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The ride to Copper Harbor is as good as it gets when it comes to motorcycling Michigan's Upper Peninsula. So far I haven't found a better loop to ride in the U.P. then Highway M-26 and US-41. All I can say is if you take one up, take the other one down. Ride them, and I'll lay odds you'll want to go back and ride them again, only this time, faster! After an early breakfast, my wife and I left Twin Lakes and rode M-26 back to Houghton where this time we crossed over the Houghton/Hancock Lift Bridge. I hate riding over bridges with metal grates that cause your front tire to weave back and forth, but since my bike can't fly or tread water, we had to ride it.
Once on the other side I took M-26 which goes right rather than US-41 which was to the left. While I was familiar with US 41, I had never been on this stretch of M-26 before and was curious as to what we'd find along the way. M-26 runs along the canal headed east out of Hancock. Compared to the other side of the river, there isn't a lot of new building going on here. I'm sure sooner or later things will take off on this side of the canal as well. Any water frontage sooner or later starts to grow. The Copper Country is one small mining town after another. It's amazing how some old mining towns in the U.P. seemed to have flourished while others struggle to get by. You see a lot of that riding though the Copper Country. Sometimes I wonder what keeps people in some of these towns.
I caught a glimpse of it as I was riding by. Like some mechanical monster it just seem to be standing there. Two blocks later, I turned the bike around and went back. What was that piece of equipment sticking up out of these stone buildings? I had to know. I think the town was Tamarack City or once was anyway. I parked the bike along the road next to a park and my wife and I took a walk past the ruins. While not as ghostly as the ruins in Freda, it still captured my interest. Again, I wish I had some help piecing all the ruins together. You just can't do it looking at what's been left behind. This copper stamping mill sits on the edge of Torch Lake which was part of a EPA Superfund cleanup. Copper mining activities in the area from the 1890s until 1969 produced mill tailings that were dumped into Torch Lake and contaminated the lake sediments and shoreline. I guess the EPA found ways to clean up some or most of the lake because the water looked clean and clear. While I poked among the cement pillars, my wife wandered down to the lake to do a little exploring. When I eventually followed along, the first thing I noticed was the fencing around certain areas. I wonder if this was a polluted area. If so, it was pretty close to a new house being build on the lake shore. Later, getting back on the bike I saw a sign across the street that showed various lots for sale on the lake.
Just up the road, we rode through the town of Lake Linden, which seemed like one of the U.P. mining towns that had managed to put the loss of the mines behind them and was growing. It was a really nice looking little town and had we more time I would have stopped and walked around. It's in Calumet where M-26 hooks up with US-41 to head north towards Copper Harbor. My wife and I last stayed in the adjacent town of Laurium at bed and breakfast a couple years ago when I was in the area photographing waterfalls. Both towns are so full of history that I felt bad just riding through them this time without stopping. It was like riding past an old friends house, but not being able to stop in because you don't have the time. Hard to imagine Calumet once had over 50,000 residents back in its peak mining days.
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Motorcycle Service U.P. State Parks - there are at least 19 good reasons to buy a park sticker.
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