Keweenaw Bay

This region’s history is long and rich. Father Ménard, the Jesuit missionary, wintered near what is now L’Anse in 1660-61. Near here Father Baraga set up his mission in 1843. He and the head of the neighboring Methodist mission, the Reverend J. H. Pitezel, were good friends. Furs and fish figured prominently in the bay’s early history as a source of economic wealth. In the 1880s and 1890s the area’s timber was cut with Baraga and Pequaming being the centers of lumbering.