlife returning to the waterways.

We spent 3 days with Joe traveling by truck, 4 wheel ATV and quad bike through the various locations and outback of the way U.P. We went places very few have traveled (unless by 4 wheel ATV, bike or even snowmobile).

I walked along this poor sand beach and did find a few little pebbles of copper and found much bigger rocks containing copper later on in that day. I have them and I will cash them in soon as my big retirement payout…

Joe even took us to an 1800’s mining cemetery way up in the trees at the top of an old abandoned mine site. The Cliff Mine was the oldest and first mine in the U.P. Even though there was a sign off the dirt trail there was a lot of bush tramping and “I think it’s this way” to find the site.

There is a little town of Gay on the Peninsula where we found this.

Yup, it’s really a place.

Along the journey we also stopped and rescued a turtle who was sunning himself in the middle of the road. Not the best place for him to be so we picked him up and carried him to the side and sent him on his way.

Below is why we stayed in Houghton for 3 days.

We left Houghton on July 4th, a day earlier than planned but once again weather issues.

From there we have traveled 6 more days throughout the Apostle Islands National Seashore in Wisconsin with 3 nights in bays on anchor and now 3 in the Madeline Island Yacht Club.

We are heading out tomorrow later in the morning as Windy, Michael’s girlfriend, claims there will be winds earlier in the morning but we will see as she often has no idea what she is talking about. He’s even getting a little less enchanted by her…been telling him that for over a year. 😉 In fact, she even gives different information to me than to him when we look at the app at the same time and on the same account! I never did like that girl 😮

We will be in Duluth on Friday and my sister, Leslie and husband, Vince will be joining us on Saturday for a week adventure around the western part of Lake Superior…weather permitting.

Check back in a couple of weeks for an update. Love to all, Gina and Mike