A Bicycle Trip Back In Time

My mother was born and raised in a small town called Laurium.

Copper Country.
Wilderness.
Isolated and sparsely populated.
Unspeakably harsh winters.

The record snowfall was 390 inches in 1978-79. By comparison, that same winter is also the worst ever for us in Chicago and we had 89 inches of snow.

As kids, we spent many a summer vacationing in Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor: two tiny towns at the end of the peninsula, on the rugged shores of Lake Superior, just north of my mother’s hometown. There were some things we experienced that were probably typical of childhood vacations and plenty that made those trips somewhat unique.

The drive was about eight hours, and we knew we were getting close when we made an obligatory stop at the Bishop Baraga Shrine in the town named after him.

The shrine consisted of a giant 60-foot copper statue of the bishop, holding a cross and his snowshoes, overlooking the Keweenaw Bay.

My parents usually booked a cottage in Eagle Harbor, just down the road from a historic, handsome red and white lighthouse on the rocky lakeshore.

Sleep eluded us, as the ominous sounding horn of the lighthouse intermittently moaned into the night, followed by what felt like a searchlight passing through the room, as if there had been a prison break. It was truly frightening. In the morning, we walked down to the beach, but the water was ice cold and not suitable for swimming.

So what did we do up there? 

My older siblings remember fishing on Lake Bailey, together with our dad and the aunts, who were very outdoorsy. One of my most distinct memories is discovering a giant patch of thimbleberries with Auntie Chris and thinking we had struck gold.

They are not a well-known, common berry, but they grow in the wild like crazy in the U.P, mostly by roadsides and in forest areas, where there is both sun and shade. We would all pick them together and my mother would make thimbleberry jam.

Along the shore, we would skip stones, look for agates, and stop at various sites such as the Devil’s Washtub, a pool that was formed from a hole in the rocks. The waves would rush into it and slam violently about, and we would observe it from high above. The name alone scared us, let alone the prospect of somehow falling in.

In the evenings, we would watch the sunset over Lake Superior and eat a picnic dinner that included the pasty:

It had been brought over by the miners and was a way that they could have a hot meal while they were down in the mines. They are not found in too many other places in the U.S. outside of the Upper Peninsula.

After dark, campfires on the beach were always in play, as was taking a drive in the station wagon to the garbage dump to see bears picking through the trash. If you saw John Candy take his kids to a bear dump in the movie The Great Outdoors, that’s exactly what it was like, however, I wouldn’t advise tempting the bears with a candy bar.

We would also visit with relatives that still lived up there. My favorite was Great Auntie Vic, who played the accordion, and lived in a mysterious place called Raymbaultown (the locals pronounced it Rambletown) that’s not actually a town, has no official boundaries, and is not on the map. I remember driving up a dirt road to get to her house, and that she had an old pump organ, which she let me play.

The U.P. trips stopped when I was around 12. Some of us returned years later for Auntie Chris’ funeral and then again for Grandma’s funeral in the dead of winter, where the snow drifts reached 12 feet high along the roads. Other than that, none of us went back up there, until my brother Mike came up with a grand idea.

The oldest of the six of us, Mike was in top physical shape and into all sorts of outdoor sports and adventures.

One of his biggest passions was cycling.

I owned a bike and would occasionally do some riding, but I had never taken up the sport, nor had I ever exercised regularly. Mike knew this and had told me that if I signed on to the trip, I would need to train seriously for it, starting immediately. My wife and I talked about it, and decided that we wanted to go.

After an ill-advised ride involving a hill and a fence a few years back, I was under no delusions that when it came to cycling, I had any idea of what I was doing. Consequently, I was basically a blank slate and was willing to do whatever I was told to prepare for the trip. And believe you me, Mike had a training regimen at the ready.

When things began to thaw out, I would ride an 8-mile loop at the nearby forest preserve. As I progressed, I gradually increased the distance, per Mike’s instructions, and by June, I was able to do 4 loops. Upper Michigan was going to have much more challenging hills than what we had around us, so Mike encouraged me to find any kind of incline that would help prepare me.

The training was not without incident. On my way to the trail one day, I was crossing an intersection and collided into the side of a pizza truck that had failed to stop. I had a giant bruise on my side, and was really sore, but after about a week of healing, I was able to get back to it. My brother Greg, who was also preparing for the ride, was not so fortunate. Greg was an experienced biker, and we would sometimes train together. Riding with him was a big help. One day, when he was riding solo, he wiped out badly and ended up in the hospital with a broken hip. It would be a long, painful recovery process, and sadly, he would have to miss the trip.

As July approached, Mike felt confident that I would be ready, though I was still nervous, never having done anything like this before. In passing, he mentioned the possibility of biking up Brockway Mountain, which is on the way from Eagle Harbor to Copper Harbor. Bear in mind that it’s Michigan, not Colorado, so we’re talking just 720 feet above sea level, but nonetheless, the thought of it terrified me and I said there was no way I was doing that.

The trip was timed to coincide with my mother’s annual high school reunion, so Mom was with us, even though she was not a bike rider. My sister Marybeth and her husband John also made the trip. Sometimes we would split up into groups and sometimes we would all ride together. Mike and I did some rides with just the two of us. I would say that we rode anywhere from 25-35 miles a day. It was rough, especially some of the hills, but after months of training, I was ready for it, and man, did it feel awesome. Mike’s training plan had been spot on in every way.

Being back in the U.P. was a surreal and magical experience. Much of it was as we remembered it, as if it had been just waiting for our return. The lighthouse at Eagle Harbor still stood watch over the craggy shore, though with the mines long shut down, the ore boats no longer stopped there and the horn was shut off, thankfully. We took a tour of the Delaware Copper Mine and visited plenty of our old haunts.

You could still get a pasty nearly anywhere. Mike and I even found one on a beach and wanted to try it, but Marybeth was horrified and forbid us. Some Benedictine monks had taken up residence in the area and had opened a bakery called the Jam Pot, and yes, they had thimbleberry jam. Tasting it for the first time since childhood was like going back in time.  

Mike had bike shirts made special for the tour, which included a map of the Keweenaw, as well as the phrase “this one’s for the hipster” as a shout-out to Greg. He also included as a “sponsor” of the tour, pasty.com:

When we paid them a visit, we met the administrator and Mike showed him our shirts. He said that it was very nice that he included their website, and then pointed out that it was misspelled and was actually the address for a porn hub. Greg got a nice chuckle out of this when he found out about it.

Near the end of the trip, Mike once again brought up Brockway Mountain. It still scared me, but feeling more confident after a week of riding, I decided to go for it. The drive was 8 miles total, with inclines longer and steeper than anything I had ever done. Mike, of course, was kicking that mountain’s butt. As for me, at times I thought I was going to die and was desperately hoping for one more low gear that didn’t exist, but Mike was with me every step of the way, letting me know I could do it, and I made it to the top without stopping.

That trip turned out to the beginning of something special. Some of us would return five years later for my 40^th birthday, and to date, all of my siblings have found their way back at least once. Mike and I joined up with an organized ride a few years later that was even more extensive. About 4 years ago, my wife and I took our daughter to the U.P. for the first time.

The journey continues.

Views: 84