Preserving Michigan's copper country

But if your time is limited, don't miss the heart of the Keweenaw park: the Calumet and Quincy units, a few miles apart midway up the peninsula.

The Park Service provides walking tours of downtown Calumet, once a bustling industrial center. Nowadays it's a relatively quiet place with an aura of yesteryear in its brick-and-sandstone storefronts, churches and office buildings.

Coppertown Mining Museum on Red Jacket Road offers a wealth of artifacts and information. Another can't-miss stop is the Calumet Theatre, built in 1899 and still a popular venue for plays and concerts. In the early days it was a symbol of the area's wealth, as company barons were entertained by the likes of John Philip Sousa's band and silent-movie swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks.

A more poignant icon stands in an otherwise empty lot a couple of blocks away. The brick-and-stone arch is all that remains of Italian Hall, where 73 people died on Christmas Eve, 1913, when a false fire alarm set off a stampede during a party for children of striking workers. One of the plaques affixed to the arch reads simply, "Sleep in Heavenly Peace."

For a more hands-on experience, head back to the Quincy unit. Exhibits include the gigantic, steam-powered hoist that raised copper ore to the surface and hauled carts packed with miners up and down a shaft that eventually reached nearly 2 miles into the earth. Propped in another corner is a 17-ton copper slab retrieved from the Lake Superior bottom.

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After your surface tour, put on a jacket — it's chilly down there, whatever the season — and head underground. A cog-rail tram eases you down a steep hill to the opening of a dank, dimly illuminated chamber.

You explore tools of the mining trade and gaze into passages seemingly without end. When your guide switches off the light, showing what it was like when a miner's lamp went out, the complete blackness offers a clue of how terrifying the job could be.

Outside once more, dine on Lake Superior whitefish or walleye at a locally owned restaurant. Or, if you've really caught the spirit, try a Cornish pasty — the meat, onion and potato turnover that was a lunchtime staple for generations of miners. Nowadays it's a cultural icon, filling but cheap. A nice way to save a few pennies (preferably made of copper, naturally).

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