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Michigan

What the heck is a Yooper?

By Time2Geaux Unplugged

July 10^th, 2019

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society. - Henry David Thoreau

After returning from Italy, we stayed in Milford for an extra week to recover from jetlag, work on some projects, some sightseeing and wait on a few packages we had shipped to my brother’s house. We all pulled out together, Doug and Monica heading for South Dakota with the horses and us heading to the Upper Peninsula.

After a quick stop in Midland, we headed to Traverse City where we explored Michigan wine country and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore. We then headed north across the ‘Mighty Mac’ and landed in Grand Marais on the banks of Lake Superior. Our site at Woodland Park overlooked the lake from a hundred-foot bank. Nice view but a beast to back our camper into! We visited Picture Rocks National Lakeshore before we then headed to the geological wonderland of the Keweenaw Peninsula. We visited harbors, and mines along the way until we had a problem with our hydraulic system and had to go into repair mode.

Henry Ford Museum

What a place to study the history of American technology and invention! We spent two days here exploring both the museum and Greenfield Village which is a collection of historic buildings that Henry Ford purchased and moved to Dearborn. I think not only did he like the history but wanted to preserve it. All things technology are collected here from the largest steam train every manufactured to Dymaxion House designed by Buckminister Fuller using surplus aircraft knowhow. Among the collection are icons of America's past. This is a museum that rivals the Smithsonian!

Presidential Locomotive used by Wilson

John F. Kennedy's Presidential Limo (modified for Johnson)

VW Camper Can (my father had one)

When Americans vacationed by Automobile

Dymaxion House

Ford Tri-motor in background

The Oscar Mayer car from the 1960's

The WingWalker from the Henry Ford Museum

Greenfield Village

Greenfield Village is a collection of historic buildings that Henry Ford purchased and moved to Dearborn. This is the capstone of Mr. Fords dedication to preserving American History. Things like Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory and the bike shop and the home of the Wright Brothers. There is a fleet of T-model Fords that you can take a tour of the village in. Period actors and volunteers are available to help visitors better understand the exhibits. What an American treasure!

Steam locomotive taking on water

Wright Brothers bicycle shop with wing frame in background

Thomas Edison's machine shop from Menlo Park, NJ

Wright Brothers bicycle shop

Jeff & JoAnn ready to take a tour in a 1927 Model T

Glass blowing shop in Greenfield Village

Sleeping Bear Dunes and Traverse City

What a climb! We took a day trip from Traverse City over to Sleeping Bear Dunes, and climbed the dunes. It was a big hike! So amazing to see this much sand in the middle of the country, albeit on the largest freshwater lake in the world (by surface area, the lake in Siberia contains more fresh water).

Sleeping Bear Dunes took their name for an Anishinaabe legend about a mother bear and two cubs who swam across the lake from Wisconsin. The cubs got tired and exhausted, one by one they sank and drown. The mother bear heartbroken waded ashore and climbed the bluff, laid down and looked across the lake where her cubs had died, filled with sadness. As she lay there, she saw two small islands surface which were her cubs in their new life. Legend says that she is still watching over her cubs from the dunes.

We also visited the US Life-Saving Service (which became the Coast Guard), station. The museum was staffed by a retired ‘Coastie’ who showed us around. The motto of the Life-Saving Service was “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back”… bet that was a great recruiting tool!

JoAnn, you're almost there!

Michigan

Farm from Sleeping Bear Dunes

Trail to the lake

JoAnn, it's just over this next hill!

Lake Superior Grand Circle

After crossing the Mighty Mac, the Mackinaw Bridge which is the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere we were in the Upper Peninsula with the Yoopers. After crossing we headed north to Lake Superior and landed in the quaint town of Grand Marais. After backing into our spot that overlooked the lake which was heart stopping, with its 75-foot drop to the shore of the lake we settled into a few days of relaxing and exploring the area.

Miners Water Fall, Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Fiddle top ferns

Model A's on tour

Bald Eagle

Wood Pecker

Sail Boat near Munising, MN

Sunset at Grand Marais, MN

Mighty Mac

Picture Rock National Lakeshore

We took a boat tour of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, giving us a water view of this unique shoreline. This was the nation’s first National Lakeshore, set aside in 1966 to protect its natural beauty. We saw 200-foot cliffs of sandstone that are streaked with colors from the different minerals that are leaching out of the water. We also got to see some nice sea caves that form from erosion of the waves from Lake Superior.

Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Church on Grand Island near Munisin, MN

Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Kayakers at Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Sea Cave at Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Picture Rocks National Lakeshore from Miners Castle

Picture Rocks National Lakeshore

Keweenaw Peninsula

We left our eagle nest camping spot and headed to the Keweenaw Peninsula, which is a geological wonderland. Over a billion years ago in the Precambrian era, during the formation of the Midcontinent Rift fueled by an enormous hotspot with lava flowing out of fissures onto the central part of North America from Lake Superior to as far south as Oklahoma and Alabama. The magma formed dikes in what is now Lake Superior, extending to Kansas and Detroit. This gigantic lava flow took thousands of years to cool into basalt giving minerals time to migrate together. The continental glaciers scraped away much of the sedimentary rock, exposing ancient rifts of minerals like copper which were then scraped into slabs, the largest recovered weighing 20 tons!

Our first stop was at Copper Harbor where we discovered a town with zero cellular coverage! The whole town survives with WiFi for calling. It was a quaint town with little more than a few restaurants, outfitters and of course a rock shop.

The peninsula was rich in Earth Caches, a type of geocaching that focuses on geology. If you haven’t tried it and like geology then it is well worth taking a look… it will lead you to interesting places you may otherwise miss.

After a few days of no cellular connectivity, we headed back down the peninsula to a park just outside Houghton. We were stuck due to some malfunction with our hydraulic system on our camper. Owning a camper is not without problems and challenges. In this case, when we retracted our room slides or retracted the leveling jacks, our hydraulic pump would cavitate. We had a local RV tech come out and troubleshoot the system. They had never seen a problem like this either and made some adjustments that really didn’t help. With some work we were able to get the camper ready to travel and had the company ship us the parts to our next stop.

Light House at Eagle Harbor, MN

Mary Macdonald Preserver at Horseshoe Harbor

NPS boat service to Isle Royale National Park (from Houghton River)

Eagle Harbor

Eagle Harbor

Sunset from Copper Harbor, MN

Quincy Mine

With the camper parked just a few miles away and having time to spare waiting on the camper hydraulic problem, we took the opportunity to tour the historical mine. The mine opened in 1846 and mined the rich copper ore in the amygdaloid veins. While pure copper was found in this same vein, the ore was easier to mine and process. The mines shaft #2 shaft was 9260 feet long at a 54 degree angle, following the copper ore vein. The largest steam-driven mining hoist every built was purchased to work this mine’s more than 100 levels. The mine closed after WWII and the price of copper dropped. The lower cost copper strip mines of the west made copper mining in the Keweenaw to expensive.

Our tour was led by a Michigan Tech mining student whose family had been in the mining business for generations. We boarded a cog tram and raced down the 34-degree incline at 5 MPH! We then boarded a mine buggy and headed into the mine which is a confrontable 55 degrees year around, glad they tour loans heavy jackets along with the hardhats! She showed us the classroom that students used on level 7 of the mine before the mine was closed. We traveled deep into the mine and saw different mining techniques from hand drills to modern steam drills. Seeing how the miners had to work by single candle to a three-man crew, you imagine how hard life was back then. The university still used the mine for teaching purposes but no production has been done since the 1970.

Link: www.quincymine.com

Mine lift carts (left is for dewatering, right is for men)

control platform for steam hoist

tour of steam hoist

mine tour with native copper nugget (~800 lbs)

Michigan

Mine shaft

mine shaft from buggy

hand mine area in shaft 7 looking up at shaft 6

cog rail ride to shaft 7 (Houghton lift bridge in background)

What we Learned:

Even a new camper can and probably will break. Troubleshooting unusual problems can be challenging, even for experts. If you go with the flow, you can make the best of any situation and find some gems among the rubble. With us having to slow down while trying to work the problem, we had time to discover some cool things we would have missed.

Next Stop:

We plan to find a landing place in Wisconsin where we can have parts for our hydraulic system sent to and get our rig repaired. We hope to find some interesting things while in a holding pattern. After the rig is functioning correctly, we plan to head on into Minnesota where the top shelf sites are the Headwaters of the Mississippi River and Voyagers National Park in the Boundary Waters.

Michigan

© 2026 Time2Geaux Unplugged

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