The Abbaye Peninsula is a

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...

located within

Baraga County Baraga County ( ) is a county in the Upper Peninsula in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 8,158, making it Michigan's fifth-least populous county. The county seat is L'Anse. The county is named after Bishop ...

on the northern shore of the

Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by t ...

within the U.S. state of

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. It is bounded by

Keweenaw Bay Keweenaw Bay is an arm of Lake Superior in North America. It is located adjacent to the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, to the southeast of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Keweenaw Bay is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide at the mouth. The hea ...

on the west and

Huron Bay Huron Bay is a long, narrow fjord long, located in Baraga County, Michigan, on the northern shore of the Upper Peninsula of the State of Michigan. The bay, oriented in a northeast-southwest direction, is bounded by the Huron Mountains on its eas ...

on the east.

Description

The peninsula remained undisturbed in the hands of the Chippewa until 1877, when the Hebard and Thurberg Lumber Company leased the peninsula from a local clan leader and his band. Timbering operations rapidly commenced, with the

old growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

s of the peninsula axed down and carried to the sawmills at Pequaming. Efforts, starting in 1914, to turn the cut-over real estate into arable farmland were not successful. The post office at

Aura, Michigan Aura is a small unincorporated community in Arvon Township of Baraga County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The area is approximately northeast of L'Anse and four miles (6 km) east of Pequaming. Geography Situated on the Abbaye Peninsu ...

, which opened in 1921, was downgraded to a

CPO CPO may refer to: Occupations * Certified Professional Organizer * Certified Protection Officer, a professional certification for security officers from the International Foundation for Protection Officers * Chief people officer, a corporate of ...

in 1974 and closed entirely in 1982. Today, the second-growth forests of the Abbaye Peninsula are managed for the production of

pulpwood Pulpwood is timber with the principal use of making wood pulp for paper production. Applications * Trees raised specifically for pulp production account for 15% of world pulp production, old growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more gener ...

. The thickly wooded peninsula is almost uninhabited, with no paved roads offering access to any point within the rocky promontory. Gravel roads allow extraction of pulp logs; the graded pathways can be driven by four-wheel-drive vehicles and, in winter, by

snowmobile A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not ...

s. Parcels of land within the peninsula are located within the

Copper Country State Forest Copper Country State Forest is a state forest in the west-central Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is operated by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Overview Like other Upper Peninsula state forests, Copper Country is made up of clear ...

. The rare visitor to the Abbaye Peninsula enters a

boreal ecosystem A boreal ecosystem is an ecosystem with a subarctic climate located in the Northern Hemisphere, approximately between 50° to 70°N latitude. These ecosystems are commonly known as taiga and are located in parts of North America, Europe, and Asia. ...

dominated by

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

, which surrounds Point Abbaye, the promontory's northeastern tip. The

Huron Island Light Huron Island Light is a lighthouse on Lake Superior near Big Bay, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Huron Islands Lighthouse in 1975. It is on one of the Huron Islandsbr>Wilderness.lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...

References

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