Brockway Mountain Drive offers stunning picture-postcard
views of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula and, on a clear day, you might even
catch a glimpse of the wild and remote Isle Royale National Park nearly 50
miles distant.
We last drove the road during an early September
visit, just ahead of the fall color season in Michigan’s northernmost reaches,
so we saw the beginnings of a kiss of autumn color as we traveled the road. I
can only imagine how glorious these views must look at the height of fall color
a week or so later into the season.
Brockway Mountain Drive is the highest scenic
roadway between the Rockies and the Alleghenies, with its highest point hitting
1,328 feet above sea level (or 726 feet above Lake Superior’s surface).
The approximately 9-mile drive is just a short
distance outside of Copper Harbor, the small town at the very tip of the
Keweenaw Peninsula, but it can seem miles away from anywhere when you’re atop
the mountain.
While the numbers and the views are impressive, I’m
always more fascinated by the difficult work and engineering that must have
gone into what is one of northern Michigan’s legacies from the Great Depression
in the 1930s.
With jobs in short supply during the dark days of
the Depression, the government’s Works Project Administration and Civilian
Conservation Corps created projects like Brockway Mountain Drive to provide
employment for workers. Unemployment was particularly acute in Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula with massive job losses among the area’s copper miners. The value of
the project went well beyond immediate employment as we continue to enjoy the
workers’ efforts more than 70 years later.
The project employed up to 300 workers for wages of
twenty-five cents per hour. Imagine those workers cutting a road along the
steep cliff on the Keweenaw Fault!
Keep an eye out for vintage-1930s stone walls along
the route and be sure to visit the Skytop Inn, a small gift shop atop the
Brockway Mountain Summit originally established in 1934.
The road offers plenty of scenic turnouts to stop
and enjoy the view, as well as places to walk and learn about the mountain’s
rich ecosystem. Those visiting in early June can enjoy the peak season for many
of Brockway Mountain’s more than 700 wildflower varieties, many unique to this particular
area.
There is no electricity atop the mountain, making
the trip a must-do for astronomy buffs seeking the unadulterated darkness of
the night sky that’s ideal for stargazing or maybe even seeing the Northern
Lights.
Brockway Mountain Drive opens in spring when the
road is clear of the Keweenaw’s legendary accumulation of winter snow and
closes to cars in late fall, when it becomes a snowmobile trail.
We’ve found the drive worth taking even on the
haziest and windiest of days—and it can get plenty windy atop Brockway! The
haze may give your photos more of a vintage Polaroid look, and feeling the
strong winds may give you even more of an appreciation for those hard-working
former miners who carved this pathway so long ago that we may enjoy some of
Michigan’s most beautiful vistas today.
© Dominique King
Those pictures are beautiful! I can only imagine what it would look like at the height of the fall colors.
Posted by: Becks Davis | June 19, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Nice photos, especially the first one, so cheerful the colours. Many great views come along the way, accidentally jumping into the sight.
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Posted by: Jean - OurExplorer Tour Guide | June 21, 2009 at 02:24 AM
Becks-I'd love to see this area in full fall color, too. Our last trip was timed to slide into Isle Royale just before it closed the lodge for the season...so we were just ahead of the color.
Jean-Thanks! The Keweenaw is quite a distance from us in Detroit, so it's a real treat when we can get up to the area. We love northern Michigan because of the scenery and access to great outdoor activities like hiking, swimming and canoeing.
Posted by: Dominique | June 21, 2009 at 06:33 AM