Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Just a few of the thousands of props used by Michigan Tech’s Visual and Performing Arts students to create the Haunted Mine Tours. Visual props are just one component of the project. To create the desired sound for the tours, more than 5,000 feet of audio cable are being used.

HANCOCK — To celebrate Halloween, the Quincy Mine Hoist Association and Michigan Tech Visual and Performing Arts students have partnered to present haunted mine tours. And what better place than in a copper mine that claimed the lives of more than 250 men in its 99-year operation.

The annual tour series, however is much more than an opportunity for the public to tour a mine in the prime of spooky season. Since it first began around a decade ago, it has become a college-credit course for Michigan Tech’s technical theater students.

Quincy Mine Hoist Association Director Tom Wright said on Tuesday that while the Haunted Mine Tours will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Michigan Tech students have been working on the project since last summer.

Kent Cyr, associate professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Michigan Tech, said the haunted mine is set up by a couple of college classes. “This is one of our practical experiences that our students partake in, but we have that at three different levels.”

“Incoming students will be here, to help set things up and help figure it out. It’s one of their first experiences, but then we have advanced students, or Seniors, for who this is a final project and they are in an advanced role, whether it’s planning or management or design.”

Michigan Tech student Mattie Wentela, one of the two production managers for the project, said the managers are in charge all of the logistics, planning, scheduling, safety and ensuring that all goes as planned.

Fellow student, Isabella Capanda one of the two sound designers for the project, said there are a lot of concerns about sound design in a hard-rock mine.

“Usually less is more,” she said, “but you still have to have a lot in order to create that experience that everyone is looking for.”

Capanda said leading a sound design project like this will have distinct advantages for her future.

“Michigan Tech definitely does a really great job of giving us a lot of experiences,” she said, “and I just want to create the best experience for audiences and be able to share and create a beautiful place for everyone to experience and share with others.”

Cameron Whiteside, president of the Theme Park Engineering student organization at Michigan Tech, said his group is involved in helping out with some of the set decoration for the mine.

The Theme Park Engineering group is a relatively new student organization on campus, said Whiteside, that formed during the 2019-2020 school year. COVID seriously restricted the group’s ability to do much.

Wentela said the groups started loading equipment into the mine last Sunday, but work on the project actually began planning and set-building during the summer.

The Haunted Mine Tours began sometime between 2012 and 2013, said Wright, but have greatly evolved in that decade. Originally, the tours were just like any other tour offered by the mine, but Wright saw the opportunity to expand them into something much more.

“I started reaching out to Michigan Tech, originally to the Blue Key Honor Society,” he said. For Blue Key, community service is part of their function, and as the Hoist Assoication is a 501(c)(3), the Blue Key can help the mine and earn their community service credit.

“I ran into people who were in the Visual and Performing Arts Department and they said ‘This is really cool! Can our friends help with it?’ and before we knew it, the whole department started getting pulled in.”

It is a way for the students to get practical experience in an environment unlike any other, Wright said.

“I will disagree with Isabella a little bit here,” he added. “We’re not trying to create something beautiful here — anything but — you have drippy mines, you have water, you have mud; you have to figure out how you can hang stuff, because we don’t have pipes and stringers and hangers, we’ve got nothing but rock, basically.”

Cyr said until Wright showed up on Campus with the idea, nobody had thought of putting on a technical show in a mine.

“He came and talked to us about it,” said Cyr, “and we said alright, we’ll come see it and see what we think.”

Cyr said that was in 2016 and that the Theater department started putting on the event the following year.

Cyr is the technical director at Michigan Tech. He teaches courses in Technical Construction, Stagecraft, Rigging, Stage Mechanics, and Properties Artisanship. He is the director of the B.S. in Theatre and Entertainment Technology program.

The Haunted Mine Tour project is designed with a different theme each year. Last year, said Wright, it was not even set up in the mine, but for a twist, it was conducted in the Quincy’s smelter project on the waterfront in Ripley.

Wright said just one of the significant components of the project is that the Haunted Mine Tour is a community effort.

“It’s a chance for Quincy to host a community event, which is an exceptional haunted mine,” he said, “as well as to provide a learning space for Michigan Tech.”

Wright said it is fair to say that no other student in the United States gets this sort technical challenge.

This year’s theme is “Cryptid Menagerie.” Haunted Mine guests will take a tram down to the entrance of the mine, then continue on foot for a walking tour of about 500 feet.

Tours are self-guided; the tram will run from 6-10 p.m. on the nights of October 27, 28, and 29. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

The first tour starts at 6 p.m. on Thursday, said Wright, who strongly advises purchasing tickets online as soon as possible, because they sell out every year and they sell out quickly.

Wentela said that the haunted tour will get scarier as the night progresses and she suggest that young kids not take part in later runs of the tour, though that is up to the discretion of parents.

For more information and ticket price and purchase, please visit the Michigan Tech website at https://events.mtu.edu/event/michigantechtheatre_hauntedmine2022