Amy Kline

The campground is very near the very end of Highway 41, which is at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, so we decided to get a photo of it. There was a dirt road that continued on for about a couple miles, and then a dirt trail that went on for another 1/2 mile. It ended up at a rocky beach with great rocks and fun stone skipping.

It was lunch time after our spontaneous hike so we went into Copper Falls for lunch. Though they were out of pulled pork, BBQ, brisquet, and breasted chicken “when you are at the end of the line, sometimes things don’t come in on time”, we had hamburgers and fries which were delicious. A stop at a souvenir shop and then on to Brockway Mountain Drive.

The drive is beautiful and when you get to the top, the view is breathtaking in all directions. as you come down, you arrive in Eagle Harbor and we discovered Hunter’s Point Park to hike in that followed an isthmus around to the wide open lake. A great hike!

We got our sightseeing fill for the day so headed back to the camp site to relax.

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Fort Wilkins

August 14, 2023August 15, 2023 Amy Kline

Today was a rare day in our road trip traditions. Jeff did not have to drive at all! Our campground was surrounded by a beautiful trail and Fort Wilkins, one of the most un-strategic forts that the American military ever built in this country.

We walked to the trail from our campsite and followed it around to the beach very near the end of the Keweenaw Peninsula. We zoomed in our cameras to take pictures of the Copper Harbor Lighthouse (you have to take a boat cruise to get up close to it). The beach was all rocks and pebbles so we all had fun trying out the Rock Identifier App to find out the kids of cool rocks we were finding. A lot of it was basalt, but we also found different kinds of jaspers, sandstone, rhyolite, and a few agates.

The trail led to Fort Wilkins, built in 1844 as way to keep law and order during the Copper Rush and as a result of the treaty where the Ojibwe lost their land to the United States. The Ojibwe survived by assimilating and moving inland to more remote areas rather than violence, and the fort was so remote, not many white settlers actually settled there. Meanwhile, all the soldiers left in 1846 to go fight in the war against Mexico and then the Civil War. It was used for a few years after the Civil War and then was abandoned by the military. In the 1920’s it became a Michigan State Park and a lot of reconstruction was done during the Great Depression by the Works Project Administration (WPA).

It was not crowded at all and had lots of informative signs to look at as you walked in and out of the buildings. After we were done with our wanderings, we went to the Campground store to get ice cream, then walked back to our campsite to relax. A nice relaxing day!

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Mineral Museum

August 14, 2023 Amy Kline

We only had about an hour to drive today so we visited the A. E. Mineral Musuem at Michigan Tech as our main activity for the day. It was very interesting! This whole area became what it is today due to the mining industry so there were a lot of examples of different minerals found around here. I was surprised to find so many displays from places around the globe too! A lot of rock and mineral collectors donated their collections to this museum over the years.

I obviously am fascinated by geology so I read every single placard (much to the boys’ frustration, LOL). Jeff can use some of the info in his curriculum so he was especially interested in the process of mining and the tools that they showed. The boys walked through the museum, appreciated the florescent rocks display, huge geode, and petrified wood, then sat and waited for us to finish-the curse of being teachers’ kids!

After the museum, we had a nice drive to Fort Wilkins State part on the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Once everything was leveled and set up, we enjoyed relaxing by the fire, reading, cross stitching, and playing on screens a bit. No cell signal at all, so refreshing!

After “camping Mac and Cheese” Carson and I walked down to the beach with out black light flashlights to look for sodalites, called Yooper Lights, which are rocks that are supposed to glow orange. We didn’t find anything but had a great time trying.