By GRAHAM JAEHNIG

Daily Mining Gazette, Houghton

CALUMET TOWNSHIP — The Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission can boast of a productive fiscal year up to their second quarterly meeting for 2024.

Advisory Commission Executive Director Sean Gohman said this year the commission awarded 13 Keweenaw Heritage Program grants totaling more than $117,000. There were 17 applicants.

“The total request was much larger than that,” Gohman said at the commission’s quarterly meeting. “It was $188,000 for projects totaling almost $500,000.”

Projects ranged from collections management at the Ontonagon County Historical Society, which is an ongoing project, Gohman said, as they process and catalog their historical collections.

Quincy Mine received a grant for preservation efforts at the No. 2 Shaft/rockhouse and the hoist house. Grants were also awarded to the Carnegie Museum and the Keweenaw Historical Society for accessibility upgrades, citing just a few examples.

The Quincy Smelter in Ripley is also the subject of study and preservation. The KNHP and the commission are working with the Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. to conduct a Historic Resources Survey of the smelting works.

PAL staff visited the site in May to acquaint themselves with the property and available archival material necessary for their research.

“We always remember that the Quincy Smelter is the only surviving smelter of its kind in the country and, likely, the world,” Gohman said.

KNHP Supervisor Wendy Davis provided an update on projects involving the Abandoned Mine Lands Program under U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The projects work on improving the safety of the area’s mine landscapes, and the projects fall under two categories: Things people can fall into and things that can fall on people.

While the project list is not public, Davis said, the intent is not to keep information from the public, but for the park service to remain more flexible.

For example, she said, one of the shafts at the Quincy Mining Company location is subsiding more rapidly than initially thought, and it needs to be addressed immediately, rather than left farther down the project list.

In the category of things that can fall on people are smoke stacks on former industrial sites. Stacks will become a high priority, probably next summer for more than just safety reasons, Davis said.

“This area is going to be the site of a study on historic stacks,” she said, “on how to evaluate, condition, and how to determine the cultural importance of those stacks, that will then become a model for the rest of the Park Service.”

The Keweenaw NHP Advisory Commission, paneled by citizens appointed by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, represents the public and works collaboratively with the National Park Service to advise and assist with managing the resources of Keweenaw National Historical Park. Agendas and minutes are available upon request to the executive director, Sean Gohman,

The seven-member commission is mandated to operate in support of the varied activities of Keweenaw National Historical Park, while acting as a conduit between the park and its neighboring communities. The commission members are drawn from organizations that are relevant to the park’s preservation and interpretation efforts.