Michigan in Pictures

Barn6637, photo by ETCphoto.

This photo of a barn near Paulding is part of Terry’s great Easter UP Trip ‘08 set of photos (slideshow).

Terry took the trip to see some places he hadn’t seen in winter like Bond Falls, Houghton, Eagle Harbor, Marquette and Grand Island.

Do the slideshow if you have the time!

P1010050c, photo by Dan & Mary.

The web site for the annual UP 200 / Midnight Run and Jack Pine 30 sled dog races explains that 1988 a group of mushers and others began to discuss a dogsled race in the Upper Peninsula.

When the race finally began to take shape, the trail encompassed Marquette, Alger, and Delta counties, and ran from Marquette to Chatham, Rapid River, Escanaba, Gwinn, and back to Marquette…

…and on a snowy Friday evening in February of 1990, the dedication and perseverance finally paid off. To the cheers of 10,000 spectators, the mushers of the first UP 200 Sled Dog Championship ten dog race sped down Washington street in Marquette into the night. At midnight, in the community of Chatham the first Midnight Run racers departed on the long, cold journey towards Escanaba. These racers went on their way into history, with many “tails of the trails” for the years to come.

The UP200 and Midnight Run have remained successful events each year and they take place this weekend (Feb 15-17) and you can get all the details (including the trail map and Breakaway’s Blog at the link above!

Mary writes that this photo shows a team is approaching the crossing at Forest Highway 13, heading west to the next checkpoint at Munising/Wetmore, MI. It’s part of a set of UP 200 / Midnight Run dogsled races 2007 photos (slideshow)

thru the woods, photo by litchard.

I’d never heard of the Wing Aero Sleigh - designed & built by Blain Wing in St. Ignace, Michigan in the 1940s - but Milton has a bunch of cool photos of the Aero Sleigh in action (slideshow)

There’s some information about how these were used from the Drummond Island Yacht Haven.

He uploaded the photos pretty large so be sure to click through check them out!

Grand Island VI, photo by gowaterfalling.com

Waterfalls of the Great Lakes Region and Beyond is an incredible website - packed with pictures of waterfalls - including a ton of Michigan falls (full list on the home page). You may know about the beauty of Michigan’s tumbling cascades, but have you seen them when winter freezes them in their course? The picture above is from the cliffs on the east side of Grand Isle opposite Sand Point is just one of many on their Munising Ice Formations page which explains:

Munising, Michigan is located at the western end of the sandstone cliffs that dominate the Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore. Every winter, water seeping over and through the sandstone freezes forming ice columns, curtains and other formations. Ice climbers flock to the area to tackle the ice, but even if you do not climb the ice formations are a fascinating sight…

Grand Island sits in Munising Bay. In summer there is a ferry service that takes you to the island, but in winter the bay usually freezes over and you can walk, ski or snowmobile out to the island.

Numerous ice formations form on the sandstone cliffs shores of the island. The most accessible ice is on the east side of the island opposite Sand Point, but there is ice all around the island. All the pictures below are of the cliffs opposite Sand Point and were taken in February 2003.

They advise to check with the locals on the ice conditions before crossing - and I advise you to click over and look at more of the pictures - there’s a bunch of great views! If you don’t have a snowmobile, it looks like Grand Island Sled Rentals can help you out (some more great pictures of the ice too!).

You should probably check out the Waterfall Mosaic too!

Captain Trudell and his Gallant Crew, courtesy Archives of Michigan

Something about the weather of the last few days has made me think about what an amazingly tough job members of the US Lifesaving Service must have had. This photo is of Captain Trudell and his Gallant Crew going to relief ship in distress, Grand Marais, Michigan (c. 1910). Anyone who has ever been to Grand Marais during inclement weather will know that those rollers they’re stroking through for a photo op are mere ripples compared to what they saw when they were really needed.

