September 22, 2020
The second day of my Door County adventure began with a lakeside breakfast at Dairy Dean’s Family Restaurant (824 4th Street in Algoma, Wisconsin). I recommend it for breakfast, not only because the food and service are good and the prices are very reasonable, but also because it’s walking distance from the beach. That beach leads you to the Algoma Pierhead Lighthouse, one of the photographic targets of my excursion.
The server at Dairy Dean’s noticed me studying the map I had splayed out across my little table as she approached to deliver my tea, and called out: “Oh, it looks like we’re going on an adventure!” (I have never understood how some folks are so cheerful early in the morning.) Anyway, one thing led to another, conversationally speaking, and pretty soon I had quite a bit of help identifying the best things to see and photograph from the locals among patrons at Dairy Deans. Honestly, I find that small local restaurants with friendly serving staffs are the single best place to identify great – and often otherwise unknown – targets for photography. I just love places like Dairy Deans. After breakfast, I followed the beach down to photograph the Algoma Pierhead Lighthouse – a rather ordinary one, as it turned out, with an elevated walkway over a concrete pier similar to the North Pierhead Lighthouse. It was a bright, comparatively calm morning and the bright red cylinder of a lighthouse seemed a bit garish sitting placidly out there. Somehow it brought to mind a stark white tourist sitting on a Florida beach, hoping to get some color before returning home to Minnesota.
My next official stop (I made many “unofficial” stops to photograph old barns along the way) was a recommendation of the locals, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. It was Cave Point County Park just north of Whitefish Bay. I visited Cave Point twice, as it turns out, because once I saw it I realized I had to return the following day for sunrise. The park is located at 5360 Schauer Road, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. It’s a spectacular overlook area along Lake Michigan and very popular with both local and tourist traffic. Tall, scraggly Birch trees reach out over cliffs above the lake, where rolling waves crash against them in a constant, thundering chorus. The endless wash has worn deep caves in some of the cliff walls, from which I surmise the park’s name was drawn. Even at the height of a sunny day, and even in the weeks before Autumn has really lit the flaming colors of the leaves, the place is strikingly beautiful. Sandy paths give way to white, stone-covered shorelines that the lake had scrubbed mercilessly over hundreds of years, leaving this incredible palette of textures and colors for us to experience today. Well worth the trip, even at mid-day when the tourists are as thick as flies.
After Cave Point, my next target was the 19th century Cana Island Lighthouse. Cana Island lighthouse (located at 8800 Cana Island Road, Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin) was built and lit for the first time in 1870. The lighthouse itself and the grounds of the compound are well kept. The structure itself has been turned into a museum of sorts, and is staffed with someone to answer questions about the history of the place and about the exhibits there. But access to the place is quirky. Although it is intended to be accessible to the public between May and October, it’s only open sometimes – especially during the craziness of 2020 and the COVID misadventure. Adding to those factors, though, is the fact that Cana Island is an island. One gets there either by wading through the water or riding in a wagon drawn by a John Deere tractor through that water over a submerged stone causeway. (You’ll need to buy a ticket for that ride at the nearby gift shop.)
It is said that the highlight of the place is climbing the 97 steps in the lighthouse’s spiral staircase to look out over Bailey’s Harbor. But alas, the spiral stairs are closed off these days due to COVID concerns, so the best I could do was photograph the spiral staircase. The lighthouse itself is a real beauty, and it was worth the quirky journey for me. But for those who don’t want to do a lot of walking and clambering around tractor-pulled wagons, it might not be worth the trouble and expense.
The combined drive time, wait time for the tractor, and actual exploration took most of the afternoon and it was early evening as I moved on to my next stop.
My next stop was the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse (10249 Shore Road, Fish Creek, Wisconsin) in the Peninsula State Park. This historic lighthouse-and-museum is a gorgeous edifice. It was constructed in 1868, and sits on a stretch of scenic overlook that is just beautiful.
Unlike the roaring waves that crash against the shore at Cana Island, though, the setting here is almost bucolic. It’s a wonderful backdrop for photographers, and I noticed someone having senior pictures taken on the grounds as I approached.
I had a nice conversation with some of the locals who – like me – had planned their visit to coincide with sunset over the lake. They not only told me about the history of Eagle Bluff, but also provided much more cogent directions to the elusive Sherwood Point Lighthouse. Eagle Bluff is perched about 75 feet above the lake. It’s a brick structure surrounded by well-manicured grounds and a low stone wall that practically begs you to sit for a while and watch the ships in the distance. It was manned between 1868 and 1926, at which point it was automated. These days it is still appointed with some of the lighthouse keeper’s original furniture and authentic period antiques, and – should the COVID craziness ever subside – it will likely be staffed once again by knowledgeable tour guides. I did, indeed, watch the sunset before moving on.
For the second time, I began my search for Sherwood Point Lighthouse. Since the sun had set, my journey – which took me back, deep into the woods, became darker with each turn down the narrow, winding roads. Sherwood Point Lighthouse was officially established in 1883, after a two-year battle over title to the site. Situated on the west side of the north entrance to Sturgeon Bay, the point is named for Peter Sherwood, who settled there in 1836. The Lighthouse Board installed a fog signal at Sherwood Point in 1892, since the red and white lights were barely visible in thick weather. Sherwood Point Lighthouse was the last manned lighthouse on the Great Lakes, not becoming automated until 1983, one hundred years after its initial construction. Today, a light still shines from the lighthouse. The coastguard continues to maintain the lighthouse and grounds, and – as I first discovered at the North Pierhead Lighthouse, they aren’t particularly interested in visitors. By the time I located the place (which appears to have no street address, but has GPS coordinates of 44_53_34N by 87_26.36W) it was full dark and my new driving lights were once again demonstrating their value.
When I swung onto the property at last it was probably about 9pm. A big, beautiful sign adorned the property proclaiming that it is a Homeland Security installation. Wow; we spend a LOT of money on signage for these places! Anyway, the intrepid little Ridgeline climbed along the road until I could see the building itself, and I swung in behind it to see the light clearly. I discovered that the Coast Guard members manning the facility and some of their friends were sitting around a fire pit and enjoying what looked to be a marshmallow roast. After a very brief conversation where I was informed that this is private property, I was granted permission to photograph the building – as long as I did it quickly – and moved on. Clearly, these folks take their marshmallow roasts almost as seriously as their lighthouses, and I guess I must look more like a Russian spy than I realize. So, I took a few photos and once again turned back toward civilization where I could retire for the evening.
