About Us

About Us:  Barbara Simila and Peter Oikarinen

In Spring, Summer, and Fall, my husband and I, both Copper Country natives, live on the basaltic shoreline of Lake Superior.  We live in Keweenaw County, near the gorgeous beach at Great Sand Bay.  We live a simple life.  My brother-in-law, Jim built the cabin of huge poplar logs: one large room down and a loft overlooking the everchanging beauty of this mystical, magnificent sweetwater sea.  Our wood-fired sauna is a balm to body, mind, and spirit.

Since my recent retirement from Calumet High School’s English Department, a project we have been ‘cooking’ for two years is coming to fruition.  We hope that you will find our work as much a pleasure to view as we have found in creating it.  All current gallery prints were accepted into the juried, regional ‘Great Lakes Showcase’ and all are printed  on archival satin paper.  They are truly an inspiration from the beauties of our world to all who love Lady Lake Superior and her magical places as much as we do.

Monty, our cabin cat even has his own Books page.  You’ll find Peter’s most recent publication, a revised edition with additional chapters, of Island Folk: The People of Isle Royale from the University of Minnesota Press and other prose, as well as a volume of my poetry illustrated with Peter’s black and white photographs: Watermarks: Poems from the Coast of Keweenaw.

More pieces will become available as we create them.  This is ‘Stage One’ of our interaction with the ‘Digital Age’.  We’re Copper Country old-timers, and determined to connect with you because we know you’ll enjoy our site.

We’ll be keeping on online Journal, so be sure to keep up with our observations of life on the Big Lake and other wonders.  Never know what will turn up in there!  So we invite you to come back often for a cup of coffee on the deck, sugar lumps optional!

Best Wishes,

Barbara Simila and Peter Oikarinen