Copper Harbor is not the edge of the world, it's one of Michigan's most beautiful places

The Copper Harbor Lighthouse. (Photo: Dale Fisher, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Very funny, Copper Harbor. The teensy town on the Keewenaw Peninsula, which feels as if it's teetering on the very edge of the Earth, boasts a cheeky sign stating that Miami is 1,990 miles away. Ha ha - as if anyone would rather be sweltering on some crummy Florida beach next to an ocean full of sharks and gross jellyfish, and not surrounded on three sides by the brutal majesty of that great devourer of ships, Lake Superior.

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An aerial view of Copper Harbor. (Photo: Roman Kahler [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons)

Not true Michiganders, at least. We hearty natives welcome the grueling hardship of winter, craving the natural world's cold, unfeeling punishment, devouring it masochistically like a nourishing pasty with extra gravy. Or is that just me?

Anyway, that sign is, I believe, representative of Yooper humor, which can be as dry as a burnt pasty, hold the gravy. I imagine it's quite funny, and not cruel or cynical at all, to be reminded of the distance to Miami in the dead of winter, when your cockles grow icicles, and there's snow up to there. No, there. Way up there. Here, I've compiled some factoids and trivia about Copper Harbor, and I promise I'll keep my sense of humor soaking wet.

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This sign in Copper Harbor: funny or just the facts? (Photo: Darrell Harden [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

So. Why the sign?

Copper Harbor marks the northernmost end of US-41, which stretches south through eight different states and finally dies of heatstroke in Miami. "It is uncommon to see mileages posted for cities nearly 2,000 miles away," reads one website, which interprets the sign as an illustration of the highway's scope, and utterly ignores its subtext.

Anyway, US-41 cuts through Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, skirting the western edge of Lake Michigan. It is surely the ugliest route south as possible, because it skips the Lower Peninsula entirely. Perhaps the road is one of those total maniacs who believes Wisconsin is the true Mitten State. Or maybe it just has gephyrophobia.

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Population: 108

As of the 2010 census, Copper Harbor's total population is roughly that of the average per-theater attendance of "Black Panther" in its fourth weekend of release. The town is so small, you could fit its entire population in a pie tin, and have plenty of room for dessert. Some of them are even crazy/hardy/inexplicable enough to live there year-round.

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The origin of the name

Copper Harbor is named after the stuff that was once mined there. No, it wasn't bauxite. Good guess, though.

Michigan has a rich history of copper mining, with the vast majority of the soft metal found in the Upper Peninsula. The industry flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, but fizzled post-World War II, littering the state's Copper Country with ghost towns, abandoned mines and a few superfund sites, which are not even remotely as fun as the name sounds.

Copper Harbor's nomenclatorial resources were first excavated by the Pittsburgh and Boston Mining Company in the 1840s, but they were tapped out by 1870. And yet, even after the dust settled on the copper boom, some residents stuck around despite it being a place of unholy, godforsaken beauty (more on that in a minute).

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An Isle Royale sunset. (MLive file photo | Cory Morse)

Isle Royale

Of course, the "harbor" portion is one of Copper Harbor's significant points of distinction. Geographically, the town is at the tip of the Keewenaw Peninsula, and is home to one of two Michigan ferries schlepping tourists to Isle Royale. The 45-mile-long island, third largest in the contiguous U.S., is closer to Minnesota than Michigan, but for some reasons involving wars and historical whatnot, it's ours. Thankfully, there are no Minnesota Vikings fans on the island, because it has no permanent human population - and yes, I'm implying that anyone who isn't a Detroit Lions fan is, indeed, not human.

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The Isle Royale Queen IV, docked here in Copper Harbor, ferries people to Isle Royale. (MLive file photo | Cory Morse)

Isle Royale was once home to copper mining and logging industries. But in 1940, it and the 450 surrounding islands were declared Isle Royale National Park, so its natural beauty could no longer be exploited by harrumphing , cigar-puffing barons with big mustaches. Now, it's a popular spot for numerous summertime recreational activities, including hiking, boating, fishing, moose dodging, wolf not-seeing, and, perhaps most enticing of all, being really really far from civilization.

The island and park feature one lodge at Rock Harbor - which you might almost be able to afford - a lighthouse, and a bevy of Great Lakes shipwrecks, which draw many morbid people interested in scuba diving down to places where people died horrible deaths. Speaking of dead people, a short jaunt by canoe or kayak from the main island leads adventurers to Cemetery Island, which is exactly as advertised, and sounds like the setting of a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Its graves date to the 1850s, so if you visit, treat them with respect, especially if you're a bunch of meddling kids trying to upend some unscrupulous shyster's idiotic scheme.

