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Copper Harbor ready to celebrate Lake Superior Day

Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Last year’s Copper Harbor Lake Superior Day enjoyed a large turnout of participants. Here, the research vessel “Agassiz” is taking on passengers to receive a demonstration on how researchers conduct studies to determine water clarity.

COPPER HARBOR — Lake Superior is the only Great Lake celebrated annually with its own day – the third Sunday in July. It will be celebrated this Sunday with Copper Harbor’s seventh annual Lake Superior Day Celebration.

The event will occur from 1-4 p.m. at the Copper Harbor Board Walk, and the street will closed to vehicular traffic for the safety of participants.

“I have an award-winning high school, oral poet,” said Don Kilpela, Jr, one of the event organizers. “She won a competition in the state of Michigan, and she’s going to do a poem reading.”

There will also be a canoe race at 1:30 p.m, he added. The canoes are provided. The race will course covers from the board walk, out to the buoy at the harbor entrance and back.

After the race, Kilpela said, there will be three speakers discussing Lake Superior.

“There will be an environmental scientist from Michigan Tech(nological University),” he said, “then a speaker who holds a doctorate degree in Geo-Heritage, and then a local photographer of Lake Superior, and other aspects.”

As always, there will be food and refreshments available throughout the event, including fish chowder, hotdogs, Rieska, water, coffee and desserts.

“The whole town brings out desserts,” said Kilpela. “Like, the Harbor Haus, for instance, gives me 24 desserts.”

Michigan Tech’s research vessel, Agassiz, will also be available for rides and demonstrations.

New this year to the celebration is a log rolling demonstration by the Michigan Tech Log Rolling Club.

“They have a good club,” Kilpela said, “so, they really want to show it off. They’re going to go out in front of the board walk, and they’re going to do their stuff, then they’re going to invite anyone from the audience who wants to do it.”

It is a jam-packed event, of which Kilpela is proud.

“You really can’t fit more than that into a three-hour event,” he said.

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