• Sunday-What'sUP October 27 - 07:38 pm

Brockway Mountain has been a happenin' place for a long time, and it's in the news once again. Today's Shoebox Memories comes from a variety of sources, including the "Friends of Brockway Mountain" page on Facebook, the Paul LaVanway collection, and the Michigan Tech Archives.

On the facebook page the photo caption states it is an eclipse around 1953. If you know the area, you can deduce from the position of the sun that it occurred sometime in the summer, and around mid morning, looking east, toward the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge just to the right of the photo. The camera is positioned around the "Skytop" shop, perhaps standing on it's roof.

We have recently spent some time on the roof of the present-day gift shop, removing all of the broadband relay equipment that has served Pasty.NET members over the past decade. Eagle Harbor Township will be removing the existing building and constructing a new visitor's center by next year. In the meantime the township has provided a spot for the relay to continue serving toward Eagle Harbor, Medora, Lake Bailey and points west. Powered courtesy of Lake Superior's breezes (and gales).

This summer we achieved a direct link from Mt. Horace Greeley to the tower at the Mountain Lodge, so the Brockway relay is no longer needed to serve Copper Harbor. However, this weekend - while doing repair work on some loose guy wires at KML - it became apparent that a vehicle must have recently rammed into the tower. This has affected broadband coverage down into Copper Harbor, as the antennas have been knocked off their optimal aiming. In the coming week Keweenaw County will be having more extensive work done on the tower, and hopefully full service will be restored to the Harbor.

Perhaps we'll be able to bring you a follow up report next week on both the work at Brockway and the repairs at the Mountain Lodge. Stay tuned.

Have a good week :o)

These have to be some of the best pictures yet!

I remember a solar eclipse in Nashville in the mid 1950s ~ I was on the way home from my parent's house when I noticed that it was getting dark like an approaching storm but the sky was clear! Then I heard on the car radio that we were experiencing an eclipse. Spooky sight.

LOVE the pictures. When I click on cam notes, next to todays pictures, I get the cam notes pictures from last week. Click on the picture of brockway and todays pictures come up.

Me too, Mickell.:>

You see the women dressed in dresses and hats and the men have ties and hats. The men remind me of my grandpa, always had a hat and dress-type shirt and creased dress-slacks with cuffs. I never saw my grandpa in a pair of blue jeans. He always wore his hat with a slight tilt to it and some kind of a dress shirt. As I got older I started to call him a 'dapper dude', which he thought was funny.

Well done! Excellent photos and story of a work in progress. Brockway is one of those places that links us all together. What will it be like in another sixty years, I wonder.

Friends of Brockway Mountain's FaceBook page is interesting reading!

I remember those times well ~ when men were 'gentlemen' and women were 'ladies'. My mama wore high-heels, gloves and a hat, and my daddy wore a suit, tie and hat when they went shopping.

Ahem...and yes my mama wore a dress or suit, too. Forgot that part.;)

Isn't your Brockway relay solar powered as well?

Charlie sez: Over the winter we have always switched to wind power, and then back to the solar in the spring. The main reason for doing this was because of the noise of the wind generator. The place we have moved down the hill toward Eagle Harbor may be far enough away to make year-round wind power more practical. We are still working with Eagle Harbor Township in regard to its future location.

20th C eclipse history on Wikipedia:
wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_eclipses_in_the_20t
h_century

OR see the 5 millenia catalog at NASA:
eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/catalog.html,

--- A son of Yoopers, walking across Spain (El
Camino de Santiago.)

Lucky you, Denmann. This daughter of Yoopers longs to walk the
Camino one day. For now, I can only read about it and am taking an
art history course that covers the architecture and art that one
would encounter along the Camino. Where did you begin your
pilgrimage?

We watched that eclipse very early on a summer morning in 1954. In 1953 I was still in the Navy. We watched it from the beach at Big Traverse.

Charlie at Pasty Central (Chopper), heard a nasty rumor that another internet company was taking over. Hope that isn't true. :(

Charlie sez: Pasty.NET pre-dated the cell phone companies in serving broadband to the fringes of the Keweenaw. Cell phone service has still not reached some areas, like Copper Harbor. (See the discussion on the "Friends of Brockway" Facebook page). One reason why Pasty.NET continues growing, is because we have no limits on bandwidth, and we are constantly trying to increase speed and improve reliability for our membership, which represents a substantial part of the Keweenaw's population. We welcome the other wireless companies, but ultimately the best solution may be fiber to the home, which might best be acheived by the POWER companies.

The only constant in the universe is change. (Heraclitus)
Adabt and survive. (me)

Jim, glad you posted that ~ 'cause that helped remind me that would've been the time I saw it. In 1954 I was a newly-wed at the time of that eclipse.;)

These might be the coolest pictures I've ever seen on the daily Pasty Cam. Outstanding!

...adapt, even.

Sometimes 'Montezuma's revenge' will affect your typing fingers too, Alex.;>

I really like the look of the old Skytop Inn. Wish that one was still intact! :)