See the lights
Get a look inside Door County’s picturesque lighthouses during next month’s festival
FISH CREEK, WISCONSIN — From observation points within Peninsula State Park, Chambers Island can be spotted as a forested bump rising from the waters of Green Bay. But few of the 2 million annual visitors to Wisconsin’s Door County ever eyeball the island 7 ½ miles offshore. Even fewer set foot on it.
In the 1860s, Chambers Island had a bustling port serving its lumber and shipbuilding industries. Roughly 300 people lived there. Now, the year-round population is zero.
The island’s heyday is long gone, but its sturdy sentinel, the Chambers Island Lighthouse (tinyurl.com/d55jd7tw), continues to provide a beacon for passing freighters and recreational boats. It has been the island’s focal point since 1868, yet only twice a year can the typical traveler reach the cream brick landmark.
One weekend each June and October, as part of the Door County Lighthouse Festivals (tinyurl.com/hp97bmez), the Quo Vadis, a tour boat based in Fish Creek, makes several trips to the island. At the dock, guests are met by Mary Ann Blahnik. She and her husband, Joel, have been volunteer caretakers for 45 years.
At age 80, Mary Ann still joins visitors on the 2-mile walk to the lighthouse, sharing island lore along the way. Her patter is interspersed with words such as “isolated” and “perilous” to describe the challenges that faced light keepers and their families.
“The first keeper raised 11 children in the lighthouse,” she explained. “The other people lived in log cabins. It was a mansion by those standards.”
The remote lighthouse — she tells people “it is maintained, not restored” — is one of three of Door County’s 11 lighthouses that will open their usually closed doors during the upcoming festivals. At one, Sherwood Point, some visitors will discover they’re eligible to overnight in the three-bedroom house. And, for the first time ever, people will be able to ride the elevator to the top of the new, 10-story lighthouse tower at the Door County Maritime Museum (120 N. Madison Ave., Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin; 920-743-5958; dcmm.org). Christened May 22, it’s now the tallest building in the county.
“There were dozens and dozens of shipwrecks. The reason for building lighthouses was to make navigation safer,” said Sam Perlman, the museum’s deputy director. Most were built in the mid- to late 1800s. Before their beacons became guiding lights, Perlman said ship captains “were at the mercy of nature, the wind and the waves.”
Visitors to the new tower begin their tour with an eight-minute film that shares the primary reason people settled in the county: water.
“Water defines this peninsula. Everyone who has ever come here has come because of the water,” Perlman noted. “They came here by water. They came here because of the water.”
“Today’s tourists come to look at the water, hang out at the beach, go out on a boat,” he continued.
The intention is for folks to first travel to the 10th floor’s enclosed observation deck and, weather permitting, an outdoor viewing platform before making their way down through eight floors of exhibits. Navigation and lighthouses are discussed on the seventh floor and also in a gallery in the main museum, providing an excellent orientation before visitors venture out to explore the actual lighthouses.
Six miles away, at the U.S. Coast Guard’s typically off-limits search and rescue station, visitors will be invited to visit the Sturgeon Bay Canal Light (2500 Canal Road, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin; tinyurl. com/4y42rznn). Built in the tower style most people associate with lighthouses, it has been a navigational aid since 1899.
“Even with technology, it can go awry. Your GPS can go down, so you’ve got that visual reference,” Petty Officer Wyatt Davis explained. (The nearby, brightred pier head lighthouse that’s popular with photographers is reachable year-round.)
Davis will also oversee rare public tours at the Coast Guard’s Sherwood Point Lighthouse (4569 E. Sherwood Point Road, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin; tinyurl.com/mzzmjn65) near Potawatomi State Park. The county’s only red brick lighthouse, it sits atop a 35-foot cliff.
Since the late 1980s, the secluded home has been available for rent to active-duty military and veterans (tinyurl.com/ mzzmjn65).
“A lot of them don’t know of the rental,” Davis said. “I just want it to become public knowledge to our active members or retired members that they can rent it.”
The summer rate of $95 a night for the three-bedroom, one-bathroom house is well below the prices at many of the county’s hotels.
“It’s like a glimpse of the past,” said Claire Lederhaus of Milwaukee, who has stayed there five times with her family. “It’s very private. You almost feel like one of the Kennedys.”
People who can’t visit Door County during festival weekends can enjoy several other historic lighthouses that welcome visitors during the warmer months.
The Cana Island Lighthouse (8800 E. Cana Island Road, Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin; dcmm.org/cana-island-lighthouse) is among the most visited attractions. Due to high water levels in Lake Michigan, most people traverse the causeway in a large wooden wagon pulled by a John Deere tractor. In a play on the brand’s slogan, signage on the green tractor reads “Nothing swims like a Deere.”
Manager Hal Wilson greets guests during festival weekends wearing a lighthouse keeper’s uniform from 100 years ago.
“Cana Island is a very important reference point,” he said. “To the recreational boats operating at night, this light is very important still, because there’s nothing over here. It’s pitch black.”
Because of renovations this summer, the lighthouse’s 97-step spiral staircase won’t reopen until 2022. However, the keeper’s house and a new interpretive center are open.
A short drive away at the Ridges Sanctuary, a 950-foot boardwalk connects the upper and lower Baileys Harbor Range Lights (8166 Wisconsin Highway 57, Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin; 920-839-2802; tinyurl.com/3fm7jd7t), a less-familiar navigational tool. The keeper’s house at the upper light is debuting new exhibits this summer.
Across the peninsula, guided tours of Eagle Bluff Lighthouse (10249 Shore Road, Fish Creek, Wisconsin; 920-421-3636; tinyurl. com/ucxh9nx5) will be available to festival ticket holders. A carbon copy of the building on Chambers Island, the house is decorated with period furnishings, some of which belonged to William Duclon, the keeper for 35 years. He and his wife, Julia, raised seven boys in the home; the children slept in a second-floor bedroom containing two double beds, a trundle bed and a crib.
With their truths and tales, lighthouses obviously evoke fascination with a bygone era.
“It’s a way to feel history,” Wilson observed. “It’s a visual reminder. How many people’s lives were saved by that light?”
The 2021 Door County Lighthouse Festivals will be held June 11-13 and Oct. 1-3.