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Copper Harbor Light

Any coastal Michigan burg worth three-eighths of its weight in seagull guano has a lighthouse, especially if the town sits on a long, skinny (and pleasant, of course) peninsula. Two structures still stand at Copper Harbor: A stone tower and attached residence constructed in 1866 to replace the previous lighthouse built in 1848, and an adjacent metal "skeleton tower" erected in 1933.

The site, which now features a museum and is undergoing restoration, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which doesn't sound so impressive when you realize there are 80,000 such places, but becomes more impressive upon realizing that most structures built these days are strip malls populated with vape shops, tax accountants and mediocre pizza chains. The Copper Harbor Light has been officially decommissioned, but still stands at the tip of the Keewenaw, where it can be Instagrammed within an inch of its life.

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Brockway Mountain Drive

Copper Harbor marks the western end of this stretch of highway M-26, which traces the ridge of Brockway Mountain for roughly nine miles, with the town of Eagle Harbor at its easternmost point. The road is famous for its panoramic views of Lake Superior, Copper Harbor and acres of untouched woodland, all coming together to form one of Michigan's cruelest displays of unfettered gorgeousness.

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In fact, the scenery is rife with so much natural beauty, Brockway Drive is lined with rivers of gore from the ruptured hearts and exploded heads of tourists, whose eyeballs, upon seeing such murderously wonderful pulchritude, frequently launch themselves from their sockets and burst, spraying horrible goo all over the roadside. The autumn colors have been known to extemporaneously destroy human kidneys, migrating hawks in spring and orchid and trillium blooms in summer have incited ruptured livers, and stargazing excursions have caused numerous impromptu disembowelments. Aurora borealis sightings have been known to rip out entire spinal columns with their unfathomably splendid displays of color. And on a clear day, one can even see Isle Royale from the roadway, much to the detriment of many peoples' poor, unsuspecting pancreases.

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The road, constructed in 1933, reaches a high point of 720 feet above the lake (1,320 feet above sea level) and is not plowed in the winter, when it becomes a snowmobile trail. It has no posted speed limit, because its rugged quality naturally forces drivers to slow down and further appreciate the vistas, therefore increasing the likelihood of instantaneous mortality when their bodies go kablooey due to the deadly, deadly allure of the Brockway Mountain Drive, forever insatiable in its thirst for human blood.

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Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary

Adjacent to Copper Harbor is this 510-acre swath of woods, which boasts what's likely the last batch of virgin white pines in the U.P. The trees grow to upwards of 125 feet, and one was determined to be more than 300 years old. How the majesty of this forest wasn't completely disregarded by greedy logging-industry investors is quite shocking, considering how much gorgeous natural Michigan wonderment was devoured by bulldozers and other implements of progressive constructive destruction during the last couple of centuries. In the presence of these great, grand trees, one can't help but marvel at the multitude of disposable products we could have carelessly consumed and disregarded if only they'd been toppled by some gallant industrialist. All that beauty, wasted on birds and wildlife, breathtaking photography and calming, meditative hikes. What a shame.

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Iggy Pop

One of Copper Harbor's more compelling bits of trivia is its claim on Iggy Pop, the Michigan-native rock star who spent summers in the town as a youngster, and returned for visits after he became, oh, you know, just ONE OF THE GODFATHERS OF PUNK ROCK.

Born James Osterberg in Muskegon, Iggy was raised in Ypsilanti, and went to school in Ann Arbor before forming, like, THE STOOGES, ONE OF THE FIVE GREATEST AMERICAN ROCK BANDS EVER. Of course, up in the sparsely populated rural regions of the U.P., everyone probably saw him as just one of the folks, and likely didn't really care that HE'S POSSIBLY THE MOST CHARISMATIC FRONTMEN EVER TO TAKE CENTER STAGE AT A ROCK 'N' ROLL SHOW.

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Problem is, neighboring Eagle Harbor also likes to claim Iggy, and a Copper Harbor local, Dan Kauppi, took it upon himself to make a short film about it - although I'm not sure if he ever finished it. Regardless, it's pretty cool that Iggy, WHO WROTE (WITH DAVID BOWIE, EVEN) "LUST FOR LIFE," A SONG THAT CAN INVIGORATE THE MOST CYNICAL SPIRIT AT ITS LOWEST POINT AND GET IT TO STAND UP AND DANCE WITH FECKLESS GLEE, liked to vacation in a very remote locale and hang out and drink beer with the type of everyday people who don't worship him like the rock god he is.

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