Above It All at Copper Peak, Where My Friend's Work Still Towers

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Whenever my wife, Donna, and I took the long-way cruise from our home port of Duluth along the south shore then north to our safe harbor at Cloud Bay, Ontario, we’d linger at beautiful Black River Harbor, our favored stop between Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands and Michigan’s Keweenaw Waterway.

Black River Harbor, advises Bonnie Dahl in her cruising guide Superior Way, “is sometimes difficult to locate since it blends in well with the bold shoreline. There is another marker, a ski jump high in the hills just to the west of the harbor, which is often used as a bearing when closing in.”

Yes, it is a ski jump tall enough to be a guide to navigation.

“That’s Copper Peak,” I’d remind Donna (as if she needed reminding). “Our friend Lauren Larsen designed it.”

Recently I asked Lauren about how he came to design what was once the tallest – and only – ski-flying facility in the western hemisphere.

The story begins in 1968, when a delegation from the Gogebic Range Ski Club from Ironwood, Michigan, came to Lauren in Duluth.

The idea for an oversize jump surfaced when the club was organized in 1935. It became a serious proposal in 1946 when the Ironwood Daily Globe confirmed grapevine rumors of the club’s intention to acquire the site to be named Copper Peak. The club wanted to introduce ski flying to North America. Ski-flying scaffolds, about 35 percent larger than 120-metre Olympic slides, enabled regular jumps of more than 400 feet (122 metres) – longer than a football field, including the two end zones.

A Milwaukee firm had been hired to do the first drawings for the slide, but the Federation of International Skiing (FIS) said no to those plans.

Meanwhile, Lauren, a civil/structural engineer, was in a fledgling consulting practice and his first project had been impressive. He did a structural design for the Duluth Arena, an anchor for the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

With his firm still new in 1968, Lauren was impressed to get the call from the Gogebic Ski Club. He recalls a pleasant chat, then the ski promoters left for home. A month later, they returned with $1,032,000 in the bank and an assignment for the young firm.

Lauren had no design handbook for or experience with ski jumps. The world’s only ski-flying hill had just been completed in Oberstdorf, Germany. Lauren wrote to design engineer Heini Kloppfer for guidance. Heini responded, sending notes about his experience – in German.

Copper Peak posed design challenges. Not only did the structure need to be sound and able to handle long-term maintenance issues, the full site had to be considered. How would skiers reach the top of the tower? How far were these skiers likely to “fly” and where would they land?

“The challenge then requires putting all the intricate design detail together into construction plans, and we have to credit Lauren. He did it well,” says Harvey Harvala, who became a partner with Lauren and was later joined by Robert Berquist in a firm that grew into Larsen, Harvala & Berquist – today’s well-respected LHB.

Lauren’s lofty scaffold, 26 stories tall, required 300 tons of Corten, then a relatively new steel alloy that weathers to a rust-colored patina without deterioration.

“Lauren had the vision to realize the potential of a new product on the market at the time,” Harvey says.

A chairlift would carry skiers to the structure’s base and an enclosed elevator carried them to the top.

Bids for the tower were opened in Lauren’s office March 12, 1969. Vulcan Manufacturing Company of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, fabricated and erected the scaffold. Two jumbo 300-foot cranes brought from near Chicago aided the on-site assembly.

Copper Peak’s inaugural ski-flying meet was held about one year later, on February 28, 29 and March 1, 1970.

The distinction of being the first official jumper went to Greg Swor of Duluth. Weeks earlier, he had soared 340 feet to set a U.S. record at Leavenworth, Washington.

Greg says he got to go first because of good jumps at a world competition and he “got the short straw.” Teammate Adrian Watt’s version is that Greg got sent first because at 18, he was the youngest skier there.

Greg wanted to start at the top, but cautious FIS officials insisted on a middle-station start; the slide, after all, was untested. Greg recalls shivering for an hour in the winter chill while far below him speeches were made and ribbons were cut. His jump was not a record breaker, but he and the other skiers all praised Lauren’s design.

That first competition drew jumpers from Czechoslovakia, Norway, Yugoslavia, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden and Japan. Ten sanctioned FIS competitions followed from 1970 to 1994, when the Copper Peak record was set by Austrians Werner Schuster and Mathias Wallner. Both jumped 518 feet (158 metres).

The jump’s fortunes waxed and waned. The landing slope, subject to erosion and costly to maintain, twice required a profile change to obtain re-certification. New FIS rules dictated a 12-degree lowering of the take-off angle in 1988. Gate receipts often failed to meet costs. Up to 10,000 paying visitors to the tower’s stunning views in summer and fall revived accounts, but meant added upkeep of the chairlift and elevator. As the 1994-5 season drew to a close, Copper Peak was $346,970 in debt.

Remarkably, since then the tenacious board has wiped out the hill’s burdensome debt. The hill’s directors plan to install plastic on the landing slope, making it the only ski-flying hill so equipped. This will enable skiers to practice and compete all year. Reinventing Copper Peak as the world’s largest summer ski jumping/ski-flying hill and training center has won FIS support. The new plan holds the promise of a balanced budget.

This August, Donna and I got our first view atop Copper Peak. The hospitality, ride up and breathtaking views were exciting, but equally impressive was the dedication to maintenance, grooming and planning.

Retired, my friend Lauren is often asked to name his most memorable project. His answer never changes. “Copper Peak was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design something that is the only one of its kind in the world. That chance doesn’t come along to some designers, ever.”

Indeed, who else has created a ski-flying jump, a spectacular visitor viewing platform and, as we and Bonnie Dahl well know, a boater’s navigational landmark with one design? Well done, my friend.

Donn Larson, a frequent contributor, is on our editorial advisory board.