As I walk down this particular stretch of snowmobile trail, I feel something almost magical in the air. Although it’s just a trail through the woods in the middle of nowhere now, a hundred years ago it was the burgeoning Main Street of the Mohawk Mining Location. These locations, as they were called, would spring up overnight anywhere that iron ore was found, and then, when the ore was gone,  would just as quickly disappear.

They had a large school here (the only remnant left here is the school’s concrete basement hidden in thick underbrush), a general store, and many houses.

As I walk along, I like to think I hear children playing in the muddy street, or groups of miners thumping down the ubiquitous boardwalks on their way to the underground mines, or perhaps the aroma of some Scandinavian dish wafting through the neighborhood.  Babies cried here. Kettles boiled over. Jalopies got stuck. Life happened here.

This is the same stretch of road a century ago.

(Anonymous)