The Grand Marais Lighthouse page on Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light has a brief bit about the station:

With traffic exploding along the south shore, the frequency of maritime accidents increased proportionally. To help guard the safety of mariners, 1898 also saw the beginning of construction of a life-saving station at the foot of the west pier. On its completion the following year, the station was considered one of the finest in all of the Great Lakes, boasting 2 surf boats, a 34-foot self-righting life boat, and a full complement of beach apparatus.

There’s a nice photo of the entirety of the Grand Marais complex from 1910, and you can see a few more photos at the Archives including a view of the station and the track to launch the surfboats, a Captain Trudell & his crew at attention in front of the station and the Grand Marais Harbor Range with the station in the background. The awesome historic photo gallery from the Grand Marais Chamber of Commerce has an aerial view of the complex, a photo of the station on July 4, 1927 and some other photos of maritime history.

The lifesaving station was replaced in 1938 by a US Coast Guard Station, which was deactivated in 1981 and transfered to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore for use as a ranger station.

100_2066, photo by tomthebomb.

tomthebomb says that this is a photo of Fisher getting EXTREME.

Michigan in Pictures regular Matt Callow tipped me off to the annual Bigfoot Snowshoe Race in Traverse City. The race takes place January 26, 2008 and while it probably won’t be this extreme, it is the Midwest qualifier for the National Championship Snowshoe race and looks like a lot of fun from the photos.

November 7-8, 2004 Aurora Borealis, photo by Brian & Shawn Malone

This photo is one of many taken by Upper Peninsula photographers Brian & Shawn Malone of LakeSuperiorPhoto.com from the fantastic Northern Lights displays of November 2004 and other years. They have a ton more from all kinds of U.P. places and events that you can view and purchase if you’re so inclined.

The source of the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) has long been a beautiful mystery. Last week, however, CNN featured an article on the possible discovery of the energy source for the Northern Lights.

New data from NASA’s Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere to the sun.

The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights…

You can get more in the article above or head over to NASA’s THEMIS mission for all the crunchy details including some multimedia (which in turn includes the THEMIS Mission Trailer - guaranteed to get your inner geek jumping!). Also see the THEMIS video & image gallery at the University of California - Berkley. Themis was the Greek goddess of justice (aka “the blindfold lady”) and the daughter of sky god Uranus and earth goddess Gaia.

dunns 6th calumet, photo by Ztef

I usually try to make Michigan in Pictures a happy place to be because there’s enough unhappy things out there. Every so often, however, I think there are stories that warrant a look and rememberance if only to say: “Let’s make darn sure this never, ever happens again.”

Ztef captioned the above photo rather sparsely with Copper miners strike outside of Dunn’s bar on 6th Street in Calumet, Michigan - 1913, but he has provided a link to Calumet: The Copper Miner Strike of 1913. This page offers a very detailed and readable account (complete with some great old photos) of the labor troubles in Keweenaw during the early part of 20th Century from the perspective of the Zawada family, Poles who worked in the copper mines for the mining giant Calumet & Hecla. Of this photo it says:

Strikers outside of Dunn’s Bar, a favourite among miners. Just next door to Dunn’s was the No. 203 local WFM office (Western Federation of Miners). The sign on the left reads: “Something just as good Miners ask for bread, Jim [MacNaughton, C&H General Manager] offers lead”. The sign in the middle reads: “One man machine Our Agitator”. The sign on the right reads: “We demand higher wages and better working conditions”. The men in front are holding copies of the Miner’s Bulletin, but the headlines are not clear.

As you can read at the link above, the strike was characterized by escalating violence, calling in of the National Guard and even murder. The chaos culminated with what has been called a Disaster, Tragedy and even Massacre at Calumet’s Italian Hall. Copper Country Reflections’ Italian Hall Tragedy page at Pasty.com explains:

By the end of December, the miner’s strike had been waged for 5 long months, with no end in sight. The mining companies and their supporters were holding firm in their resistance to the WFM, while the union was still somewhat solid in its position.

