Keweenaw Natural Areas
The Keweenaw Peninsula is a long finger of land that juts some 70 miles out into the largest fresh water lake in the world. On the west side, the lake meets up with a rocky and rugged shore which rises gradually some 700 feet before dramatically crashing down along sheer cliffs and rocky outcroppings. These ridges are repeated several times before leveling out along a wide plateau of sandstone which disappears silently below the lake on the peninsulas eastern shore. Beneath it all is one of the largest deposits of native copper in the world.
After close to centuries of industrial development, the peninsula had been almost completely cleared of trees, its lakes converted to dumps for mine tailings, and the rugged landscape littered with towering mounds of waste rock. Below the surface thousands of miles of drifts and stopes were abandoned and allowed to fill with water. With the mines went the people, and dozens of towns and villages were abandoned and left to rot away. Today however, the land has healed. Where vast stump fields once reigned are now vast lush forests. The expansive deposits of mine tailings are now vast fields of grass and wildflowers. The large piles of rock have become excellent vantage points to take all of it in. And remaining through it all is the powerful lake and its miles of pristine shores.
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