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HANCOCK
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Quincy Mine. The U.P.'s best all-around mine tour combines geology, a gee-whiz tram ride, social history, monumental engineering technology, and an optional underground experience at one of Copper Country's two richest mines. ...
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McLain State Park. Two miles of beautiful Lake Superior beach, a lighthouse pier, and 443 diverse acres provide wonderful beach and woodland walks, good birding, and stunning sunset views for campers and day visitors alike. ...
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Portage Waterway. The 21-mile stretch of water results from an ancient fracture of Keweenaw's spine of hard rock ...
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Downtown Hancock. Unlike many downtowns, Hancock's remains a one-stop business center with many useful shops, a department store, resale stores, arty specialty stores and galleries, a toy store, gun shop, home-owned bank, and bookstore with specialties in regional, the environment, and Scandinavia. ...
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Finlandia University/Finnish-American Heritage Center. Finlandia University (the U.P.'s only private college) and the associated Finnish-American Heritage Center form the U.S. epicenter of Finnish culture. They offer exhibits and lectures. ...
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Finlandia University Portage Campus
The former St. Joseph's Hospital, now renovated, has become a business incubator and studio space for Finlandia's design department, a cornerstone of its plans for repositioning itself for future decades as the Jutila Center for Global Business and Design. It has become a hub for creative energy, in addition to housing university offices and components of Michigan Tech's MTEC SmartZone.
A walk down the corridor from the north side entrance passes studios for yoga, piano lessons, meditation, wellness counseling. High-tech computer software startups are on higher floors. Things being made here are on display for sale in the atrium: for instance, vases and coffee cups by high-caliber student potters, jackets by Distant Drum, Joyce Koskenmaki's memorable big paintings of birches.
Big studio spaces are in the high-ceilinged rooms downstairs: Finlandia's ceramics and glass studio, the fiber and fashion studio, the woodworking and modeling shop and graphic design studio. Artists' and Finlandia studios welcome visitors; see directory.
Outsiders come in for the cool, friendly DAILY GRIND CAFÉ (906-487-7455; Mon-Fri 8-5), a coffeehouse with free wireless internet. The menu consists of espresso and related coffee drinks, smoothies, tea; soups, muffins, and scones made on the premises; salads, flavorful and healthy panini sandwiches, and wraps ($6-$7). Three tables look down the Keweenaw Waterway, especially beautiful early in the morning. Some old-timers come for lunch largely for the fun of seeing how their old hospital has changed. Many customers are Tech students from across the waterway. Takeout welcome. Catering available. Regular events have included live music or poetry at noon on Friday, and at the moment, alternative films and discussion at 6 p.m. the first Wednesday of the month. (Call to confirm.)
From West Quincy/M-20 west of the fork at Gino's, turn south onto 200 Michigan at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. No smoking. Open year-round weekdays 8-5. Wheelchair-accessible. More parking on Water St. by the medical office building.
Deja vu & Daily Brew Antiques and Collectibles
One of Hancock's more elaborate and fanciful Victorian homes sits on the city's biggest lot. (The previous owner added many playful touches that aren't authentic to the period.) New owners Muriel Ruonavar and Keith Halls plan to serve coffee (not espresso drinks) and pastries. Customers can sit inside, on the porch, in the turret, and outside. There's wi-fi internet available.
Their stock of antiques and collectibles, strong on Depression glass and cut glass, also includes furniture. It takes up much of the house. Visitors can walk the grounds and see the outhouse and sauna. (—Sept. 2007)
1109 Quincy/M-203, ¼ mile past Gino's, west of downtown Hancock. (906) 483-2143. Expected to be open Mon-Sat 8-5, Sun 11-4. Handicap access: call.
Keweenaw Co-op Natural Foods & Groceries. A great place to stop for picnic and camping provisions, with a tasty deli section, gourmet and international fare, unusual sauces and bulk foods, and an impressive selection of wines ...
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Downtown Hancock
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 | | Mary Hunt | | The Community Arts Center downtown on Quincy Street has an appealing and varied shop in addition to its gallery of changing exhibits. | Hancock's downtown is on one-way Quincy Street that's also U.S. 41, the highway to the vacation destinations in Calumet and Copper Harbor. Hancock has a functional downtown with lot of useful shops: Quincy Footwear, Kathy's Country Flowers with a good selection of gifts and greeting cards, Northwoods Trading Post (a gun store/shoe repair shop), the Community Art Center with its shop and gallery, a very large and friendly St. Vincent DePaul, a True Value hardware store, and - what a rarity! - an independent, locally owned bank, Superior National Bank, headquartered right on Quincy Street. North Wind Books is a few blocks west at Finlandia University. It's entirely possible to do all one's Christmas shopping in downtown Hancock and come up with some distinctive things, thereby saving a lot of stress and supporting local merchants and artists.
