The beauty of taking a walk here in the Keweenaw, is that even when you're near home, you still aren't far from the peace and quiet of a trail in the woods. Bob Gilreath and his wife Liz took a walk from their home in Hubbell, through the woods, to the old Torch Lake docks, past the mining buildings that still remain on the Lake Linden-Hubbell stretch of M-26 and back to their home again.

We've been fortunate this year to still be able to take a walk in the woods without needing snowshoes, since we don't have near the snowcover we normally have for the middle of January. Of course that may all have changed by the time you read this, as I'm writing it on Sunday afternoon and we're supposed to be getting a snow event from Sunday evening into Monday and during the week I think, also. I haven't checked the forecast myself, but have heard talk of snow in feet, not inches. We'll have to see how this one plays out!

Thank you Bob Liz and Mary. Good to see my home town.

I wonder if anyone drove the '57 Chevy to the Hiawatha Drive In back in the day?

Great pictures. The 57 Chevy deserves a better fate than sitting out in the cold rusting. I hope someone has plans for it. Can anyone tell me what the purpose of the sandstone wall was/is? Inquiring minds want to know.......So do I:)

Beautifully Wintry and historic.

The sandstone wall was probably the foundation of a building that is long gone.

Oh such familiar surroundings seen in these
photos. Thanks so much for taking a walk and
taking us along. Love them!! Too cold to walk
here today. You can't breathe out there.

From old mining buildings, railroad locomotives and cars to drive-in theaters, and autos all just left in place as the owners walked away.

Where were/are the steel-helmeted, jack-booted, flak-jacketed zoning enforcement gestapo?

Thankfully not there, or we wouldn't have any of these historic relics at all. 'Tis only too sad that so few have been properly preserved for us and future generations?

Of course we probably could do without the the '57 Chevy (and a number of worse automotive carcasses) slowly rusting away out in da bush.

Another possible reason for the sandstone wall is a retaining wall for the hillside so it impedes soil creep down the hill. For years, I took a series of photos of a retaining wall in Champion and everytime I was there, that wall kept moving and breaking until finally it was removed. Dr. Nat uses it for teaching to show that Earth is always on the move.

Thanks to Richard and Capt. Paul for offering up possibilities of why the sandstone wall exists.

My dad would take us to the Lakes in a 1957 2 tone blue station wagon. So yes, there was a '57 Chev there many times.