MARQUETTE, Mich.— The Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center will host a reception and program for its current photography exhibit titled “People, Place and Time: Michigan’s Copper Country Through the Lens of J.W. Nara” on Friday, April 30, in 105 Cohodas Hall at Northern Michigan University.

The reception begins at 2 p.m. It will be followed by a 3 p.m. program featuring Erik Nordberg, archivist and the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. He will give an illustrated presentation of Nara’s work with dozens of historical photographs of the Keweenaw. Admission is free.

John William Nara was born in Finland in 1874. He later immigrated to the United States and established a photographic studio in Calumet, in the heart of America’s most productive copper mining region. In addition to posed studio portraits, Nara’s lens also captured the people, place, and time he experienced in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. Copper mining and industry are an important part of the story, but Nara also captured the Keweenaw’s rural landscape, including local farms, shorelines, lighthouses and pastoral back roads.

The traveling exhibit, funded in part by descendants Robert and Ruth Nara of Bootjack, Mich., works from historical photographs held at the Michigan Tech Archives. Interpretive panels highlight the people, places and times that Nara experienced during his lifetime and include material on urban life, farming and the 1913 Michigan copper miners’ strike. A small exhibit catalog is available at no charge and includes three Nara photograph postcards from the collection.

The Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The Nara exhibition will be on display through May 20.