Copper Island is a local name given to the northern part of the

Keweenaw Peninsula The Keweenaw Peninsula ( , sometimes locally ) is the northernmost part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It projects into Lake Superior and was the site of the first copper boom in the United States, leading to its moniker of " Copper Country." As ...

(projecting northeastward into

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh w ...

at the western end of the

Upper Peninsula of Michigan The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by ...

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

), separated from the rest of the Keweenaw Peninsula by Portage Lake and the

Keweenaw Waterway The Keweenaw Waterway is a partly natural, partly artificial waterway which cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan; it separates Copper Island from the mainland. Parts of the waterway are variously known as the Keweenaw Waterway, Portage ...

Geography

The area was "isolated" by dredging in 1859 and construction in the 1860s of a ship canal across an

isthmus An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthm ...

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 The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

nor the state of Michigan identify this area as an island or use this name.

Isle Royale Isle Royale National Park is an American national park consisting of Isle Royale – known as Minong to the native Ojibwe – along with more than 400 small adjacent islands and the surrounding waters of Lake Superior, in the state of Michig ...

is the largest naturally isolated island in Lake Superior; considered as an island, Copper Island would be the largest, with an area of around 554 square miles. 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 The Copper Country is an area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States, including Keweenaw County, Michigan, Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties as well as part of Marquette County. The area is so named as copper minin ...

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 Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...

in those locales considered themselves to be "Copper Islanders". As the foregoing source indicates, "Copper Island" has sometimes been used as a

sobriquet A sobriquet ( ), or soubriquet, is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another, that is descriptive. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym, as it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name, without the need of expl ...

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 Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 m ...
. 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 Tapiola (; sv, ) is a district of the municipality of Espoo on the south coast of Finland, and is one of the major urban centres of Espoo. It is located in the western part of Greater Helsinki. The name ''Tapiola'' is derived from '' Tapio'', wh ...
, 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 U.S. Route 41, also U.S. Highway 41 (US 41), is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs from Miami, Florida, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Until 1949, the part in southern Florida, from Naples to Miami, ...

crosses this

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

. It enters Michigan at

Menominee The Menominee (; mez, omǣqnomenēwak meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally reco ...

and goes north to its terminus just east of Copper Harbor at the far eastern tip of the

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on al ...

Modern usage of the name

A newspaper named ''Copper Island News'' was formerly published in Hancock, at least in the 1880s. Copper Island is the core that the Keweenaw Water Trail wraps around. It is a designated

loop Loop or LOOP may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live * Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets * Loop Mobile, ...

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

is central to it, crossing the peninsula. The 'Copper Island Classic' is an

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

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

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrati ...

ical 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 Native copper is an uncombined form of copper that occurs as a natural mineral. Copper is one of the few metallic elements to occur in native form, although it most commonly occurs in oxidized states and mixed with other elements. Native copp ...

in the region.

References

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