Wading in Copper Harbor

My son Drew and I canoed down to the bay in Fort Wilkins State Park where Fanny Hooe Creek outlets into Copper Harbor one night a couple weeks ago. Here's a shot of Drew looking for rocks and objects in the water on that very nice summer evening. The harbor water was still somewhat cool that evening, but now it has warmed up considerably, and we're swimming frequently in the harbor, as we do at this time of year every summer.

Eagle River Beach

My goodness, have things been hot everywhere in the Midwest, even way up here in Copper Harbor. We might have the coollest weather around these parts, but it's still been far above average. But it's not so unusual, really. We have a spell of heat every year. It just doesn't get quite as hot as anywhere else and the heat doesn't last quite as long. I think we have the best weather in North America right here in the Keweenaw most years. I follow these things, and I can't think of a better place for continual pleasant weather in the main summer period. Lots of people mistakenly think Lake Superior never warms up enough to be swimmable, but such is far from the case. In late July and throughout August, we swim all around the Peninsula, in Copper Harbor, even on the open Lake -- and even out at usually colder Isle Royale. Here's a shot of the boys, Logan and Drew, trying to stop up a creek entering the lake at Eagle River. The lake was a little cool this day, about 10 days ago, but still very swimmable. Superior has gotten even warmer since.

Brockway Without Sunset

The picture makes it look as though it was darn cold on Brockway this night in early July, a few days after the Fourth. On the left at the edge of the Bockway cliff is my wife Marsha, next to her is her niece Sarah, and on the right is her sister Patty. Patty and family are from Houston, TX. They visited us for a few days during their tour of the northern plains states. It has turned hot here in Copper Harbor after that stretch in early July, when things were cool, at times, and rainy and rather unpredictable. The shot was taken at the top of Brockway Mountain, which is about 5 miles up the ridge from town. We went up there on a very windy evening to see whether the sun might peek out and make one of those superb Brockway-Superior sunsets. It didn't happen. In the distance you see Lake Medora, along US-41 on the way to CH.

A Restful Evening

The family went to "town," as we say, meaning the city of Houghton (45 miles southwest of Copper Harbor), one day a week or so ago to shop for groceries and to run some other errands. During our roaming to various stores and other locations, my son Drew and I came across this fellow in the parking lot at the Shopko in Houghton. The man was taking a siesta on a piece of plywood in the bed of his pickup, waiting for someone to return from the Shopko aisles. He never woke up to face the nice evening.

Independence Day

Ah, the Fourth, in Copper Harbor. It's a good day. The long parade. The kids' games at the Community Park. The big fireworks show at 11:00 at night (which was especially nice this year). My first photo of the holiday festivities is of my son Logan jumping over a small firework in the backyard of my brother Don's place on the main drag in Copper Harbor. I must admit I was the adult who was encouraging the kids, the Kilpela grandchildren, to take leaps over the fireworks. Only Logan gave it a try. Perhaps it was a bit foolish of me to offer him the chance, though Log survived my indiscretion.

My second shot is of my brother John with the mannequin that would become the Isle Royale Queen of our parade float. My sister Lisa had the idea for the float and dressed her up in a nice dress and various baubles and beads and attached her, with a salute, on the front bumper of her pickup truck, which was serving as the float foundation. I might put a picture of the final product up some time soon.

Fishin' at Sawmill Cove

This shot is one one of Copper Harbor resident Jaime Engstrom and my son Andrew fishing on the Isle Royale Queen IV dock one recent glorious evening in Michigan's northernmost town. Jaime has lived during the summers in Copper Harbor for almost all his life, Drew for all his life, and Jaime has been working for the Kilpela family for 10 years on the boat and in other capacities, one of our longest serving employees, if not the longest. I'm not much of a fisherman, but Drew has shown some interest in learning how to fish. Jaime has been talking about taking him out some time soon on the Harbor or on Lake Fanny Hooe nearby. We've had some wonderful weather lately in the Harbor after a long spell of cool, even rainy days in the first two weeks of July. I dub this place "Sawmill Cove" because there was once a sawmill located on what is now now the Queen IV dock. This was back in the 10's and 20's of the twentieth century.

Garden Brook Pathway

The family, my family -- Ben Kilpela and wife and kids -- went for a walk in the woods just a half mile south and west of Copper Harbor on a recent evening. Included in the group were my daughter Miranda's dogs, Gus and Capone, and Harry, my brother John's dog (see a previous post for a close-up of Harry). This trail, maintained by the Michigan Nature association, runs along the bluff above the Garden Brook, a small stream, which often almost dries up in the summer, running parallel to the backside of Brockway Mountain down the Brockway valley to the flats just south of the village of Copper Harbor. It's a pretty walkway. To get the dogs a drink, we went off trail down the bluff to the Garden Brook itself to find a suitable pool of drinking water. The walk down the side of the bluff was steep and over loose gravel and through dense foliage. We found the edge of the brook well grown over, too. This shot is (l to r) of my son Logan, my wife Marsha, and my daughter Miranda Davis right on the edge of the Garden Brook in amongst the dense, Jurassic-Park-like foliage. Miranda and Logan tried wearing fern-fronds to keep the mosquitos off. I didn't think the bugs were bad at all.

This second shot is of Miranda working with Gus, her German short-haired pointer, on heeling. Gus just wants to move, but sometimes he can move too far too fast into the woods, at his usual breakneck pace, and get himself completely lost. He also will choke himself silly pulling on his leash. In the shot is Harry, my brother John's Jack Russell terrier. I think it's going to take Gus a long time to get the hang of this business.

