• Friday-What'sUP April 6 - 08:23 pm

Whenever the weather cooperates, you'll find Nathan Miller out flying his aerial photography kites, snapping photos of the Keweenaw from up above. Today's location is in Ripley and starts with a great shot of the Quincy Smelter.

Nathan said he's been trying all season to get some good shots of this piece of mining history and until recently had been hampered either by weather or camera problems. He found it quite rewarding to finally get those aerial photos of this local icon that many of us pass by daily without a second thought.

In his second photo, his photography kite was directly over the smelter smoke stack, where he discovered that there is actually a cover on the top of it. The third photo zooms in a bit closer, so you can get a better view of that cover. A visitor to Nathan's Facebook page, commented about that cover, saying: "A tidbit about the cap on the smokestack. It was put on in one of the stabilization efforts (sometime in '09 or '10) by Keweenaw NHP to help keep rainwater as well as critters out of the stack. The white that you can see on the ledge is actually mortar that was applied to help direct the rainwater away from the corner and off the stack. The other smoke stack on the smelter site also has a cap on it for the same reasons." Interesting, indeed!

The fourth photo is another of the local Ripley landmarks that everyone recognizes, Mont Ripley Ski Hill. In Nathan's shot, you can see just about every run on the hill. He said that they had closed early the day he was out there snapping photos, thus the reason for seeing no skiers/snowboarders on the slopes.

In the final photo here today, Nathan captured a green crane, sitting on an old barge near the smelter. He said he was told that the barge is one of the former dredges C&H used over in Torch Lake during the mining era and that the crane is from the old coal dock outside of Dollar Bay, along the canal. Unsure of what they're doing there at the present, other than "rusting along the shoreline", Nathan says, "They make the photo look rustic at any rate!"

Hope you all enjoyed your aerial tour over these Ripley landmarks. If so, be sure to say thanks to Nathan, by heading over to his Facebook page and giving it a "LIKE", it helps spread the word about his aerial photography. Kite Aerial Photography with Nathan Invincible.

Smoke'n pics...for a moment I thought we were going right down that chimney.

In the last pic, is that the Coast Guard station to the left of what appears to be a patch of open water?

I like these.

When I saw your 'intro', Mary, I knew it had to be either Neil or Nathan.
Love the smokestack shots! As Alex said, it looked like we may get to see inside.;)

Beautiful pic's and quite the perspective! Looked like a great day to go fly a kite! :)

Amazing! Sure did not have kites like these back in the day!

George:

That is not the Coast Guard Station. The Portage
Station is located further east in Dollar Bay,
along the same north shore.

Exactly what that area is was discussed here last
summer or fall but I can't remember or find the
discussion. At that time there was a flotation ring
outlining the approximate setting of that open
water.

I had always heard that C&H sold one dredge to Quincy which is at the site of the Quincy mills and the other was sunk in Torch Lake.

I will forever marvel at the kite photography. Those are great photos. I was never very successful at getting a kite in the air, let alone where I wanted it to be in the air.
I have read various accounts of who was first to use kite photography and when. It was in the 1800's though. Kites and cameras both have been modified substantially since then.

If I am not mistaken that crane and barge belongs to Julio Contracting. That was used many years ago for work Julio did at Isle Royal. My father in law ran that crane back then, Peter Ebert. They had a tug that pulled it but it sank and they salvaged the wheel house and it sits up by Lawrence Julio's home in Ripley.

I love the spectacular blue of the sky in these
pics!

The barge and crane do belong to Julio, I guess it had been stored around Dollar Bay somewhere and was moved here last summer/spring.
There were actually more than 2 dredges on Torch Lake back in the day.
I'd have to go back through old photos, I believe I counted 4 at one time.
The Michigan Tech archives has a photo of the Julio tugboat pulling the C&H dredge Tamarack under the lift bridge on Sept 9th, 1972, the photo was from the Daily Mining Gazette. Just to bad they didn't get a photo of the dredge, only the tug.

Sometime marine jobs are better done in the winter. Because the ice will smooth out the waves many jobs are easier, such as pile driving. If the ice reforms overnight they just have to break it with a weight on the crane line in the morning.