Uncovering the past: Tracking changes in worker experience over time

A participant displays findings as part of the archeological excavation at Midway Lumber Camp. (Forest Service photo)

MICHIGAN—Historic remnants and cultural sites abound on public lands, and the Hiawatha National Forest is responsible for managing a variety of them, including historic cordwood lumber camps.

In late July, Michigan Technological University, in partnership with the Hiawatha National Forest, conducted fieldwork at the Midway Lumber Camp. As part of the project, the university welcomed a Forest Service Passport in Time crew of 10 volunteers to assist with the excavations.

The camp operated from 1913 to 1920 and contains at least six houses for the mostly Finnish workers who lived there with their families. Project participants and the forest archeologist helped map the site and archaeologically investigate the residential areas to reconstruct the lives and the overall cultural landscape of the workers.

This is the third season of a long-term collaborative research project exploring the lives of timber workers in the northern woods. It focuses on a series of cordwood lumber camps owned and operated by the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company. The aim is to explore how workers’ experiences changed over time.

Participants at one of the dig sites. (Forest Service photo)

Previous archaeological investigations in 2014 and 2016 concentrated on several of the earliest of the company’s cordwood camps. These include the Finnish chopper camp of Coalwood (1901-1912); Roscoe, occupied mainly by Slovenian immigrants (1904-1910); and Zerbal, which consists of a single boarding house (1906-1910). These excavations yielded a total sample of almost 72,000 artifacts that were used to address many aspects of the workers’ everyday lives.

Midway was built as a replacement to the Coalwood camp, and the team hopes the excavations lead to a better understanding of how workers’ experiences changed over time.

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