Keweenaw

Friday, September 25, 2015

We used the term Keweenaw Peninsula in yesterday’s post.  Realizing some may not be familiar with that name, or the origin of the name Keweenaw, we thought it would be good to start this post with that tid-bit. While we knew the name for this peninsula, we did not know the actual origin of the name.  There is no town here called Keweenaw, so where did the name come from?  The name was handed down by the Chippewa(Ojibwa) meaning “portage” and refers to the Portage Lake and canal that cuts across the peninsula.

We wanted to go back to Calumet, but first a little drive up the road to Eagle Harbor where a lighthouse and museum are located.  Eagle Harbor is important to shipping because it is, or was, a harbor and it has numerous nasty reefs and shoals along the coast here.  Coming from Duluth and Superior, ships come within a few miles of the Keweenaw on their course to the Soo.  Get too close, as many ship discovered and they will ground.  Getting in here is also tricky, requiring range lights to get lined up.

So in 1871 they built a lighthouse here.  It is still an active Coast Guard light with alternating red and white pattern.  The light uses a high intensity beacon style light.  In the old days it was a 4th order Fresnel, wick style lamp.  Here is a picture.

What was interesting was the story of the two shipwrecks they had here.  The first, in October 1910, the William C. Moreland.  Carrying 12,000 tons of iron ore from Duluth on only her 5th voyage, the Moreland lost visibility due to forest fires going on here. It went off course and grounded on what they call Sawtooth Shoal.  Several unsuccessful attempts were made to free her, but the bow was on one “tooth” and stern on another.  A big storm hit 2 days later.  The wave action cracked her hull.  A second storm opened another crack.  It was deemed a loss.  Now the interesting part. 

The following spring, a salvage operator from Sarnia, cut off the back 278 feet of stern.  The engine and running gear were undamaged and like new.  The salvage process is a story onto itself.  Anyway, the stern managed to find its way to Ecorse (South Detroit River) where it had a 300 foot bow section welded onto it.  Really!  It then sailed under 5 other names, finally ending up in Spain where it was scrapped in 1970; 60 years later. 

The original bow section still sits off the Eagle Harbor coast. A favorite dive objective around here.

The second was the City of Bangor.  She was carrying a load of Chryslers to Duluth in November 1926.  She hit one of the rock shoals, ripped open the hull and doused the boilers.  The 22 aboard got to shore, but almost froze in the cold and snow before being rescued.  The ship was encased in ice and also a total loss.  In February, when the lake froze over, they built a ramp and drove off all but 18 of those Chryslers.  The 18 were on deck and got knocked into the water in the collision.  They drove them across the ice to Copper Harbor, where in the spring, they were returned to Detroit by rail.  A few of them were snagged by locals here.  We’re not sure if they bought them.

A little Michigan Maritime Lore!

From here we returned to Calumet.  They have a really neat, old, turn of the century theater.  In fact, on Thursday night, they had the Molley Hatchett band. Definitely not our cup of tea.  Over the years they have had big name, live entertainment here.  When the population in 1910 was 100,000 plus, it was easy to see, but today?

        

The theatre is said to be acoustically perfect.

We next went in search of remnants of other mines.  We found this Hoist House for the Hecle Mine.  Pretty crusty.

 

This next picture shows how many mine shafts there were for the C&H Mine.

These things were lined up shoulder to shoulder.  I must have been a noisy, smelly environment.  A far cry from what we have today.

Wanna see a really big piece of copper?  How about 17 tons? Yes, that is all one piece of copper; no rock attached.  They found this one off the shore between Eagle River and Eagle Harbor.

 

It holds the Guinness record as the largest piece of native copper in the world.  At 17 tons that little nugget is worth about $100,000’

That pretty much wraps up today.