Core Samples
The success or failure of a copper mine depends greatly an the amount of red metal that lie trapped underground. Sinking shafts and driving long drifts underground in the search for copper is a futile and wasteful endeavor. Mining companies needed to discover the location and richness of copper deposits on their land with the most minimal use of capital. In the early days mines relied on the wisdom of the native people, and often sunk shafts near ancient Indian mining pits. Or if no such pits existed, they would rely on surface indications such as large deposits of float copper (copper which sat upon the ground like boulders) or copper laden veins within rocks along river banks or lake-shores. But these methods often proved inaccurate, and many a mine failed on the search for copper that never was found.
As technology improved and the region matured mine companies turned to new a new way of exploration - the core sample. Companies would drill a test hole in the location they though copper might exists. The drill hole would be made by a special hollow drill bit, which when sunk deeper into the earth captured a cylinder of rock inside of it. This cylinder of rock - a core sample - could be brought to the surface and analyzed for copper. Using these core samples mine companies could located the depth and degree of copper deposits on their line - without spending very much money at all.
A mine could drill thousands of holes along its land - and could produce just as many core samples. These samples were placed in wooden trays and stored as a visual record of the underground where they would reach from floor to celing. It was one such storage building that we had discovered on a recent exploration of the Allouez-Douglas Mine outside of New Allouez.
The building was a more modern wood framed building sheathed in metal. It had either caught fire or had been intentially set on fire some time in the past. Because of the fire, most of the building had collapsed down on its contents. From a distance we only could make out piles of debris through the buildings windows. But when we got closer we were surprised by what we found.
Sitting just inside the windows, piles as high as us and sprawling about the building’s floor were hundred and hundreds of core sample trays. They were everywhere and spread out across the building’s remains as far as we could see. The building’s roof had collapsed down on them, and in parts the trays had fallen over and scattered their contents on the floor and ground. Sitting at our feet right outside the front door sat a such a pile, spilling out through the front door like the guts of a wild beast.
It was all a sad site really. These samples were a tangible sample of not just the geology of the Keweenaw, but the history of the mine companies that drilled them. Now they sat piled up in a burnt out shell of a building - forsaken by the mines that bred them and the people that were in charge of their storage. As we walked around the buildings remains we could see streams of those core samples flowing out of every crack and crevice. Near the buildings back side the samples disappeared into a tangled mass of burnt wood and twisted metal. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the building followed suit, burying history in the process.