Mount Marquette for many people can be a big part of living in Marquette, be it going there for skiing in the winter, or hiking in the summer. What a lot of people don’t know is what went on in the mountain before trails were added and trees were cleared to make way for skiers.
A recently opened exhibit at the Beaumier Heritage Center right here on campus will give a slice of that history, of when it was known as Mount Mesnard, named for a Jesuit missionary. The Beaumier is a small regional history museum run by Daniel Truckey that is located on Northern’s campus, next to Gries Hall.
The exhibit is titled Through the Years: Mount Mesnard to Mount Marquette and was developed during the winter semester of 2020 by members of Dr. Scott Demel’s Museum Studies course for the Anthropology Department. It was installed in the final two weeks of July by four Anthropology students, Morgan Armstrong, Wilbert Alik, Sage Pletka, and Charles Griffin.
Attendees of the exhibit can learn about a group of miners who lived on Mount Marquette, and of their violent removal from the property after overstaying their lease. It contains artifacts from time periods dating back to the prehistoric period, all the way up to the late 1800s.
The artifacts were discovered at an archaeological site located on Mount Marquette that was collected by Anthropology students during a fieldwork course in 2018. Some of the more interesting items found at the site were a fully intact chert arrowhead, as well as the rusted remains of an old wood-burning stove that were used by the miners in their cabin, and has been reassembled for the exhibit.
The exhibit was created as a way to introduce more people to some of the vast regional histories that exist here in Marquette.
Through the Years was originally set to open in April of 2020, but was delayed due to the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The new dates can see all the artifacts displayed in Through the Years are from August 3rd to the end of the semester in November.
The Beaumier is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. It is open to all students for free, as well as members of the public from Regions six and eight of Michigan, and only 12 people may enter the exhibit at a time to maintain social distancing.
Masks, as per state mandate, are required for entry. It will also be required to show a valid State ID at the door for non-students to prove they are from one of the approved regions. Because of the limited access to the exhibit, a recorded walkthrough of it will be released sometime in the coming weeks for easier access to the general public.
The walkthrough will also feature more in-depth commentary about the information presented in the exhibit, as well as facts about the creation of it. For more information about the Beaumier and the exhibit, visit the Beaumier’s webpage.
