On my way home from Copper Harbor, I opted to take a slight detour through Gay, Michigan. I’ve heard about Gay and the famous Gay Bar (which was closed btw), and its “black sand beaches.”

Little did I know.

This unincorporated town is named after Joseph Gay, one of the founders of the Mohawk Mining Company. Back in the day, the Keweenaw was the only place known on the planet where you could mine native copper from the surface. In order to extract the copper, the rock was crushed (stamped) and water would help separate the sands from the copper. The by-product of this process is coarse, black sand that was dumped along the Gay shoreline.

From 1900-1932, the Mohawk Stamp Mill was one of the two mills that operated on the eastern shores of Lake Superior. In this time, the two stamp mills released 22.7 million metric tons of stamp sands. The strong lake current has been pulling the stamp sands down the south shore of the lake and has been studied for years. Buffalo Reef is a key area for whitefish and lake trout spawning, located just south of this site.

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, nearly a quarter of the annual lake trout yield from Lake Superior's Michigan waters comes from within 50 miles of Buffalo Reef. The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission estimates the annual economic benefit of the reef at $1.7 million. Modeling predicts that by 2025, 60 percent of the reef will no longer be viable for lake trout or whitefish spawning.

There is work being done today to help clean up the stamp sands. Michigan Tech, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US EPA and Michigan DEQ and many others are working on a massive effort in order to help save Buffalo Reef. Dredging, revamp and removal of the stamp sands are underway to take back this habitat for generations to come.

The ruins along the Gay shoreline are a reminder to us all of this history, and why we all need to do our part to take care of the world we live in.