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TWO PEAS NEARLY A HALF MILE BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH? (MN)

TUESDAY - There was nothing too terribly exciting about today's drive through north-central Minnesota.

As a matter of fact, this is the only photo Tricia took during the entire 107-mile route between campsites.

We had no trouble backing into our rather spacious and private site in the "400 Loop" of the Vermilion Ridge Campground.

Yes, that's an Airstream in another campsite up on the ridge above us.

WEDNESDAY - While nothing very exciting happened yesterday, today we have something special planned that involves riding on an elevator and then a train. If you read the title of this blogpost then you've probably already guessed where we're going and what we're doing.

You all know how much we love doing cave tours, but those rarely go more than a couple hundred feet underground. Today we're headed 2,341 feet underground (that's 689 feet below sea level around here) in Minesota's oldest and deepest ore mine.

The mine operated for 80 years from 1882-1962 and was gifted to the state of Minnesota to become a new state park in 1965. Tours began soon after and then were suspended in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While closed they took the opportunity to do a 4 year, $9,300,000.00 reconstruction project that made the mine safer and added a few new experiences to the tour that we will see today.

The mine just reopened 10-days ago, so for once, we're in the right place at the right time!

SOUDAN UNDERGROUND MINE TOUR

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Today this tall tower is used to lower and raise people from the mine using a thick cable.
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Those cables run down into the Engine House where it is spooled onto a wheel.
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In the winter time when Lake Superior is frozen over and the ships can't transport the iron ore,
the ore being raised from the mine is unceremoniously dumped off the end of this pier
where it piles up and remains until spring.
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Here we are being ushered eight at a time into these tiny elevator cars to be lowered
nearly a half mile down into the mine in under two minutes.
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We arrive at the lowest, and last level the mine was working when it closed.
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Then we were packed 5 or 6 into each car on the train
and moved laterally 1-mile away from the central shaft.
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Our tour guide, Carl, was a miner during his career and could answer
just about every question thrown at him. He was also quite an entertaining person.
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After traveling 1-mile on the train we disembarked and had to climb a 25-foot spiral staircase
to the room where the actually mining occurred.
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The miners had to climb this 25-foot ladder with all their gear on their backs.
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That will be where we're headed when it's time to leave, back out the way we came.
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This is one of the large rooms where the miners worked their 12-hour shift.
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For a brief time they thought they had found gold in the mine.
Turns out it was all iron pyrite, known as Fool's Gold due to its resemblance to gold.
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While "the boss" was transporting the first half of our group up to the surface,
Carl said if we could keep a secret he would show us an "off limits" portion of the mine.
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This room was host to a nearby University's physics lab on the hunt for dark matter.
The location a half mile underground was needed to filter out any cosmic interference.

Almost at the end of the line the train began losing traction due to the moisture on the track.
A little sand under the drive wheels and we were quickly back on our way again.

After our mine tour we drove to the nearby Lake Vermilion shoreline where we saw the Stuntz Bay Boathouses.

The following is taken from the Atlas Obscura website.

In the early 20th century, the Soudan Iron Mine awarded employees of the mine lots on neighboring Stuntz Bay on Lake Vermilion to build boathouses. The employees were tasked with supplying their own materials and labor for the construction of their boathouses. Most were built with tamarack logs and reclaimed corrugated metal from the mine.

Over 140 of these boathouses still stand today, albeit in various states of disrepair, with some renovated for continued use, and some crumbling into the bay. The boathouses now reside within the boundaries of Soudan Underground Mine State Park and have been listed as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

The owners of any boathouses not already surrendered to the park will be the last generation to own them, as current rules prohibit the transfer of ownership under any circumstances. Once the owner dies or surrenders ownership, the boathouse becomes the property of the park. This leaves the fate of the boathouses uncertain, as it’s likely the park will not repair or restore them once they’ve taken ownership.

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