Keweenaw Time Traveler among recipients of Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation

HOUGHTON, Mich. (WLUC) - A historic preservation project in the Keweenaw is being honored.

Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Time Traveler project is one of four recipients of this year’s Governor’s Awards for Historic Preservation.

“It was quite a surprise for us when we got notice that we were going to be nominated for the award,” MTU Social Sciences Department Chair and Project Director Don Lafreniere said. “They called us up in early January and said, ‘We’d like to nominate you for this award. Can we get a little more information?’ And then they let us know in late March that we were going to be awarded.”

The project, which kicked off in 2017, is a digital atlas of Houghton and Keweenaw County history. It includes maps and information about buildings, landscapes and people from the late 19th century to now.

Archival collections from sources like county historical societies made this possible. Lafreniere said they have been working with groups and the public to further preserve the history, which is why they won the award.

“It is primarily to remember the heritage of the region,” Lafreniere continued. “We all know how important of a copper mining region that this was, but there was also other stories and lots of other things that make this region important to understand and study.”

As it has continued to grow, the project has caught more eyes than just the states.

“Individuals from across the country and the world have been looking at our project and asking how they can do it where they’re at,” MTU Industrial Heritage and Archaeology Ph.D. Student James Juip said.

According to Juip, the plan is to use project connections and what organizers have learned to expand the project to cover the whole state.

“That’s where we’d like to go next,” Juip added. “Make something that we would envision as the ‘Michigan’ Time Traveler.”

To check out the project, click here.