Sundown at the Top of Michigan

I took a bike ride down M-26 along the lakeshore on a recent evening and took in the sunset along the Lake Superior coast. This shot was taken very near the northernmost point of the State of Michigan (discounting the island of Isle Royale). It's a place called Dan's Point, just a couple miles west of Copper Harbor. Boy, have we been having the sunsets this summer. I don't know what's going on, but almost every night, even the cloudiest, ends with a wonderful sunset. Of course, the Kilpela Family runs the Sunset Cruise out on the Big Lake most nights during the height of summer, so we get to enjoy one gorgeous sunset after another, which we share with our passengers.

Fog over Copper Harbor

I went out canoeing on Copper Harbor one evening about a week ago. It was pretty foggy in the late evening -- and had been all day long. This is a shot from the Isle Royale Queen IV dock across the little cove on the central waterfront in town. Three fishermen were out on the public dock doing some fishing there before dark settled in. It's not a bad place to try your luck. There are loons and ducks and geese and merganzers that visit the cove, so there must be a few fish that come in there.

The Keweenaw Forest

I went on a bike-and-hike journey east of Copper Harbor on a recent June evening. This shot was taken deep in the woods east of town up on a ridge that was within about a half mile of the Lake Superior shore near Horseshoe Harbor, the superb and famed Nature Conservancy Preserve that the Conservancy has made into such a wonderful place to hike and rock-hound. It's rugged, too. Going off-trail can be a challenge.

This next shot is one of me taken on the Horseshoe Harbor Road on the same evening. I got off my bike to explore among the birches near the road as the sun was finally setting (sundown is about 9:45 in mid- to late June). I balanced the camera on my bike seat to get the photo. I was wearing my full bug jacket because the black flies had come out in droves, as they do especially around sunset at this time of year. Blackfly season runs from about mid-May to the Fourth of July, though on certain days they can be no problem. With these bug jackets, you can enjoy a great deal more of the Keweenaw Forest at this time of year. A superb invention. Wouldn't be without one in June. A few years back, a tourist stopped on US-41 in CH to take a p[hoto of Marsha pushing our infant Logan on a walk. She was dressed in the bug jacket and the stroller was wrapped in a similaR bug baffler. The tourist found it amazing, but I guess one does what one must.

Harry

My younger brother, Captain John Kilpela, has one of the famous dogs of Copper Harbor, a Jack Russell terrier (short breed) who goes by the name of Harry. They live in a cabin in town behind Ragamuffins Clothing and Gifts. One night I was hanging out at John's while Harry was taking his nightly constitutional out in the yard. Harry spends a lot of his time out in the yard waiting for a certain chipmunk to come out of the woodpile behind the house next door, my brother Don's place. This is a shot of Harry studying the woodpile as night comes in. I was a bit jealous of Harry a couple years back, since I would sometimes walk down the street with him and find people running out of their motel rooms to say hello while paying no attention to me at all. Visitors even knew his name, like an old friend, though they had no idea who I was.

Storms

June is always a time for few thunderstorms to roll over the U.P. Marquette had a huge hail-storm on June 20. A few days before, Copper Harbor saw a few large thunderstorms pass over on the edge of a swiftly moving cold front. This is a shot about 10:30 on that evening -- it stays light a long time in June in CH. The storm has passed east. This was taken on my bike on the main street in town, down near my home and close to my mother's gift shop, Ragamuffins. We've had lots of nice weather this year, some dry spells, some hot spells, some cool weather, a few swarms of black flies, even an early appearance of the stable flies that torment you on the Superior shore. It's always changing up here. My Dad often repeats an old saying that we hear from the locals a lot: Don't like the weather? Stick around five minutes and see it change.

The Minnetonka

Business has been, as usual, a little quiet this early June in Copper Harbor. This is a photo of Art and Miranda Davis in Art's family's motel in town, the Minnetonka Resort on the main corner, where the blinking light signals the junction of M-26 and US-41. Art was exercised about some business matter and trying to make some important point.

Lake Mango

I am now in Copper Harbor, northernmost town in Michigan, for the summer business season. I had a very pleasant first day in my northern home town, if conditions were a touch cool (temps only in the 50s, though sunny). Miranda, my daughter, Art Davis, my son-in-law, and I went to Lake Manganese just south of town late in the evening Tuesday last week to let their dogs, Capone and Gus, have a good run to get some exercise -- and wear themselves out for a night of sound sleep. This shot is a great one, don't you think? -- with the dogs standing by the sides of Art and Miranda with looks of worship in their eyes. I really don't think they were expecting anything other than more attention from Art and Mir. They had no treats in their pockets, in case you think this shot might have been faked with the use of dog biscuits. Rather, they took up the worshipful prosition you see without prompting. They are seldom found like this, believe me. The level of Lake Manganese seems no different from years past, though Lake Superior is down considerably.

Crossing the Mackinaw

So, the fun begins for the summer. My job at MSU has been suspended for 3 months, as usual, and I have moved north to Copper Harbor to run the Isle Royale Queen IV with my brothers, daughter, and parents, while my wife and 2 boys family remains south in Okemos for the end of the school year. It was quite a lousy drive north on Monday,June 4. The rain was coming down in buckets up in the northern Lower Peninusla and in the east half of the Upper Peninusla. Here's a daunting shot from the front window of my old van on the way across the Mackinaw Bridge. That's the landmass of the U.P. coming into view out of the fog and heavy rain, about 2 miles up ahead. I've just passed the north tower of the bridge and am heading down the deck toward the toll booths on the north end of the bridge. Quite a summer welcome to the ol' U.P.

My next shot is of me, Captain Ben, on the shore of Lake Superior several hours later. This was taken at one of the roadside parks along Au Train Bay, one of the spots I almost always stop at along the way north, and the way back south. It was warmer than it might appear. Though it had been pretty darn cold at the Mackinaw Bridge, in the low 50s, if that, here at Au Train the temperature had to be in the mid-60s. Copper Harbor here I come.