Laurie Bashaw and her hubby, Ed, were out on an adventure recently. Here’s what she had to say about this interesting spot and the history behind it:

“We headed just north of L'Anse, off the Arvon Road to see the 60' rock cut from the late 1800's. It was created to run the Iron Range and Huron Bay Railroad from Champion to an ore dock in Skanee. Over $2 million dollars was spent only to find out that the uphill grade was too much for the locomotives to pull the ore cars. This is definitely a piece of history and worth the ride.”

“The Million Dollar railroad that never was. Deep in the Arvon Mountain range, you will find a unique rock cut in a large rock embankment. Dynamited rock was carried by wheel barrow from this location to a deeper hill for fill further down the rail line. Lack of money and competition caused this venue to fail. The water always runs through the cut, even in the winter. On certain days, the whole channel fills with fog.”

Very interesting pictures for sure. I
think my claustrophobia would kick in. Can
you imagine the work that went into that,
only to have it not do the job? There was
probably a lot of that happening back then.
Thanks for sharing.

Doug Feltman has some of the most phenomenal
videos. Unreal.

Desolate looking project.

Hi
It looks a bit narrow for a railroad, as well. My
guess: some company exec didn't want to hear about
any problems...but gravity doesn't care about your
rank.

Until I got to the text describing this, I was
thinking it was some sort of natural feature,
maybe from ancient volcanic activity. There IS
such a feature in Lake Superior Provincial park in
Ontario, on the way down to the pictographs. I was
all set to be enlightened by Capt. Paul or Dr.
Nat.

It may have been intended for a narrow-gauge
railway, similar to those used to bring RR cars into
the backwoods for lumbering. I don't know whether
narrow gauge lines were used in iron mining; they
were in coal mining.