As you might imagine, Copper Harbor was established as a copper mining town. There are ruins and old mines all over the area, but the Delaware Copper Mine was right on our way back to Munising, and all the boys were excited about seeing a real mine, so we decided to go for it.
It turns out that the mine is kind of in the middle of nowhere (but honestly, so is everything else in the UP) and is a real DIY sort of place. We watched a short video about the history of the mine, picked out hard hats, and then the lady pointed us to the mine stairs and we were on our own. That's right, a self-guided tour of a creepy, drippy old mine. To add to the creepy factor, we could only go down about 100 feet because all the lower levels of the mine are filled with water.
I had some trouble getting pictures down there, but I really liked the tour. The boys were into it at first, but then they started complaining about being bored (which they would have done no matter where we were) and cold (I warned them to dress appropriately but nobody listened). The tour was about 40 minutes long, during which we saw only two other small groups. For the most part, we were all by ourselves down in the dark. In fact, they keep it extra-dim down there so visitors can get a real feel for the conditions the actual miners had to deal with every day. I certainly feel like I have a new appreciation for how awful it was!
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