Day 29

It did not rain last night but Kati woke up at 4:30 because water was dripping on her head. It didn’t drip on my head or G3’s — just Kati’s So she woke us up and told us it was time to pack up and move on. She couldn’t have been completely hallucinating because her sleep bag was wet.

G3 is in tears. He does not want to leave Northern Wisconsin. He would like to spend another day here. But even if we stayed, tomorrow would be the same. He wouldn’t want to move on. He’s grown attached to Lake Superior, especially swimming at Houghton Falls.

Last year, we spent more time exploring Michigan’s Upper Peninsula than we initially intended. However, there were still things we missed. The Keweenaw Peninsula was one place a friend had recommended that we bypassed. Since we have once again found ourselves in the UP, I decided we should probably check it out this time around. So that was our destination this morning. It is fun to revisit places I love, but I also enjoy seeing and experiencing new places. We had no trouble getting a campsite at a peaceful and removed campground at the base of the peninsula. We Pitched our tent, had an early lunch, and then set out to sightsee.

Keweenaw is a copper mining area. We learned this when we stopped at Keweenaw National Historic Park. Copper mined here was used to make pennies, cannons during the Civil War, and shell casings used in both World Wars. But like every other area in America, it belonged to Native Americans first. They too mined the copper as early as 7,000 years ago.

We drove to Fort Wilkins State Park to do an Adventure Lab cache. But there was no service in the area. If you’ve done Adventure caching you know you need to be connected to the internet in order to answer the questions. I was more than a little annoyed. What moron sets up a cache in a place with no service. Since we were there G3 and I walked around the historic fort. It was built in 1844 and soldiers were tasked with keeping the mining community peaceful. However, it was only in operation for two years. The Mexican-American War posed a greater need for soldiers south of the border.

Before the fort was build, the land belonged to the Ojibwa people. The Government in their greed didn’t like that. In the 1842 Treaty of La Pointe, the Ojibwa signed away 10 million acres of land — including the western part of the Keweenaw Peninsula. While they maintained the right to hunt, fish, and gather on this land, they no longer possessed the land itself. Within months of the government taking possession, copper miners and settlers began arriving.

It has been a cloudy, gray, and breezy day. We stopped at a beach with the intention of swimming but the air wasn’t exactly warm and there seemed no point in swimming just for the hell of it. We’ll have to try to get at least one more Superior swim as we make our way east.

We ate dinner at Culver’s. As we near home, G3 is beginning to fret about not being able to eat another butter burger. He wants his fill before we leave Culver’s behind. After dinner, he and I shared a pint of Culver’s custard.