A printed walking tour of historic Hancock and its architectural details is distributed at the Keweenaw Chamber of Commercee in Houghton, Keweenaw Tourism Council in Calumet and at the Community Art Center on Quincy Street. A different kind of historic tour, with then-and-now photos, is at www.cityofhancock.com . Scroll down to "History," then choose "downtown tour."
Points of interest are listed from east (nearer the lift bridge) to west.
• TEMPLE JACOB. The copper dome of this Jewish synagogue on the steep hillside beneath East Hancock is a familiar yet mysterious sight to motorists driving north off the lift bridge. Before 1912, when it was built, the area's then-numerous Jewish families, mostly merchants, had met for services in halls. The congregation of a hundred families named the temple after benefactor Jacob Gartner, owner of the large Hancock clothing and furniture store still operating under family ownership today. Today the Jewish community is much smaller. Temple Jacob is used for High Holy Days and other occasions, when a student rabbi comes to Copper Country. Now a Reformed congregation, it is regularly active with cultural and religious programs, though the building is closed in winter.
Call Harley Sachs at 482-8814 for a tour. His collection of interesting short stories, Threads of the Covenant, illuminates the lives of far-flung Jews in the Upper Peninsula and small towns in Lower Michigan. It's available at North Wind Books in Hancock.
• COMMUNITY ARTS CENTER. The attractive large gallery and studios of the Copper Country Community Arts Council are in this low orange building. Changing exhibits go beyond contemporary art and crafts to include architecture, antiques, and more. Stop by for a free copy of the council's busy arts calendar. The gift shop is worth checking out for unusual handcrafted items: Ojibwa baskets, blown and fused glass, wood, stylish knit hats in winter; and much more. 126 Quincy/U.S. 41. 482-2333. Tues-Fri 10-6, Sat 10-4. Wheelchair-accessible.
• ST. VINCENT de PAUL RESALE STORE. If you're an inveterate yard-saler, this large, well-organized store, formerly a Woolworth's, is worth a stop if you're passing by. There are many terrific bargains. The books almost always yield something worth reading, and customers are allowed to root around the basement, where larger things are sorted but not yet priced. Copper Country has lots of savers, and some good stuff eventually ends up here. 204 Quincy/U.S. 41. 482-7705. Open Mon-Fri 10-5. Wheelchair-accessible.
• FINNISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER. A beautiful exhibit gallery hosts changing exhibits of Finnish, Finnish-American, and regional artists and other subjects related to that culture. An extensive archive in the lower level serves anyone interested in Finnish-American roots. For occasional special events visit www.finlandia.edu and scroll down site index to heritage center. Recent speakers and visitors have been writer Barry Lopez and the president of Finland. 601 Quincy/U.S. 41, between downtown and the Finlandia University campus. Mon-Fri 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and by appointment: (906) 487-7500. Wheelchair-accessible.
• NORTH WINDS BOOKS. This personal bookstore, now owned by Finlandia University, has select general reading and children's books in addition to its regional specialties: Finnish and Finnish-American books, history and literature of the Upper Great Lakes and Upper Peninsula, including maritime, Native American, copper mining, nature and the environment.
The Hancock North Winds is the successor to Patricia Van Pelt's Eagle Harbor bookstore of the same name. It's next to the Finnish-American Heritage Center in a former church rectory that sits back from the street on a small plaza. Manager Susan Ubbelohde keeps up on Finnish topics in her role as the college president's wife. Mail-order is available. Call or consult the website for occasional special events. Generous store-wide sales are usually held after Christmas and before June 30. 437 Quincy/ U.S. 41. Parking is on Quincy and in the side lot; turn right onto Ryan, which angles. (906) 487-7217. Open Mon-Sat 10-6. Wheelchair-accessible.
• MARY CHASE PERRY STRATTON CHILDHOOD HOME. Mary Chase Perry Stratton, whose famous Pewabic tiles are familiar architectural ornaments in many Detroit-area public buildings and grand homes of the early 20th century, spent her first ten years, from 1867 to 1877, in this simple frame house, one of Hancock's few early buildings to have survived a major fire. Her father, a doctor for the Quincy Mining Company, moved here in 1863. Perry Stratton named her pottery, famous for its iridescent copper glazes, either after a Copper Country mine or possibly after the Ojibwa word for clay the color of copper. She was an important part of Detroit's significant Arts and Crafts movement. Asian art connoisseur Charles Freer, who made a fortune as the finance man for a Detroit railroad car manufacturer, was the one who urged her to pursue her iridescent coppery glazes. For more Pewabic Pottery history, visit www.pewabic.com . 222 Hancock, the eastbound part of U.S. 41 through Hancock. It's one street below Quincy. The house is directly behind the Best Western Copper Crown motel.
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