Isolation

July 23, 2008

Copper Harbor, MI

It seems like the towns get smaller with every project we are sent on: New Orleans to Beaumont to Franklin…to Copper Harbor. It’s the northernmost town in Michigan, located at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Total population: 81 residents. The nearest movie theater, grocery store, hospital, etc. is an hour away, in the town of Houghton. For all its isolation, however, this is a cool little town. There are a couple of ‘motels’ with cabins for rent rather than rooms, two little shops that sell maple-craft novelties, an awesome little ice cream shop, and a state park less than a half-mile up the road. It has the vibe of a resort town writ small; most of the people that you see around the town on a daily basis are tourists that come for the camping, kayaking, hiking, or mountain biking.

Those last two hobbies are why we are here. Our team is working with the Copper Harbor Trail Club to cut and refine two and a half miles of trail through the woods, a mile and a half of which will climb the 2500’ Brockway Mountain. These trails are regarded among the best in the country for hiking and mountain biking; the International Mountain Bike Association will be holding their annual rally up here in the next month or so, and there is the legendary Fat Tire bicycling festival, which occurred a week before we arrived.

And fuck me if it ain’t hard work. To be honest, it’s the most physically demanding work I’ve ever done in my life. Construction doesn’t hold a candle to this. We use pick-mattocks and Pulaski tools (combination axe and mattock) as well as sharpened MacLeod rakes to cut flowing trails through thick forests and steep hills, contending with 6” roots and massive rocks in the process. It’s exhausting and dirty work…but oddly satisfying. There’s something affirming about looking back at dozens of yards of trail that you tore through earlier that day.

Tent camping is a different matter. Now, I love camping. I am an Eagle Scout and have spent many nights in various tents and shelters around western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and Virginia. I’ve camped in 110-degree heat at Fort AP Hill, VA and have had my tent nearly collapsed by an overnight snowfall of 13+ inches up in Ligonier. Camping with an Americorps team is a completely different kind of event. We have people who have never camped before, and people who have but do not like it. We also have to keep our work equipment in good shape, and do all our cooking and cleaning. This last point is a tough one. Of the three cooking stoves we requisitioned from the tool room in Denver, two have since broke. Thus, most of our cooking is done over the fire…which tends to limit our menu choices and make even the simplest cooking task far more difficult.

EDIT: For some reason, there is wireless internet in this dinky-ass little town. No cell reception, grocery store, bank, post office...but they have Wi-Fi. Go figure.