Barbara Bouwkamp said she was privileged to get to see and photograph the newest and largest cruise ship, the Viking Octantis, sail under the Mackinaw Bridge on its way to Mackinaw Island recently. The 665 foot international cruise ship is said to be the most modern and biggest cruise ship sailing on the Great Lakes, with a number of different routes, including one that will make a stop in Houghton. That’s called the Undiscovered Great Lakes Cruise, an 8-day excursion that sails from Thunder Bay to Milwaukee with stops at Houghton and Mackinac Island. Prices for this cruise start at $6,995 per person for the Nordic Balcony and go all the way up to $17,995 per person for the Owners Suite. If you need airfare to get to or from Thunder Bay or Milwaukee, you may have to add another $399 per person. Cruising the Great Lakes isn’t cheap!

Alexis Dahl is at it again, this time with a video on how to make one million copper bars. Her lead in says: “Once you pull up copper from a mine, how do you turn it into something you can actually work with? For Michigan’s Quincy Mine, the magic happened at the Quincy Smelter. And involved a surprising number of burning logs.” Sounds like a good history lesson on the mining here in the Copper Country. Alexis also mentioned that there have been unexpected delays with the underground video from the Quincy Mine, but sit tight it’s still in the works and you can watch this one in the meantime.

Wow! Pricey! Not that you can put a price
on cruising the Great Lakes at all. But
anyway, love these pictures. And it's
helpful to us to be able to see the greatest
of the Great Lakes and Houghton whenever we
want. How lucky are we??

Oh. And I did not get a video. Unless my
social media skills are even worse than I
thought.

Nice pics and no thanks on the Cruising at those
prices! lol

Fantastic video and very interesting. I'll say it
again, Alexis has a way of explaining and teaching
that is very captivating... truly a gift. That 11 or
so minutes flew by! Thanks for the education. I have
driven by that place my whole life and now I know
what it was and why it's there. Nice work Alexis!!

I adore the videos that Alexis puts out. Her
enthusiasm makes me smile and I always learn
something. I visited and/or lived in the Calumet
area for many, many years and knew about the copper
mining but never understood how it all worked. She
brings new light to a very old subject with her
videos. Bravo, young lady!

Holy wha. They better wipe it at those prices! lol

Alexis rules. She's brilliant!

That's the way to go! Let's book the ship for Pasty
Fest - 2022!!! I get to work the Foghorn.

Greetings:

I'm not so sure that Ocean Liners are designed for the rough seas of the Great Lakes. I hope someone checked before letting them sail in a gale.

JT

Hi
I'm kind of surprised they can dock at some of the
ports. If a port can accommodate an ore freighter,
I'm sure it can take this cruise ship, but I
didn't think Mackinac Island's harbor was that
large.

I have never done a traditional sleep-on-the-ship
cruise, but I have taken several lighthouse tour
cruises. They all start in Mackinaw City, aboard a
Shepler ferry. The one I enjoyed the most was all
in Lake Huron & took about 6 hours. We went past
the west side of Mackinac Island, up through the
Les Cheneaux islands, over to DeTour, back down to
Spectacle Reef, and finally back home past Bois
Blanc and Mackinac islands. It wasn't cheap---
although much, much less than the price above---
but it was a great way to enjoy scenery and
history. Part of the money went to an organization
trying to preserve lighthouses.

To DebS's point, we are lucky to be able to have
the Great Lakes to enjoy.

I'd love to take that cruise but it's WAY more expensive than your typical ocean cruise.

Alexis always makes great videos.

Here's a photo album of the Quincy Smelter I posted to the Pasty Gallery about 6 years ago that some may find interesting. I had a very personalized tour since I was the only one that signed up that afternoon.

Like Kathryn mentioned, I can't think of anywhere on Mackinac Island where a cruise ship of that size could tie up and disembark passengers without grounding out. But they must have figured that out, eh? And . . . the thought of a cruise ship at Mackinac kinda erases some of the charm of the place, IMO.

The cruise ship will anchor off shore out from the
existing docks and then people will ride small
tenders in that usually run at intervals throughout
the time the ship is there. Pretty typical
operation for a cruise ship at smaller, less depth
ports of call.