Keweenaw Coast

The Keweenaw Peninsula reaches far into Lake Superior, dividing the waters along its two shores. Beneath its ridges lie rich deposits of native copper, mined by Indigenous peoples and exchanged across much of North America for thousands of years. A waterway through Portage Lake, with a portage between its navigable reaches, offered travellers a way across the peninsula instead of a long journey around its exposed tip. In 1659 the French traders Radisson and Des Groseilliers encountered both copper and this established route at Keweenaw Bay.