The Keweenaw peninsula has always been a remote land, set apart from the rest of the country by hundreds of miles of wilderness and the cold depths of Lake Superior. Whats more, the regions harsh winters would essentially cut off its residents from the outside world for months on end. This made it nearly impossible to adequately ship into the regions supplies and resources the mines and residents needed on a day to day basic. This created the need for a diverse local industry to provide the food, building materials, supplies, heat and power necessary to keep the mines operating.

As the mines grew and expanded so to did these wide variety of satellite industries. Lumber mills dotted the lakes and rivers, several breweries churned out beer for local taverns, explosive plants created dynamite for the mines, and power companies built gas and electric generating facilities. But with the demise of the Copper Industry, these parasitic industries quickly perished as well and hardly survived beyond those mines that gave them life.

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