Gannett Michigan – Seven hundred feet below the surface of the earth, John Mason drives a truck through the heart of Eagle Mine, the tires crunching on irregular pieces of rock at the bottom of the tunnel.
He points to a section of the rock that’s a slightly different color than the rest. It gleams a little in the artificial light from the lamp on his hard hat.
“There,” Mason says, “is the ore body. Right there.” Four percent copper. Five percent nickel. An estimated 550 million pounds of usable metal in a mine near Marquette.
That’s no match for the purity of the copper hewn from the U.P.’s ancient rock formations during its 19th- and 20th- Century mining boom. But these days, getting it out is worth an investment of more than $1 billion and an effort that will keep a crew of up to 220 miners busy for at least eight years.
The new mine, scheduled to begin extracting ore late next year, is the next chapter in the Upper Peninsula’s long history of making a living from natural resources.
But Michigan’s remote, lightly populated northern third is working to expand beyond its traditional employment in mining, timber and tourism. Business boosters are promoting ventures that show promise for the future: small manufacturing, high-tech businesses and even fish farming.
“The talent and treasure that’s up here is actually getting more and more diversified,” said Tawni Ferrarini, an economics professor at Northern Michigan University whose areas of study include the U.P.’s economy. “There’s an incredible work ethic and a ‘Let’s get it done’ attitude.”
Dennis West is president of Northern Initiatives in Marquette, an agency that serves 31 counties north of Clare to help small business owners and entrepreneurs secure loans to create jobs.
“We’re seeing a greater diversity of businesses than have been coming about in the last few years,” West said.
Big, empty land
The Upper Peninsula comprises about one-third of Michigan’s land — 10.5 million acres for just 310,000 people — about 3% of Michigan’s residents. Only about 118,000 of those are in the workforce.
The largest portion of the jobs are in the service industry, nearly 34,000 of those in government and another 20,000 in health care and education.
Ferrarini said the U.P. has some significant obstacles to expanding commerce and manufacturing. Population centers are scattered over a wide area, roads need improvement, there’s a lack of plane or bus transportation peninsula-wide and cell phone and Internet coverage are spotty.
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