Gearing up for Summer
The past week involved a full schedule of activities focused on preparing for the summer season. Starting on Tuesday morning, Julie and I cleaned the Chassell Heritage Center along with seven other Chassell Historical Organization board members (Dave Bezotte, Judy Evert, Millie Pyorala, Dorthey Behrend, Ed Kautto, Mike Soumis, and Sandi Engel) in preparation for our summer season. It involves a lot of dusting, sweeping, and mopping.
The Chassell Heritage Center (including the Friends of Fashion collection) is open during the months of July and August on Tuesdays (1 p.m. to 4 p.m.), Thursdays (4:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.), and Saturdays (1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.). We have programs on Thursday evenings at 7:00 p.m. in the second floor auditorium and you can find this summer’s program schedule on Chassell Heritage Center Facebook page at this link. We have an awesome working board! If you would have an interest in learning more about Chassell’s history and possibly being an active member of our organization, we are always interested in adding to our board! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you would be interested in joining our board!
After wrapping up the Heritage Center cleaning, fellow Chassell Township Planning Commission member Steve Spahn picked me up and we headed into Houghton to pick up seven signs from Industrial Graphics. Five of these were for the Chassell Historic Trail and two were for the canoe/kayak launch on the Sturgeon River at the US 41 bridge.
We met up with our Chassell Planning Commission Chair, Brian Waters, on the Historic Trail where we dug post holes and secured the sign posts in place with Quikrete that I had picked up earlier in the morning from McGann’s in Hancock. We started out with the Legacy of the Mill sign.
Jake Elenich joined us at the Chassell House sign which was second of our five historic trail signs and he was a big help on the post hole digger.
From the Chassell House sign, we installed the Logging Camps, From Forest to Mill, and Logs Arriving at the Mill signs between the Chassell House sign and the lake. I would like to extend a big thank you to all of our partners on this project, including: the John & Melissa Besse Foundation for its generous grant that made the trail’s nine signs and 400’ of wetland boardwalks possible; MTU industrial archeology Ph.D candidate James Schwaderer and Chassell Township Schools students who researched content for the signs; former and current Chassell Heritage Center Curators Luanne Hamel and Mat Moore as well as Brian Waters who worked with me on assembling that research content into draft interpretive signs; MTU Social Sciences Department Chair Don Lafrenier who helped us incorporate the Keweenaw Time Traveler into the project (through the 1908 Sanborn Map) and provided QR codes for the signs that will allow the Keweenaw Time Traveler to be a continuing project for learning between MTU and the Chassell Township Schools; MTU Assistant Teaching Professor Terri Frew and her art and design class students who during the fall 2022 semester took the content we provided and turned it into cool sign designs; Industrial Graphics in Houghton for its manufacturer of the signs; land owner Doug Hamar who has provided the easement for the trail’s access to the former mill site and the MDNR for use of the rail-trail for a big part of the trail’s easement; Hunter King with the EGLE for his work with us on the required permit; DP Construction for its late fall construction of the boardwalk through the wetland portion of the trail; and local North Country Trail sawyers and students from the Chassell Township Schools who helped clear the pathway followed by the trail through the former mill site.
Brian and Jake needed to move on after 2 p.m., so Steve and I went ahead and installed the two Sturgeon River canoe/kayak launch signs. The ground making up the former US 41 right-of-way was so packed down it was like concrete. We had to use a large crowbar to break up the the soil to reach the needed eighteen inch depth. It took us awhile to get the holes dug, but we accomplished the task. A big thanks to Visit Keweenaw for their grant which made these two signs possible as well as technical assistance from Steve Rouser with the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region (WUPPDR) on the map; to John DePue with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Joe Youngman on the wildlife and fishery content; to Mat Moore for his graphic design creativity on both of the signs; and to Industrial Graphics for their great job on the signs.
If the day wasn’t full enough already, I headed into Hancock for a Hancock Trails Club board meeting from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. and kept the minutes in my capacity as board Secretary.
Wednesday was spent doing Chassell Township related business, particularly pulling together final details for our update to our MDNR SPARK Grant proposal that Chassell Township Clerk Lynn Gierke would be addressing on Friday as well as securing information for Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance Executive Director Jeff Ratcliffe related to a developer’s interest in the two Hancock Street properties currently in the Houghton County Land Bank.
I also had the opportunity to slip in a cutting of the lawn just ahead of our next Airbnb guests. The weather was unseasonably hot and dry all week, so the grass had not gotten too long. We had a series of two-night stays and all of the guests this past week were exceptional!
Thursday I was back at the Historic Trail to spend a few hours weedwhacking the tall grass between the Rail-Trail and the Hot Pond.
Friday I slipped in a morning 1,750 yard swim at MTU’s SDC and then worked with Lynn Gierke on updating the narrative and adding permits and additional letters of support to our MDNR SPARK Grant proposal. We also turned over the cabin for our next Airbnb guests out of Minnesota who were here to pick up items they had secured from the Finlandia online auction.
Yesterday morning I put in a 5-mile run on the Rail-Trail and in the afternoon we went for a hike on the Maasto Hiihto and Churning Rapids Trails with our hiking group. Near the triangle we came across a raccoon which was so docile we wondered if it might have had distemper. I learned this morning that some rehab raccoons that had been bottle fed while young were released in adjoining property that might have helped explain its lack of fear.
While hiking the Long Bridge Trail we ran across some beautiful blue flag iris.
You can get a feel for the terrain covered on this hike from my GoPro video on the Remote Workforce Keweenaw YouTube channel at this link:
Do you embrace winter and have the ability to work remotely? Consider locating in the Keweenaw where you will find ubiquitous natural beauty, no congestion, and lower crime! Visit Remote Workforce Keweenaw at https://remoteworkforcekeweenaw.com and learn about those making the decision to locate here by following the Remote Workforce Keweenaw Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RemoteWorkforceKeweenaw.