To temporarily set aside their cares, a group of union members planned a Christmas eve celebration for their children at the Italian Hall on Seventh Street in Calumet. I can only assume that the activities that evening must have been the most fun these children had since the start of the strike. Unfortunately, the excitement turned to tragedy as someone, his identity never learned, cried FIRE. As the children and adults panicked, many worked their way towards the stairwell. The first unlucky souls quickly realized the doors at the bottom would not open. Were they locked? Was somebody holding them closed?

It is hard to comprehend, but 73 men, women and children died in that staircase. Some were crushed, others died from suffocation. Can you imagine the shock of the rescuers when they finally pried open the doors? As they pulled bodies up and out of the staircase?

The page above also includes photos that are definitely not for the faint of heart. If you’d like to explore further, there’s more information and photos at the Italian Hall 1913 Massacre site and you can see a photo of the Michigan historical marker & memorial at the site of Italian Hall in Calumet.

One thing you definitely should do is watch the moving accounts of survivors of the tragedy at the December 2007 update from the 1913 Massacre Film Project. The movie project has been going for several years and it looks like it will be very good.

The Absolute Michigan map of Michigan has the location of Italian Hall in Calumet.

Portal for the locomotives, photo by smartee_martee.

In addition to taking some great pictures, Marty does a wonderful job of digging up and presenting background information. Fiborn Quarry was one of the largest early 20th century quarry operations in the Upper Peninsula, and Marty’s Fiborn Quarry set (slideshow) begins:

Fiborn Quarry was created by a partnership of the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railroad in 1904. This small company town was built to house the workers (homes and a boarding house), offer a school and a general store. The operations consisted of the quarry plant, crusher house and steam engine shop.

Marty goes on to tell you about the role of limestone in the history of the UP, and he also links over to the Michigan Karst Conservancy. In addition to extensive information on the history of Fiborn (be sure to click the little photos at the bottom of the pages too), the MKC tells you about karst:

Karst is a term that was first applied to a plateau region of the Dinaric Alps in Yugoslavia. It is now used to describe similar regions throughout the world that have features formed largely by underground drainage. Karst terrains are characterized by caves, steep valleys, sinkholes, and a general lack of surface streams because drainage is underground…

What does this have to do with Michigan, a land literally scoured by glaciers, a land covered with glacial clay, sand and gravel? Surprisingly, Michigan contains some areas of true karst. They are limited in extent, but this rarity increases their interest and importance. There is also considerable variety in Michigan karst areas: gypsum karst is found in Kent and Iosco counties; a significant amount of surface drainage goes underground in Monroe County, and reappears at “blue holes” in Lake Erie; spectacular sinkholes and earth cracks are found in Alpena and Presque Isle counties; and the broad band of outcrops of the Niagara Escarpment in the Upper Peninsula hosts a number of karst sinks, springs and caves.

Vienna - 19, photo by mschout.

Global Underwater Explorers page on diving the Vienna says that although extended range divers often use the Vienna as a “blow-off dive because it’s shallow and near shore, it’s also one of the finest wrecks to dive in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They write that this 191′ wooden steamer:

…came to her demise the same way that many do in Lake Superior, by collision. On 16 September 1892, she was down bound from Marquette, Michigan, with a load of iron ore. In tow was the schooner Mattie C. Bell. At Whitefish Point, the Vienna met up with the Nipigon. The Nipigon also had schooners in tow. Without warning, the Nipigon suddenly veered and struck the Vienna. Despite the efforts of both crews to save the Vienna, the vessel sank approximately one mile from shore. It was never fully understood why the Nipigon veered off course.

You can get more information about this wreck and others near Whitefish Point including a great photo of the Vienna at the ore docks in Marquette at Nordic Diver’s page on the wreck of the steamer Vienna.

Michael Schout has more photos of diving the Vienna (slideshow) and from diving more Great Lakes wrecks including the William Young, Panther, Minneapolis, Northwest, Sandusky and the Eber Ward in his very cool Diving set.

Much more shipwreck info (along with another great photo from Michael) can be found at the Absolute Michigan word of the week: Shipwreck!