HOUGHTON — Not many people can say they earned college credit for scaring people, but Michigan Technological University students are an exception.

MTU’s visual performing arts students are putting final touches on their fourth year of turning Quincy Mine structures into a scary experience for community members. This year, they’re shifting their focus to the Quincy Smelter, where a haunted tour will run from 7 to 10 p.m. on Oct. 28 through Oct. 30.

The switch in location from the Quincy Mine to the Quincy Smelter offered a new set of challenges for the students and a new experience for community members who have attended previous haunted tours. It also returns the tour to a walking experience rather than the driving haunted tour that happened last year due to the pandemic.

“Students can have a lot more interaction with the audience without being concerned about minimizing what they are doing,” Kent Cyr, Technical Director for MTU’s Visual Performing Arts theatre division, said.

Lucky for the Quincy Mine, the event will also bring visibility to the 1898 smelter which was shut down in 1971. It is the last of its era still intact in the United States.

“This smelter is another part of our heritage up here,” Tom Wright, manager at the Quincy Mine, said. “It is a very interesting place that is spooky enough in the daytime.”

This year’s tour will be self-guided, although students will be scattered along the way to direct people in the right direction. The haunted tour is less than half a mile long and should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Guests will enter an inverted story starting in a cemetery, then work their way back through the smelter to learn what caused the story’s ending. The story is based loosely on the smelting process and a transformative gas being released from the rock.

Families with young children should keep in mind that when possible, the students will try to temper some of the jumpscares, but overall, the goal for these students is to use their talent to startle and scare attendees, Cyr said. Primarily, the guest age range is high schoolers to adults.

Tickets can be purchased online at or at the event using cash or card. Tickets are $10 per person or $5 for children ages 12 and under.

So how does scaring people translate to college credit? Simple — everything about the event serves as practicum credits which are required for all students in the theatre program. The practicum has to be hands-on so students participating in productions practice the skills they are learning. This year, approximately 20 students are earning credit as they work on storyline, sounds, scenes, lighting and costumes. An additional 10 to 15 are volunteering their time as well.

Not only do the students get college credit to put on a fun community event, but they can request to do so multiple years. While base-level practicum students are part of the crew, returning students who are further into their collegiate career take on management roles for the event.

“We try to keep a constant flow of people moving through it so that we retain our understanding and the knowledge of how it works,” Cyr said.

Planning for this event never truly stops because as soon as students finish the event, they are already brainstorming for the next year. Things just kick into full swing again about two weeks into fall semester classes. The students’ enthusiasm is a plus, but the problem-solving experience they get is incomparable.

“It gives us a chance to practice some things that we don’t otherwise get to practice — not the least of which is having to make things and then transport them somewhere else to protect them, set them up and deal with them,” Cyr said. The environment is harsh. Far harsher than when we’re in our own theatrical spaces. We don’t have the shop right there. We don’t have easy access to tools, and in the theater, most of the time, it’s not snowing on our stuff.”

These parameters may be unique to the students’ experience now, but Cyr says they will experience them again if they are part of concert tours or traveling shows in the real world where weather and sight restrictions are constant.

“Those aren’t things that are easy to fake or easy to just guess at so it gives us a lot more options,” he said. “It’s a fun event, but it is a serious challenge every year trying to consider what thing we forgot or what thing we didn’t plan for that happens and how we react to that.”

This year, students also added the responsibility of consulting the Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission, as they own the Quincy Smelter. Being a national historic landmark, students have to run all ideas past the commission to make sure their plans don’t interfere with what is allowed all the way down to the decorations. Despite the challenges presented, it’s important to both MTU and the Quincy Mine to bring some exposure to the Quincy Smelter.

“I’m really hoping that it’s kind of a win-win for all of us; it gives the students who are doing work a new set of challenges and that local people all of a sudden want to come back and learn more about the Quincy Mine and Smelter,” Wright said.