• Sunday-What'sUP December 14 - 06:32 am

Erik Nordberg provides some notes for today’s Shoebox Memory:

John William Nara was born in Finland in 1874. He later immigrated to the United States and established a photographic studio in Calumet, Michigan, in the heart of America’s most productive copper mining region. In addition to posed studio portraits, J. W. Nara’s lens also captured the people, place, and time he experienced in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. Copper mining and industry are an important part of the story, but Nara also captured the Keweenaw’s rural landscape, including local farms, shorelines, lighthouses, and pastoral back roads.

The Michigan Tech Archives will premier a new traveling exhibit about the life and times of Calumet photographer J.W. Nara at a special opening event scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 16, on the first floor of the J.R. Van Pelt and Opie Library at Michigan Technological University. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibit, funded in part by descendants Robert and Ruth Nara of Bootjack Michigan, works from historical photographs held at the Michigan Tech Archives. Interpretive panels highlight the people, places, and times that J.W. Nara experienced during his lifetime and include material on urban life, farming, and the 1913 Michigan copper miners’ strike. The exhibit is designed as a touring exhibit and will travel to libraries, museums, and schools following its initial installation in Houghton. A small exhibit catalog will be available at no charge and includes three Nara photograph postcards from the collection.

The J.W. Nara exhibit will remain on display at the J.R. Van Pelt and Opie Library through February 7, 2010.

This is FABULOUS!!! All the links...right to "Down on the Farm"..."I wish again, I was in Michigan!" I AM IN MICHIGAN!!! I get to see Lake Superior all the time!!! It is awesome!

I grew up on the Bootjack road, and yes, the Nara's left their mark in that area...good stuff! Swam many, MANY times at Nara's beach....great memories!

Thank you Charlie...stellar stuff!

On another note, Farmer is going to have surgery on his knee today...keep up the prayers folks! So appreciated! Thank you so much....

Have a wonderously Blessed day!

Historic pictures.

Farming is something that seems to get neglected in the history of the Copper Country. Even when I was growing up back in the 60's there were numerous small dairy and potato farms throughout the area. I don't think that any of them got rich but they earned a living for themselves. Back in those days there were four choices if you wanted to stay in the area; work in the mines, logging, farming or commercial fishing although fishing was already a dying industry by the mid-60's.

"Distinguised Immigrant"
A distinguished immigrant in disguise?