Wandering Bucket List: The Apostle Islands

The Apostle Islands are on the northernmost tip of the state of Wisconsin:

We took a road trip to the Apostle Islands and on the way we discovered a little surprise when traveling through Montello, WI:

Montello Granite Park is on Hwy. 23 in Montello.

The red granite quarried there is reported to have been used to build the tombs of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, and in Wisconsin's State Capitol Building.

Frog Bay Tribal National Park

The first Tribal National Park in the United States

This park is about 15 miles north of Bayfield, WI, and opened to the public on August 3, 2012; we visited August 24, 2012.

http://www.brcland.org/frog-bay-tribal-national-park.html

DIRECTIONS to Frog Bay Tribal National Park
Drive north on Highway 13 to Red Cliff.
Turn right on Blueberry Lane at Legendary Waters Resort & Casino.
Follow Blueberry Lane for about 3 miles. (Be sure to obey the speed limit)
Turn right onto Frog Bay Road.
Follow Frog Bay Road until it dead ends.
Park your vehicle in the parking lot at the dead end.
Take the access road to the wooden bridge.
Look for the trail head sign (when we were there it said "Beach") on the left at the wooden bridge.
Take the trail through the woods to the bay.
If you took the access road all the way to the bay you missed the trail and entered private property.

Everything written about getting there says not to speed;
even though it seems ridiculously slow...don't speed!

"...parking lot at the dead end."

Parking area to the left and continuation of "Frog Bay Road" (the access road) to the right. (Well, at least it looks like it continues when viewing Google Maps.)

This is the start of the walk to the beach.

Note that the sign says "BEACH" not "TRAIL"

Link to an article we saw in the Milwaukee JournalSentinel the day we returned from our road trip.

It appears that the author was visiting the Apostle Islands/Bayfield area at the same time we were... only he was smart enough to make a little money by writing some articles and likely deducting travel and lodging as a business expense!

Note this error: “To reach the bay, walk down the access road to a wooden bridge, where a sign on the left says ‘trail’."

Nope…the sign reads “BEACH”. A minor issue, unless you find yourself wandering around “in the middle of nowhere!”

IF YOU GO

Frog Bay Tribal National Park is 390 miles northwest of Milwaukee via U.S. 51. To get to the park trailhead, take Highway 13 north out of Bayfield and continue north on Blueberry Lane at the Legendary Waters Casino. Go three miles (be sure to follow the 25 mph speed limit) and then turn right on Frog Bay Road. To reach the bay, walk down the access road to a wooden bridge, where a sign on the left says "trail." (No…it says “beach”) Follow it to the water. Do not trespass on non-park land. If you reach the Frog Creek estuary, turn back because it is privately owned.

We stayed a couple of nights at the Bayfield Inn and had a room that overlooked a municipal park and the main pier.

Sunrise viewed from room at Bayfield Inn

Teardrop trailer sweepstakes prize from Madison's Capital Brewery was parked outside Bayfield Inn. Hope we win, but the hotel room did provide a few more creature comforts.

An "Amphicar" parked on a street in Bayfield; looked cool, but the ferry and tour boat seem to be a better way to navigate the islands.

We didn't take this pirate ship to the island either.

A few Miller Lites and Brandy Manhattans atop the
Bayfield Inn while the sun set across the islands
made for a relaxing evening.

One of the regular ferries headed to Madeline Island.
Note that it was getting dark and there was little motivation to figure out how to get a better photo. (Revisit the photo above if you want to know why the motivation level was so low.)

Ferry view back toward mainland town of Bayfield;

not going to win any photo contests with this one.

Uninspiring photo of view from the ferry while docking on Madeleine Island

“Once the ferries stop running for the winter, there is a passenger only windsled that travels on a limited schedule. The windsled is used until the ice road is considered safe enough for cars and light trucks to travel. The windsled is used again in the spring when the road is deemed unworthy of travel but the lake ice is too
thick for the ferries to cut through.” http://www.madelineisland.com/madeline-island/getting-here/location/

Luckily this map was hanging on the wall in the ferry depot, but it was not found in any of the many brochures available about the area. Had to snap a photo with cell phone camera before taking bicycles on the ferry to Madeline Island.

Sure would have been helpful to have had a printed brochure.

Took bicycle ride out to Big Bay State Park; numbers 1 - 6 on map.

Then back to La Pointe ferry dock via route numbered 7 – 13.

…about 18 miles round trip.

Beach at Big Bay State Park

Deer keeping an eye on us along the trail as we walked back from the beach.

Big Bay Town Park – self serve canoe rentals for $10/hour.

We only lasted a couple of minutes (canoeing isn’t on somebody’s bucketlist) and we didn’t have any change so we never paid the prorated $0.84 for using the canoe; sorry, Town of LaPointe.

Had to pay a visit to the Madeline Island Public Library

THE APOSTLE ISLANDS

The original Apostle Islands National Lakeshore bill was proposed by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1965 and over the course of a few years, Congress considered Nelson’s legislation. The final bill passed the Senate in 1969, and on September 10, 1970, it was passed by the House. President Richard Nixon signed the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Act on September 26, 1970.

Granite blocks sitting right where they were when quarrying ended 100 years ago!

Brownstone (sandstone) was shipped from quarries in the Apostle Islands at the end of the 19th century to Midwestern cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and St. Paul where it was used to build some of the cities' most distinctive landmarks.

Fish camp on Manitou Island

The blue tarped roof is not historically correct!

The national park service is making restorations.

Sea Caves
Centuries of wave action, freezing, and thawing have sculpted shorelines throughout Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Some of the Great Lakes' most spectacular scenery occurs where these forces interact with sandstone of the Devils Island Formation to create extensive sea caves.

http://www.nps.gov/apis/naturescience/caves.htm

Raspberry Island Lighthouse

Copper Falls

Copper Falls State Park was created in 1929 and much of the development work was done by two Depression-
era government agencies, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)