HANCOCK — Keweenaw Heritage Day is scheduled for June 18, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Quincy Mine.  Booths, displays, and expert guides offering a comprehensive look at the many Heritage Sites that make up the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

The free public event is hosted by the Keweenaw National Historical Park in collaboration with its regional heritage partners. It offers a central gathering space to explore the rich copper mining history, immigrant cultures, and geological features of the Keweenaw.

Representatives from over 20 official Keweenaw Heritage Sites will be on hand to share history, answer questions, and provide details about their respective museums and landmarks.

Special exhibitions will include interactive displays like the Open Skies Project Booth, where experts discuss historical aviation and area mapping.

Park rangers and community volunteers offer family-friendly educational programs, pop-up history talks, and stamps for National Parks Passports.

Quincy Mine Chief of Interpretation Clayton Gomez said while the event is to attract attention of visitors to the heritage sites, its main focus is to attract the attention of the local population, including the Quincy Mine, as it is also a Keweenaw Heritage Site.

“Events are going to appeal to visitors, but what we’re really trying to do is target locals,” said Gomez. “A lot locals see Quincy as ‘the tourist spot.’ It’s filled with cars all the time, everybody’s here, it’s busy in the summer, they don’t want to participate or interact with the landscape.”

Gomez said the goal is to get the local community to realize that the landscape is accessible to them.

“If you want to come and take a walk at sunset and just enjoy the landscape and the environment,” he said, “do it. As long as you’re being respectful and responsible, the landscape is here for you to enjoy.”

As a heritage site, the Quincy is indispensable to local, regional, national, and international history, as well as cultural heritage. Many local residents from across Michigan can claim at least one ancestor who had worked at the mine at some point in history. The Quincy Hoist Association, like the mining company before it, was an integral part of the community.

“When we talk about Quincy, yes it was a mine first and foremost; it was a business,” said Gomez. “But they were part of the community as well. They founded the town of Hancock, they platted it. Quincy was always involved in community events and community organizations, and QHMA has the same opportunity now to be a business where we focus on the guests, we focus on the income, or we have the chance to be just as involved in the community as the mine was.”

Gomez said it is important for the heritage sites to engage in community outreach, both for the sites and the public. A lot of the sites don’t advertise because they don’t have the means to, he said.

“They don’t have funding for one thing, but two, they just don’t have support from volunteers or employees or anything like that.”

The sites have an annual meeting at the Keweenaw National Historical Park Headquarters in Calumet, he said. The meetings provide the only real opportunity for site representatives to gather and speak together. The meetings, however, are not open to the public, so the public does not get word about what is going on with the sites. That is the goal of Keweenaw Heritage Day.

“What it’s going to be is essentially trying to provide all of the Heritage Sites with an opportunity to interact with guests in one spot,” said Gomez. “Because if you’re Hanka Homestead, or Open Skies Project, or Painesdale Mine and Shaft, you don’t have the traffic to get underneath people.”

Gomez said the staff at the Quincy Mine find it amazing the number of visitors discovered the site while driving past it and did not know previously it was there.

“And it’s like, if they didn’t know we were here,” he said, “they surely haven’t heard about some of these other historical sites.”

Keweenaw Heritage Sites are of 22 independent organizations and historic landmarks that officially partner with the National Park Service to preserve and interpret copper mining history and culture.

 Some examples are: Delaware Copper Mine, Painesdale Mine and Shaft, Quincy Smelter Houghton County Historical Museum, Ontonagon County Historical Society, Chassell Heritage Center, Copper Country Firefighters Museum, Hanka Homestead Museum, Fort Wilkins State Park, Porcupine Mountains State Park, Calumet Theatre, Old Victoria. Each of them offer a unique aspect of cultural, social, or industrial history and heritage of the Keweenaw.