On Madeline Island

A look at the eastern shore of the island.

While it's more expensive to take the car to Madeline Island, it gives you options on where to go.  

 

The ferry unloads in the town of LaPorte, where we drove on the dock, right on Main Street then on Middle Road to check out the Madeline Island School of the Arts.

It hosts a variety of 5-day workshops throughout the summer and fall in quilting, painting, photography, and writing.  We hadn't signed up for anything this time but it was a spot my wife wanted to inspect.

Big Bay Lagoon is part of the State Park.

 Middle Road leaves the middle of the island as the shore curves next to the road providing a spectacular view of the lake.  

 

 Big Bay State Park and Big Bay Town Park sit next to each other on the east side of the 14-mile long, 3-mile wide island. 

 In the town park we had a great view of the lagoon and the opportunity to cross a bridge on to a sand bar that framed the view in the photo at the top of the post.

 The park is where we noticed the island's most unique features, as it is the first Wisconsin off-reservation municipality to install bilingual signs.

English and Anishinaabemowin

Madeline Island is named for Madeline Cadotte, daughter of Chief White Crane and the wife of fur trader and European Michael Cadotte.  In Ojibwe the island is recognized as the home of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker.

 

I asked at the Madeline Island Museum about the bird.  I didn't see any during our time on the island but was told they can be seen everywhere.

 

From the park we drove northeast to circle the island and reach its northernmost point.  The north end had a number of homes dotting the shore and rural road.  There are mix of home styles from simple, owner builds to elaborate vacation McMansions.

 

Back in LaPorte we toured one of the state's twelve historic sites, the Madeline Island Museum.  It began in 1958 as a private museum given to the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1968.  

The original museum was built from four old buildings.  At far left in the photo below is the Old Jail build late in the 19th century.

The log structure is the original museum

 Next (with the door) is the only surviving portion of the American Fur Company's post built around 1835.  It's the oldest structure on the island.

 

 The small white framed window to the right is part of a log barn built around 1900 by a Swedish farmer.  Next to it is a one-room cabin built on the island's south shore around 1900.

 

 The yard is surrounded by a picket stockade similar to what the French built to protect their trading post and forts on the island in 17th and 18th centuries.

Lake Superior is seen outside the stockade.

As members of the Wisconsin Historical Society we get free passes to these slices of the state's past.  

While in 2022 effort is required to visit the island, I can imagine what it was like for the original residents, the Ojibwe, to move around these parts. 

 

As the French established posts to trade with the tribes they had to adapt to weather and long distance travel while relying on wind or man power to get from island to the mainland and back.

 

You can see a lot of the island on a day trip or get the full experience by spending a few nights.  I doubt I'll ever be in Bayfield between January and March but it would be a very cool (literally) experience to drive on the ice road which replaces the ferry when the lake freezes.

 

Views around Madeline Island - top looking northeast; Big Bay Lagoon; and southeast beach.

 Photos by David Mossner, September 22, 2022.