• Friday-What'sUP August 24 - 09:30 am

We have a newcomer to the Pasty Cam today, Carolyn Rowland, but she's not a newcomer to the U.P., since 5 generations of her family have lived and played on the shores of Lake Superior in the Freda area. Her family recently made the trip UP North for a get-together with relatives, but before they got to Freda, there was a necessary stop in the Au Train area, for a little Superior fix. Carolyn said her daughter loves it and every time this little girl got near Gitche Gumee, she jumpd in.
With a snapshot like this, is there any wonder why so many folks are mesmerized by Lake Superior? I think not...

When Carolyn and family finally arrived in Freda, they enjoyed checking out the cliffs along the shoreline, the beach (with the smokestack in the background) and the Champion Mill mining ruins, where her grandfather worked after emigrating from here from Finland. Plenty of mining history, right there on Superior's shores, but what draws Carolyn and her family back time and time again, is their family history right there, too. It's part of the magic of the U.P. and Lake Superior.

Thanks for joining our Pasty Cam family and sharing your U.P. adventures, Carolyn!

So awesome!! I'm so glad Carolyn shared these pictures with you so you could share them with everybody else!! She took some great pictures while she was there. Unfortunately, we missed each other by one day, but I lived her tirp through her pictures. She's an excellent photographer!!

Thank you Carolyn and Mary for sharing these with us. We don't see enough of the area that my dad's family grew up!

Welcome Carolyn! Awesome pictures of an awesome time! Especially the second picture!

Downright awesome stuff!!!

The beautiful second photo puts me in mind of the view of the Pacific Ocean along the coast hwy. at Big Sur, Calif., which is a bit higher.

Looks like the predictable gang of 'AWESOME' users are at it again this morning:)

Nice pics!

"It's so quiet in the ruins, walking through the old town" (Cat Stevens)

Frank you're awesome as well!

...oh, I forgot: AWESOME!

Think I have to agree with you in a way, FJL, none of these photos evoke 'dread, terror or fear', except maybe the second one.:)

Help this old memory of mine: Back in the 1960’s as a kid, I think I recall having to drive right through the active working mill in order to get to the road beyond it that goes to the mouth of the Graveraet River. Could this have been true, anyone?

AWESOME PIC'S! EH!

Just an FYI...awesome can also mean, inspiring awe or admiration or wonder.

Alex, there is no question your description of awesome is exactly the awesome we all were expressing. Thank You!

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Railroads/CopperRange/COPRTimeLine.htm

Here is a good list of items relating to the opperation of Copper Range Railroad by Clarence Monette.....

Interesting with a touch of sadness there....thank you, Eddyfitz.

The ruins are what's left of the old Copper Range stamp mill, which processed copper rock from the Champion Mine in Painesdale and (in the 1960s) reprocessed stamp sands reclaimed from the Houghton Canal area near where the old Bosch brewery was. The mill operated until 1967. I've never seen the ruins from the angle of the water's edge. Thanks!

Eddyfitz and Peter Ouillette, that was very interesting. Thank you both.

Cool pics and love all the different perspectives. Thanks for sharing Carolyn!

Great photos. I only get out that way once in awhile!

Gary, you are certainly correct. My mother says you did have to
drive through the mill (near the lakeshore to get to the river. I
always find it hard to picture the mill even with the ruins. It's
amazing that so many people worked and lived in Freda and
most of that history is gone. I walk down the sidetrack road
(thanks Ben Durocher) where lots of families lived and the trains
ran from the Beacon Hill trestle to the mill to drop rocks from the
mine and I find that nature has taken it back. When I was a kid
you could still see the railroad bed (rails were gone) and some of
the buildings still stood to remind you of the families who used
to live there. As for the cliffs, I always wondered how more
people didn't fall over those cliffs. My great grandfather raised
12 kids atop those cliffs and not one of them fell over the edge. I
don't know how they kept toddlers from getting too close.
Another threat was the train that ran right in front of our house.
I'm sure kids played around those tracks. There was no barrier to
keep kids from standing on the tracks when the train was
coming though my mother says it was a loud train and it would
blow its whistle at Beacon Hill so you knew it was coming. Today
we'd probably wrap our children in a bubble to protect them
from these threats but it was a different world back then.

Oh and I'm not that new. I've been around pasty but not for a few
years. Two of these were mine...

https://www.pasty.com/discus/messages/3941/4525.html

Life just gets too hectic to stay in touch sometimes.

Ah, and here's a picture of the Champion Mill in Freda showing the
road that led under the mill. This one's for Gary. This is from 1965
and taken by my Margaret Rowland (aka mom).

http://
www.flickr.com/photos/dohne/2470209738/

Carolyn: Thanks for the info and the photo link. I guess I’m not crazy after all. At least on that account.

Kids didn’t fall off cliffs and get run over by trains because they paid attention to their surroundings and weren’t walking around talking on the phone and texting.

I think we all knew what "awesome" everybody meant. Sometimes people just have to get under your skin.

Carolyn, I told Mary to look back and that you had a picture on last year's pastycam calendar.

And thanks for the reminder, Gary. I now remember driving through the mill to get through. I had completely forgotten about that. I do know that getting down to my uncle's camp on the beach was treacherous when I was a child. It scared the crap out of me. I hated going down there, only for that reason.

And thanks for mentioning my dad, Carolyn. How I wish he would have put pen to paper and written down everything he remembered about those days. He did love Freda. I still have cousins up there. And my aunt (my dad's sister) lived in Redridge. So much history out that way. I love going to the cemetery and just walking around. I have a lot of relatives buried out there. I'm so glad that you took these pictures! It was totally awesome for me to see all of the beauty through your capable eye :-)

Deb - I wish your Dad had written down more of his memories too.
I bet he had a million of them.

He did. I even tried to get him to tape them. But, he never did. Too bad they died with him.

I don't know or remember having been to Freda. I'll have to make a point of visiting there when I'm up that way in September. I did remember that Deb's dad had lived up that way.