Touching History: Fort Wilkins, Copper Harbor, MI Part 1

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It had been years since I visited Fort Wilkins. In fact, I think it would be safe to say it has been decades since I last set foot on these grounds. After a long but relatively uneventful drive up to the Keweenaw Peninsula, we were ready to spend our first full day exploring.

I thought the four kids we had with us might get a kick out of the old fort that they have preserved in the northern most part of Michigan. As you can see, the fort has a beautiful landscape sitting right on the shores of Lake Fanny Hooe in Copper Harbor, MI. I was thinking to myself if it weren't for the lack of indoor plumbing and the severely harsh winters, it probably wouldn't have been too bad of a gig to be stationed there.

You might be thinking why in the world would they put a fort all the way up there with virtually nothing else around.

Well, it's an interesting story that goes all the way back to the mid 1800's. It's also a story that goes as deep as the copper that ran through the ground in this area.

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Rather than boring you with all of the details myself, I will let you read about it in this picture that I took inside one of the buildings at the fort. Looking at the area around the fort these days, it isn't too difficult to imagine how hard it might have been to get by back in the 1800's. Lake Superior is know by many as a force of nature. The area surrounding it can be harsh and unforgiving. Like I said, especially when winter comes.

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As an example, on the way up to Copper Harbor you pass this sign on the side of the road (hopefully you can read it here). Next to it is a giant "meter" that indicates the total amount of snow that fell last winter. Additionally, it has marks on it for the most recorded snow in the history of the UP (close to 400 inches) through the winter of 1978 to 1979.

Pretty nuts right?

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Getting to the fort these days is likely not as hard as it was in the 1800's. There is a beautiful stretch of roadway called US-41 that takes you right into the heart of the small town of Copper Harbor. The last 11 miles or so of the drive are absolutely amazing. It is a winding hilly section of road that takes you through a tunnel of trees until you reach your final destination.

If you pass through the town of Copper Harbor and head towards the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, you will eventually come to Fort Wilkins State Park where the fort and several camping areas reside. I've mentioned this in past posts, but Copper Harbor is also a mountain biking MECCA with trails all over the place.

As you walk away from the parking lot and towards the welcome center for the fort, you are met with a couple fenced off areas that house old mines like the one you see in the picture above. These were small mines compared to the ones further south and west. As you might have read in the explanation above, that is where the major mining operations moved after finding bigger deposits down that way.

Despite that fact, there continued to be hundreds of mines and mining companies spread across the entirety of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

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These rows of houses are the first things you come across after you leave the welcome center and enter the outskirts of the fort complex. If you squint really hard and look really closely, you will see one of the costumed performers that they talk about in the sign above. She was carrying water back and forth to fill her wash basins.

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There she is!

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These buildings all have displays and information inside of them. I tried to take some pictures and I will do a small photo dump of that for you here:

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Seeing the beds back then really makes me appreciate the one I have at home. Just looking at that thing made my back hurt!

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Moving past the living quarters we come to the trades buildings and garrison workshops.

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Of course the wash basins the lady was filling up.

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@mrsbozz and I stopped to take a selfie along the shores of Lake Fanny Hooe just across the path from the living quarters. I wonder how many soldiers would have done the same thing had smartphones been around back then....

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Although the fort bakery was filled with fake loaves of bread, you would almost imagine the smells that might have been coming out of this place back in the day.

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A little walk away from the bakery was the fort blacksmith shop. I know @enforcer48 is trying their hand at blacksmithing right now, so I felt I had to take some pictures to share.

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This is where I am going to leave you today. I was going to make this all one post, but I just realized I still have a ton more pictures to share, so I should probably give you a break!

I hope you enjoyed the first part of this walk through history. I really enjoy history, but I know that other people might not so much. With that in mind, I expected this to be the field trip that my group was least excited about during our time in the UP.

I couldn't have been more wrong. When asked what their favorite part of the trip was after the fact, they all agreed that visiting Fort Wilkins was squarely in the top three.

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Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced