Author: Karen

June 2015

This past winter one of my projects was to dive into a closet that has not seen the light of day for 17 years. The closed contained Grand Marais historical items. Back in 1998 I had gone through all the artifacts and organized them into categories. Some of the items were not conducive for being incorporated into museum displays. Other items were duplicates. One of the things I forgot that I have is a collection of large format film negatives of Grand Marais from a century ago. I also had dozens of vintage prints and post cards.

The film negatives intrigued me. I researched on the Internet the available methods of converting old film negatives into positive images and was excited to find out there are new scanners that do this automatically. I have wanted a high quality scanner for the past few years (since one that I had stopped working), so I decided to purchase one of these new types of scanners. Not only was I able to use the new scanner to convert the film negatives to positive JPEG images, but I also scanned all the vintage prints and post cards. Some of the images are included in this update.

The first picture below shows how many trees there were in Woodland Park a century ago. When the largest lumber company pulled up stakes and left Grand Marais in 1910, it donated three prime parcels of land to Burt Township. A campground was established in two of these lots; a baseball field was left intact on the third lot. Today, the recreation center, ice arena, basketball court, and tennis courts are on this third lot. During the last few years Burt Township has cut a lot of the trees down in Woodland Park. In fact, my son now calls it “woodless park.”

Prior to 1893 Grand Marais had very few residents. Everything changed in 1893 when a large lumber company located in Seney, MI decided to move its entire operation to Grand Marais. This company already had a short-line railroad from Seney half way to Grand Marais, so they extended the railroad the remaining 15 miles. In Grand Marais they constructed different railroad stations. The first photo below shows the passenger train that stopped at the head of Grand Marais Bay where the picnic shelter is now located. The second photo below shows a local dog sled team with the train in the background. Dog teams were commonly used by Grand Marais residents to get around during the winter. The third photo shows the railroad warehouse, which was located along the bay. This building no longer exists.

This next photo shows the Marais Lumber Company that was located where the marina is now situated. The trees cut west of town were dragged to the Log Slide and pushed down a chute to Lake Superior. Then they were corralled in a boom and floated seven miles east to Grand Marais. Trees cut east of town were transported by several short line railroads, none of which survive to today.

A century ago Grand Marais was a much larger town. The official census documented over 2,000 residents, but the actual number was probably a lot higher since there were many hundreds of transients that worked in the lumber camps. The photo below shows Main Street.

With the increase in commerce not only in Grand Marais, but throughout the Lake Superior region, the U.S. government established a series of lifesaving stations including one in Grand Marais that was located at the end of what is now called Coast Guard Point. A picture of the original lifesaving station is below. The next image shows the first lifesaving boat, led by Captain Trudell. How would you like to head out into a Lake Superior storm with this type of boat?

Although the lifesaving station was very competent, these brave men could not prevent shipwrecks – but could save the crews of the doomed vessels. The southern shore of Lake Superior is called “the graveyard coast.” Hundreds of ships sunk between Whitefish Point and Marquette, including dozens in the Grand Marais area. The photos below show ships that sunk just outside Grand Marais harbor in a fierce storm. This storm took out the Galatea and the Turret Crown. More information is included in the History Gem posting from July 2010 about these shipwrecks (see archive at the bottom of this page).

Although the lumber companies thought they had an almost unlimited supply of lumber in the Grand Marais area, it took less than 20 years for them to clear cut the surrounding country side. In 1910 the larger mills shut down. The mill owned by Alger and Smith moved their entire operation to Minnesota. Although railroad service was shut down immediately, since the lumber company took their train with them, innovative residents of Grand Marais were able to use the tracks for a few years by fashioning track-compatible coaches pulled by horses. By 1914 the lumber company finished taking its train tracks, too. For the next five years Grand Marais was a very isolated town. The only way to get to Grand Marais was by boat in the warmer months or by dog sled in the winter months. The photos below shows the temporary Seney stage.

February 2015

NOTE: I found this newspaper article in the Gitche Gumee Museum’s archive. At the beginning of the article, it states that this is number 27 in a series of touring articles dealing with the Dunes of Michigan.

Four score years ago Henry Wadsworth Longfellow gave to the reading world his rhythmic “Hiawatha,” epic of th Northland Indians. Ever since that time children and grown-ups of the English speaking world have read in succeeding generation of the “Dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,” where Pau-Puk-Keewis, the mischief maker “whom the people called the “Storm Fool” danced at Hiawath’s wedding to Minnehaha, Laughing Water.

“On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo
By the shinning Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the lodge of Pau-Puk-Keewis.
It was he who in his frenzy
Whirled those drifting sands together,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,
When among the guests assembled
He so merrily and madly
Danced at Hiawatha’s wedding,
Danced the Beggars’ Dance to please them.”

How many Michigan children and how many Michigan grown-ups, reading the “Song of Hiawatha” have known that the “Dunes of Nagow Wudjoo, by the Shining Big-Sea-Water” are the dunes on the Grand Marais shore of Lake Superior in their own home state?

How many tourists speeding along M-28 and Us-2, main east and west arteries of travel in the Upper Peninsula – and mistakenly thinking that in so doing they are really seeing the Upper Peninsula – know that 25 miles north of M-28 and 42 miles north of US-2 are massed some of the most astonishing, most breath-taking dunes on the North American Continent?

Lonely, Remote Shore

The reason that the “dunes of Nagow Wudjoo” are little known in spite of the immortal and international publicity given them by Longfellow is that they are on a remote, deserted coast of Lake Superior, unfrequented by present-day travelers.

They were, perhaps, better known to the travelers of Indian days, of missionary days, of trader days, of pioneer days than to the far more numerous tourists of today because in those far-off times the principal means of transportation was by water. The canoes of the Indians, the barges of the traders, the sailing craft and steamboats of explorers and pioneers passed along the shore. The these tourists of primeval Michigan the towering dunes atop the bluff extending from Grand Marais harbor to Au Sable Point were outstanding landmarks. They were in sharp contrast to the steep, jagged cliffs of the Pictured Rocks, their immediate scenic neighbors on the shore to the west.

The dunes impressed themselves on the minds of the Indians. They impressed themselves on Henry Schoolcraft, explorer, student and collector of Indian lore. It was from Schoolcraft’s writings that Longfellow is said to have derived the descriptions and the legends he embodied in word music in “Hiawatha.”

The “dunes of Nagoe Wudjou” were on a lonely shore in Hiawatha’s time, in Schoolcraft’s time. They are on a lonely shore today. The exploring tourist may reach then by way of Highway M-77 to Grand Marais, thence by a local road to Grand Sable Lake two miles to the west.

NOTE: The photo in the article was quite faded without contrast, so I substituted my own photographs.