Copper Island

Copper Island is a local name given to the northern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula (projecting northeastward into Lake Superior at the western end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States of America), separated from the rest of the Keweenaw Peninsula by Portage Lake and the Keweenaw Waterway.

Geography

The area was "isolated" by dredging in 1859 and construction in the 1860s of a ship canal across an isthmus of the Keweenaw Peninsula from Portage Lake—on the east side of the Keweenaw Peninsula—to Lake Superior on the west. The ship canal is wide and deep. The resulting "island" was called ''Kuparisaari'' (meaning "Copper Island") by Finnish, Irish, and French/French Canadian settlers in the area. However, neither the United States Geological Survey nor the state of Michigan identify this area as an island or use this name. Isle Royale is the largest naturally isolated island in Lake Superior; considered as an island, Copper Island would be the largest, with an area of around . It has a population around 21,500.

History

Historically, "Kuparisaari" ('Copper Island') was used to mean the Keweenaw north of Portage Lake, but more generically the copper country of the Upper Peninsula. Inhabitants of the area wryly claimed "that they were outside the American mainland. In practical usage, however, the term included towns such as Oskar, Atlantic, Baltic, South Range, Houghton, Dodgeville and Hurontown" all of which were south of Portage Lake. Nevertheless, "unquestionably" Finns in those locales considered themselves to be "Copper Islanders". As the foregoing source indicates, "Copper Island" has sometimes been used as a sobriquet for Michigan's "copper country."

But in a larger sense, "Kuparisaari" was an amalgam of geographic location and cultural identity, particularly for the Finns. As one scholarly source notes:

Finnish immigration to Michigan’s copper district grew to become the most populous ethnic group with an enduring cultural identity. Kuparisaari, “copper island,” went beyond the Finnish immigrant identification of the island that comprises the northern half of the Keweenaw Peninsula to a symbolic island of landing, an Ellis Island. Michigan’s Copper Country is recognized as focal to Finnish immigration to America, the birthplace of many Finnish-American institutions religious, political and educational. This “island” includes both settlements in growing industrial urban communities like the Quincy, Calumet & Hecla and Champion mining settlements, and cleared forestland for traditional Finnish agriculture as in Toivola, Tapiola, Elo, Pelkie, and Waasa; Finns settled north and south of the Portage Waterway that bisects the peninsula. Perhaps more than any other immigrant group, the Finnish communities in the district were bisected into divisions of politics and faith. The Finns who immigrated to the copper mining district held to a pietistic Laestadian (Apostolic) Lutheran belief, to the state-sanctioned Lutheranism of Finland ( Suomi Synod) or rejected faith altogether. Within these divides of conscience of faith was a wide political spectrum: conservative to liberal adherents, resolute temperance advocates and active radical socialists. The social and economic conditions that emigrants left in northern Scandinavia and the Duchy of Finland influenced these allegiances and beliefs.

Communities and transportation

The principal towns on the Copper Island end of Keweenaw Peninsula are Hancock and Calumet. The area is connected to the rest of the Upper Peninsula by the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, the latest in a series of bridges between Hancock and Houghton. The bridge crosses the Portage Canal.

US 41 crosses this bridge. It enters Michigan at Menominee and goes north to its terminus just east of Copper Harbor at the far eastern tip of the peninsula.

Modern usage of the name

Copper Island is the core that the Keweenaw Water Trail wraps around. It is a designated loop route (which eliminates any need to use a shuttle or spot two vehicles) around and through the Keweenaw Peninsula for canoes and sea kayaks. The Keweenaw Waterway is central to it, crossing the peninsula.

The 'Copper Island Classic' is an ice hockey tournament contested annually between Hancock Central High School and Calumet High School. Such local usage still persists, and there are many business in the area that use it.

''The Race for Copper Island'' (New York: Benziger Bros., 1905) is a novel written by Henry Sanislaus Spaulding (1865–1934) that involves the area.

Alternate use

The phrase "Copper Island" was also used, especially in the 18th century, to describe a possibly mythical island in Lake Superior where there is an abundance of copper sitting on the surface of the land. While some scholars believe this was a reference to Isle Royale, the "island," because of its abundance of copper, could also have been the northern Keweenaw Peninsula, especially given the presence of vast quantities of native copper in the region.

See also

* Copper Country
* Keweenaw National Historical Park
* Door Peninsula

References

Further reading

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External links

Exploring Houghton and Hancock
in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

- MTU Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections, J. Robert Van Pelt Library
Keweenaw Time Traveler
an interactive digital historical atlas of the Copper Country

Islands of Keweenaw County, Michigan
Peninsulas of Michigan
Islands of Houghton County, Michigan