Happy 1st Birthday Explore App!

One year ago, on 17 November 2017, the Keweenaw Time Traveler's Explore App went public. Since then, online users have added over 500 stories about places in the Keweenaw. If you haven't explored all those purple dots, take a look! Have a story to share? Here's the How-To Guide and some video tutorials.  

Starting Conversations through Storytelling

One of the Keweenaw Time Traveler's goals is to start conversations about Copper Country places. One story contributed in the Explore App started up a conversation about memories from the Houghton County Memorial Airport. A newspaper clipping from the Michigan Tech Archives was posted at the airport site that recounted the 1970s practice of mailing snow to the University of Texas so students there could have a snow ball fight. User Bob Cunningham added his own memories of battling the cold and dodging aircraft to measure the effects of weather on landing instruments. 

Other people use the Explore App to mark where historic photographs were taken. Lynette Webber, a ranger at the Keweenaw National Historical Park, added a story on 6th Street in Calumet for this colorized postcard of the Red Jacket Fire Hall. 

Lynette has also added story points for several of her award-winning #MissingintheCopperCountry series, which transposes historic photos over today's landscapes.  Use the "Stories" tab in the Explore App to search for Lynette's posts or any other content. Look around, read people's stories, and then share your own memories about what the Keweenaw's changing landscape  means to you. 

There's Always Something New

In the year since the Explore App launched, a lot of activity has gone on behind the scenes. Below are a few improvements you may have noticed, and changes coming down the pike. 

Improvements since last November:

• Now you can tell your stories using audio and video as well as photos. Learn more in this blog post.
• New "Share Story" button moved to the upper menu bar.
• Faster server! Less waiting for maps to load while searching by name/place and browsing from year to year. 

Our Team of students and faculty are working to add more data for you to explore including:

• Historical Calumet school records Learn More  
• Mining company employee records Learn More
• Census records Learn More

Since launch, the Explore App has had more than 200,000 hits with the average user spending 6.4 minutes. Please keep using it! And tell us what changes you would like to see in the future. Continue to follow us on Facebook and Twitter where we will keep you up to date as the Keweenaw Time Traveler continues to grow and improve. Here's to Year Two!