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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA

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COPPER HARBOR
POINTS
OF INTEREST

Fort Wilkins State Park and Historic Complex. This outstanding state park centers on a charming, militarily insignificant army fort from the 1843 copper rush. Living history and period furnishings show peacetime army life in 1869. Campgrounds and trails border Lake Fanny Hooe; more trails are along the harbor. Excellent interpretive displays, a good nature and regional bookshop/gift shop are a plus. ... more

Lighthouse Overlook on Copper Harbor. A spot with a grand view of the lighthouse, especially near sunset, and a trail among cedar and pines. You can sit on the big red rocks by the water and read or sketch. ... more

Copper Harbor Lighthouse. The memorable 1866 lighthouse museum and interpretive trail show the site's importance in geology, Michigan history, and shipwrecks. Part of Fort Wilkins State Park, it's reachable only by boat. ... more

Copper Harbor shops. Some of the U.P.'s most interesting shops for crafts, gifts, minerals, and books are here in Michigan's remote, northernmost village. Jewelry, books, photography, and gifts: stoneware, agates, greenstones, rockhound supplies, bird's eye maple, fleece, and distinctive fashions. Year-round general store and Laughing Loon gifts and books. ... more

Keweenaw Adventure Company and Harbor Kayak Paddle. Gear, guides, lessons, and tours for mountain biking and kayaking in a great setting for both ... more

Sunset cruises on the Isle Royale Queen IV. An inspired 1 1/2-hour cruise out onto Lake Superior, chasing freighters and watching the sun set. ... more

Seventh Street Station and A Superior Diver's Center. Agate enthusiasts/dive shop owners Jake and Laura Anderson show prize agates and teach impromptu and Try It and Diving for Agates classes. Scuba and snorkeling equipment for sale and rent, plus classes and dives and for all levels. Interesting shipwrecks for experienced divers to explore. ... more

Hunter's Point, Agate Beach & Copper Harbor marina. Copper Harbor community has raised funds and saved beloved Lake Superior point and trail for public access. ... more

Brockway Mountain Drive. The highest highway between the Rockies and the Alleghenies offers glorious sunsets, soaring hawks, and a splendid view of the Keweenaw's rocky shore. ... more

Lake Manganese and Manganese Falls. Near town, a beautiful, clear trout lake with a long, sandy swimming beach, near a striking waterfall in a ferny canyon. ... more

COPPER HARBOR

Seventh Street Station and A Superior Diver's Center

Jake Anderson still has his dive shop, a Copper Harbor fixture, but it's now next to his home on M-26 on the way to Eagle Harbor. Here's why. Last year, when Copper Harbor's only gas station closed, Jake and Laura Anderson started selling gas retail from the existing pump at their dive shop, partly as a community service, and partly to develop their property, a former A&W drive-in, into a year-round business. They want to sell it, and they figure a year-round business will be more marketable. Then it turned out that no insurance company will sell a single policy for both a dive shop and a gas station. So - the dive shop has moved to their home, but their fabulous display case of choice agates is still in town, along the best books on Lake Superior agates and a free pamphlet about the area's 12 shore dives.

The relocated SUPERIOR DIVER'S CENTER (906-289-4259) is now at their home at 12611 M-26, four miles west of Copper Harbor on the way to Eagle Harbor. It has equipment for scuba diving and snorkeling (including air tanks and air), for sale and for rent. Hours depend upon scheduled dives; call ahead. Classes and dives for all levels are now based here. A very popular introduction to diving is the $65 Try It Class for ages 12 and up: two hours of instruction, largely through videos, followed by suiting up in $2,000 worth of gear and going on a 20' dive in Eagle Harbor. (Combine it with a second dive, for $110 altogether, and fledgling divers will have done two of the five dives required for basic certification that qualifies them to make dives up to 60'.

SEVENTH STREET STATION has become more of a souvenir shop and gas station that happens to be staffed by dive aficionados and agate experts. Here now are local products like T shirts, totes, and notecards with wildflower art by Alice Kipfer of the Carriage House in Eagle Harbor, maple syrup from the area, and photographs - along with gasoline. The best part of the shop is when Laura or Jake take out some of their choice agates from their display case, pass them around for all to examine, and tell about how these beautiful semi-precious stones are formed. These are mostly agates Jake has found locally, while diving or out looking for agates in likely spots, like the mountain where he found this fall a 6.6-pound agate. It's far and away the biggest he's ever found.

Agate-hunting goes with diving and swimming because the agates are already wet and therefore the patterns are more visible. Also, agates in the water haven't been picked over so much. An extra plus for nearsighted swimmers: the water magnifies everything by 25%, making glasses less necessary. (It's possible to order a prescription scuba mask for $20/lens above the $80 regular cost.)

Jake has combined rocks and diving in his "Diving for Agates" class ($35) for basic divers. First they learn about agates. Then they take a one-tank dive (about an hour) at a good agate-collecting site. Scott Wolter, the guru of Lake Superior agates, has a new chapter about diving with Jake in the current edition of his Lake Superior Agate: One Man'sJourney.

Jake grew up outside Copper Harbor. (His parents owned the Lakeside Resort, now Eagle Lodge.) He has been diving in the area and elsewhere for nearly 50 years, since he was 11, and he's one of those people who will do anything necessary to be able to live here. The waters of Lake Superior are unusually clear, and the underwater rocks and minerals here on the Keweenaw are choice. True, it's cold, but in July and August it's warm enough that you can dive in a wet suit.

Interested people can stop in and get a free guide, a basic-level Compass Dive Trail to 12 area shore dives between Copper Harbor and Eagle harbor. One is the anchor of the John Jacob Astor, the area's first wreck. The area's popular basic-level dives requiring a boat are near Eagle Harbor: the wrecks of the City of St. Joseph, the Tyoga, and the Moreland.

For advanced divers, the star attraction of the Keweenaw Underwater Preserve is the ill-fated buoy tender Mesquite, in 110 feet of water. In 1989 the Mesquite became hung up on a reef off Keweenaw Point. The Coast Guard cutter had been lifting the buoy that marked the reef when a navigational error was made by the Coast Guard officer on duty, an inexperienced person whom the captain should not have had in command in that situation. The commander's efforts to get off the reef only stuck the ship more.

That night, wind and waves from the southeast gave the ship such a pounding that the Coast Guard later decided to sink the aging ship instead of repairing it. "She was in a class of ships on its way out," said the officer investigating the incident. "The Mesquite was going in for an engine change-off anyway."

Seventh Street Station is at the west end of "downtown" Copper Harbor next to the red Country Village, just west of where U.S. 41 joins M-26. (906) 289-3483. Open 9-6 year-round. Handicap access: 3" step.

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