Built to Last

On Monday of last week, Kristine and I decided to visit the Old Victoria site near Rockland, MI. OV is an abandoned village that housed and provisioned copper miners during the 19th and early 20th centuries, now preserved as part of the Keweenaw National Historic Park. Some buildings from the village have been nicely restored and furnished with period items; you can tour them for $5. I was more interested in the ruins, just up the hill from the village, of a mining operation that briefly exploited an 1849 copper strike. Within about a quarter mile radius, there is a cluster of crumbling stone buildings and bulky, rusted machinery. A section of the North Country Trail leads directly thorugh the largest of the buildings, which is missing a roof and glass for the windows, but otherwise seems farily solid (in fact, anchor cables for a nearby radio tower are staked to the buidling's foundation). With trees and wildflowers growing in its corners and from a few stone vaults in the floor, it looks like a garden court. Standing in it while Kristine took photos, I found myself deeply impressed with it for two reasons:

1) Building these structures in a rugged, remote area in the mid-nineteenth century must have required extraordinary planning and ingenuity. No Home Depot up the road if you found you were missing a part or a tool. Of course, I'm sure there were blacksmiths and carpenters on site to fashion some needed items, but you still would have to calculate pretty carefully in advance what you would need to pack in, and know how to respond to inevitable setbacks along the way.

2) These things were built with care. The wooden window frames that remain in the mine buildings have been exposed to the elements and unmaintained for the better part of a century and a half--and they're still in better shape than most of the woodwork on my porch. Give them a little primer and paint, some new glass panes, and no one would know they hadn't been lovingly tended.

We were told by a guide in the village area that one of the old mine buildings just off the park site has been restored as a private home. Pretty sweet quarters, I'd bet, and possibly worth more than the little ore that mine ever produced.