Tahquamenon Falls, Michigan

Yes, one more waterfall post from Michigan!

Friday, we spent much of the day at Tahquamenon Falls, "near" Sault Ste. Marie.  I put the near in quotes because it takes a good hour and a half to reach it.


But, the good news is that it is located in Paradise.




We spent our time at the Upper Falls which has the larger drop.




Water flow was much less than it would be in springtime, but is still enough to make a spectacular show.


The upper falls trail offers several different perspectives.




And that sign that said it was only a quarter of a mile to the falls?  Well, they didn't tell me that much of that distance was vertical!


And, just in case you were wondering.

Calumet, Michigan

Calumet, Michigan ("B" on this Google Map) is not as remote a town as Copper Harbor ("A") on the Keweenaw Peninula.


But it has a large number of buildings (especially large churches) that make you wonder why a town of 798 is has such a large presence.  The answer is that it used to be bigger.  In 1900 the surrounding township had a population of over 25,000 and the Houghton County population totaled over 88,000.

We drove into town looking for one notable church and passed over this rough pavement.


I soon discovered that it was historic pavement!  I took another picture to show it in a better light.


There are a few properties that could be turned into real improvement projects.


But some, like this old bar have been restored to very good condition.


But the pride of Calumet is its Theater.  Many towns had a nice theater for various traveling opera companies, theater companies, minstrel shows and the like around 1900.  But Calumet's was special.  It was owned by the city, held 1200 seats and when it opened in 1900 it had 1441 incandescent electric lights.  Another 160 lights outside spelled out the building's name.


The building is well-preserved and open to the public for self-guided tours.  It is well worth the stop if you are in the area.  A 1978 restoration project left a beautiful building.  The actual Theater is the right half of the building pictured.  The town hall occupies the left half.  Like many town halls of the day, there was a large upstairs room that served as a venue for town meetings, large wedding receptions, dances and other public events.

Here are a few interior scenes.





Band leader, John Philip Sousa played the hall three times.


Lillian Russel, Sarah Bernhardt and Harry Houdini also made appearances.  Famed Polish-born actress, Helena Modjeska, made appearances too.  


One minor complaint.  For a town that appears to want to make money from tourists, the parking meters are a bit of a pain - even when you can feed them for only a nickel or a dime.  And the parking rules near the Theater?


The rules seem odd, even if they are simple as 1-2-3.  And the folks in the theater building say "you will get a ticket, if you didn't back in!"

Copper Harbor, Michigan

We had planned to spend the night in Houghton, Michigan, Tuesday.  Far too many people had the same idea and there were no rooms at any motel listed in our directories.  We ended up going on another fifty or so miles to Copper Harbor where we spent the night in this cabin.


The Next morning, we had a good breakfast at the one restaurant in town.  Copper Harbor might be described as "isolated."  Here is where it lies on a Google Map.  While it is in Michigan, I don't think many locals will be found reading the Detroit newspaper.


There was a sign in our room stating "there is an emergency phone located on the east side of the visitor center." A check of your cell phone or iPad will show the reason for the sign.


Now, describing Copper Harbor as "isolated" is a bit of an understatement.  The Hunt's Guide to the Upper Peninsula puts it this way:

By December the year-round population has dropped to about 80, mostly retirees. The school population in the one-room elementary schoolhouse swings between a dozen or more down to three or two. This year it's two. 

 And here is that school:



The winter isolation comes from snow.  About a third of the way between Calumet and Copper Harbor, we found this "snomometer."




Driving even farther east from downtown Copper Harbor brought us to an abrupt "Road Ends" sign. Another sign, though, notes that it is really a beginning. The road to Miami starts here.


There is a lighthouse nearby which is likely Copper Harbor's most photographed sight.


But the road from Houghton out to Copper Harbor is a beautiful drive during leaf season.  A yellow and orange canopy covers much of the last ten miles.  And there is a steep road up to the top of Brockway mountain with a scenic view of the town, Lake Superior, and more fall color.

Bond Falls, Michigan

Tuesday, after our visit to Old Victoria, we were off to visit two more waterfalls.

We headed first to Bond Falls.


Bond Falls is located about 40 miles south of Ontonagon.  There were many more visitors here than at the falls we visited on Monday.  Bond is much more accessible and has multiple levels of falls.  Of course we stopped to look at a few leaves on the way in.  Yes they really are that red.


I took plenty of pictures, of course.  Now, Linda prefers the blurred appearance.  I call that the "Kool look".  I prefer the "stop action," droplets in the air appearance.  Here are both for your comparison.




And at another part of the falls, two more pictures.


I also like them without people, while Linda likes to add people.




I suppose a lot of people do prefer the blurred appearance to the stop action appearance since there were many people carrying tripods so they could shoot with the lower shutter speeds required for that look.


This is definitely our favorite waterfall in Michigan.  There are no guard rails and fences for the most part.  You can get right down by the water and feel the spray on your face.  There are at least a half dozen major drops in this one waterfall and I could easily find fifty ways to photograph it.