Abbaye Peninsula

Abbaye Peninsula
Peninsula
Point Abbaye, at the tip of the Abbaye Peninsula, with the Huron Mountains in the background
Abbaye Peninsula
Coordinates:46°54′30″N88°14′30″W
Location	Baraga County, Michigan,Upper Peninsula of Michigan,United States
Offshore water bodies	Keweenaw Bay,Huron Bay,Lake Superior
Dimensions
• Length	12.3 miles (19.8 km)

TheAbbaye Peninsulais a 12.3-mile-long (19.8 km)peninsulalocated withinBaraga Countyon the northern shore of theUpper Peninsulawithin the U.S. state ofMichigan.It is bounded byKeweenaw Bayon the west andHuron Bayon the east.

Description

The peninsula remained undisturbed in the hands of theChippewauntil 1877, when the Hebard and Thurberg Lumber Company leased the peninsula from a local clan leader and his band. Timbering operations rapidly commenced, with theold growth forestsof the peninsula axed down and carried to the sawmills atPequaming.Efforts, starting in 1914, to turn the cut-over real estate into arable farmland were not successful. The post office atAura, Michigan,which opened in 1921, was downgraded to aCPOin 1974 and closed entirely in 1982.

Today, the second-growth forests of the Abbaye Peninsula are managed for the production ofpulpwood.The thickly wooded peninsula is almost uninhabited, with no paved roads offering access to any point within the rocky promontory. Gravel roads allow extraction of pulp logs; the graded pathways can be driven by four-wheel-drive vehicles and, in winter, bysnowmobiles.Parcels of land within the peninsula are located within theCopper Country State Forest.

The rare visitor to the Abbaye Peninsula enters aboreal ecosystemdominated byLake Superior,which surroundsPoint Abbaye,the promontory's northeastern tip.TheHuron Island Lightflashes a warning to mariners from a rocky freshwater archipelago located beyond the end of the peninsula. Peninsula boaters are able to fish forlake trout.