×

Weathering the pioneer days

Local meteorologist speaks to economic club

Karl Bohnak, lead meteorologist at WLUC-TV6, speaks about early pioneers and their weather challenges on Monday at the Ramada Inn before the Economic Club of Marquette County. Bohnak’s speech kicked off the club’s speaker season for 2019-20. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

MARQUETTE — You think you had it rough during the winter of 2018-19, with plenty of shoveling needed to get through the season? Be grateful you weren’t an Upper Peninsula pioneer.

Karl Bohnak, lead meteorologist at WLUC-TV6, talked about “Conquering the Weather: Exploits of the Early Pioneers” on Monday at the Ramada Inn as the first speaker of the 2019-20 Economic Club of Marquette County season.

Northern Michigan University sponsored the event.

Susy Ziegler, Ph.D., associate professor and head of the NMU Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, talked about NMU students in her introduction of Bohnak.

“They like the winter and they like the change of seasons,” Ziegler said.

However, they probably won’t have it as rough as U.P. pioneers such as Alexander Henry, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Charles T. Harvey and Peter White did.

“I’ve been up here 31 years, and I’ve seen plenty of snowstorms,” said Bohnak, whose first weather broadcast at TV6 was on April 25, 1988.

Those pioneers had their share of inclement weather as well.

Henry, born in 1739, came to the region at age 21 to seek his fortune in the fur trade, Bohnak said, and ended up spending 16 years in the Upper Great Lakes region.

Henry traveled the region with the aid of voyageurs, who Bohnak noted were the porters and guides for people such as Henry.

“Their paddling expeditions were things of legend,” Bohnak said, with the voyageurs paddling at an 8-mph clip 18 to 20 hours a day.

About 50 years later, Schoolcraft was part of the first American settlement at Sault Ste. Marie in 1822.

He too made use of voyageurs.

“On one trip his party was caught in a downpour just off Keweenaw Point, and there was no escape,” Bohnak said.

The philosophy, he noted, was to “sit still and bear it,” even though the rain was so heavy that objects only a short distance away were obscured.

“He said, ‘All at once, men struck up a cheerful boat song, which they continued, paddling with renewed energy until the shower abated. I believe no people under the sun would have thought of such a resource,'” Bohnak said.

Not every pioneer, though, came through a trip unscathed. He said state geologist Douglass Houghton, along with two voyageurs, drowned in 1845 near Eagle River when they foundered in a canoe on Lake Superior.

Harvey, a salesman for the Fairbanks Scales Co., saw the potential of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal and Lock project, which was difficult to complete because of issues such as the weather, a cholera epidemic and a labor shortage, Bohnak said. Although another man took over the project, and the steamer Illinois passed through the structure in 1855.

Harvey then began working on another project, Bohnak said, and visited Ontonagon where he became stranded. In December 1855, Harvey had to wait until swamps on the Keweenaw Bay route were frozen to travel. Accompanied by voyageurs and others, he headed east through unfrozen streams and morasses.

Taking a boat to Marquette, the travelers encountered swells and then white caps, but made it to what is now Baraga County where a heavy snow eventually started to fall, covering the ground 2 feet deep. The food gone, they had to subsist on dog food of cornmeal and tallow.

“The situation was desperate,” Bohnak said, “and they knew they had to leave while the weather was still calm.”

After making landfall, one of the party members was designated the “district fire lighter” and lit a fire with the sole remaining match, he said, and buoyed by the sight of Presque Isle about 10 miles away, the travelers made it to Marquette 10 days after leaving Ontonagon.

White, who had been elected to the state assembly at age 26, had to make a trip south, and in 1857 headed to Lansing.

“It took 15 days to complete the journey during what was called the severest winter ever known during the frontier period of the Upper Midwest,” Bohnak said. “He traveled on snowshoes from Marquette to Escanaba, then he took a stage from Escanaba to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and then he walked from there to the southern end of Lake Michigan to the state capital of Lansing.”

Upon his arrival, White was cheered by the state assembly because, Bohnak said, it knew what he had to go through to make it there.

“Nothing stood in the way of Peter White, Charles T. Harvey or the other pioneers of the early mining boom, whether it was a blinding snowstorm, bitter cold, a deep forest thicket or a half-frozen swamp,” Bohnak said. “Nothing stood in their way, and their stories demonstrate time and time again the resourcefulness, tenacity, patience and faith of these remarkable people, and I think we really owe them a debt of gratitude.

“Because of them, we get to live in this beautiful place.”

Bohnak also is an author, having written “So Cold a Sky, Upper Michigan Weather Stories,” which was awarded the Michigan State Library’s Notable Book award in 2007, and co-authored “Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Almanac” with Traverse City radio personality Ron Jolly in 2009. Bohnak’s latest book, “Sunburns to Snowstorms, Upper Michigan Weather in Pictures and Stories,” was released in August 2017, a collaboration with local photo historian Jack Deo.

Al Bloniarz, executive vice president of Systems Control, is scheduled to be the next speaker for the Economic Club of Marquette County on Oct. 21 at the Ramada Inn. Social hour will be at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. and then the program. Reservations may be made by calling 906-315-2155 or online at www.marquetteeconomicclub.org

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today