Last week, what appeared to be an old artifact was discovered by John Stember on the shoreline of Artist Point. With the help of Bob Spry (pictured here) of the Cook County Historical Society, the two successfully freed the 10-foot pole from under two feet of ice and brought it to the local museum. Photo courtesy of John Stember
For nearly 150 years, the Grand Marais harbor has been at the symbolic center of this small town’s economy and livelihood. To this day, if one knows where to look, the leftovers of antique immigrant trades—fish houses, ice harvests, and cargo ship cleats—dot the shoreline of Artist Point.
While out for a walk last week down a rarely traipsed trail, John Stember stumbled upon a reminder of the peninsula’s historic past: a long wooden pole with a hand-forged hook and spike. It was frozen beneath two feet of ice and appeared to be quite old. The well-preserved artifact lay only a few feet from the water’s edge and appeared to have washed ashore overwinter.
With the help of 78-year-old Bob Spry of the Cook County Historical Society, the maritime artifact was successfully freed from two feet of ice and carried back to the nearby museum. After a brief inspection, the 10- to 12-foot wooden pole was identified as a “pike pole,” a tool from the early 19th century logging industry. Pike poles used to be a common sight in the Grand Marais harbor for pushing and pulling pulpwood on boats.
Left: An old photograph from the Cook County Historical Society shows loggers using pike poles to load pulpwood in the Grand Marais harbor in 1940. Above: A well-preserved artifact from the logging industry, a pike pole was used to push and pull pulp wood in the early 19th century. Photos courtesy of John Stember
It’s impossible to determine the age and origin of the wood without a dendrologist, so it’s difficult to guess how long the pike pole has slept on the bottom of the big lake. Because Gichi-Gami excels at preservation due to its cold, clear freshwater, the pole could be anywhere from 50 to 100 years old. But the beauty of an artifact, often a testament to a time gone by, is in its ability to sketch a story of the past.
Starting in the late 1890s and early 1900s, logging, fishing, and farming were the chief industries of Grand Marais for white settlers. According to old-timer Wayne Anderson, the harbor has been used as a staging area for pulpwood for as long as he can remember.
After a winter out in the woods of cutting and sawing, loggers transported and stacked wood in the parking lot of Artist Point or across the harbor at the Tourist Park. Once peeled, the wood was loaded onto ships or formed into rafts to be towed across the lake to Wisconsin paper mills. Chains connected to boom logs held these rafts together and to many parents’ dismay, they were a risky source of entertainment for local kids.
“All the logs you see [in historic photographs] were probably all done by hand. It was cut by hand. Peeled by hand. Skidded by hand. Loaded by hand onto trucks and then brought to the Tourist Park. Then in the spring they’d hire people to water wood… You got paid by the cord to do that,” said Wayne.
“They’d hire everybody in town that had a pair of boots with spikes in them. That was the prerequisite,” remembers Wayne. “You had to have spike boots… because this wood was peeled and very slippery. They’d hire anybody in town… there [were] storekeepers, and preachers, and everybody else loading boats because it paid good money. They wanted to get that boat loaded and turned around fast and so they’d hire anybody they could.”
It’s hard to imagine nowadays the entire town coming to a standstill to handload wood or to stop and listen to the boom of pulp sticks hitting the bottom of ships from up on Maple Hill. And yet, the Grand Marais harbor is still the centerpiece of town. Stumbling upon a submerged piece of Artist Point’s history— like a pike pole—is a fascinating reminder of the many ways early immigrants used to make a living on the shore.
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