Tag: Great Lakes
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Borderland, Part 2 (Blue Water Bridge)
We entered Canada for the second time in the last few months. However, this visit was only a long weekend instead of the several days days we spent there during summer. Also, we drove across the border into Sarnia rather than flying into Toronto. So it was a much different experience, not nearly the same…
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Borderland, Part 1 (Belle Isle)
We flew up to Michigan for the older kid’s fall break from graduate school and we all wanted to see something new. This encompassed both sides of the international border between Michigan’s lower peninsula and the province of Ontario. Essentially this involved the borderlands along the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair…
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Ontario, Day 6 (Owen Sound)
Our time along the southern tip of Georgian Bay was quickly drawing to an end but we still had one more destination along the shoreline towards the northwest. But first I took my final early morning stroll through Collingwood before the family woke up. I retraced some of the more memorable routes from earlier in…
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Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 6 (Mackinaw City)
We drew ever closer to our ultimate target. Only a fifteen minute ferry ride separated us from Mackinac Island today, a place we could see quite clearly from the mainland shore. However, we focused on Mackinaw City and its immediate surroundings so the island had to wait. Mackinaw City is nothing like Mackinac Island despite…
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Apostle Islands / Bayfield Peninsula Index
Index of Pages from the Visit to Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands (2007) Few areas can rival the natural beauty of the Apostle Island and the Bayfield Peninsula. The state of Wisconsin borders Lake Superior only briefly but this mighty wedge takes full advantage of its limited coastline. The islands are a national treasure full of rocky…
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Visiting the City of Bayfield
Bayfield, Wisconsin, USA (August 2007) Bayfield (map), the Apostle Islands gateway, owes its identity to Admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield. He charted much of the western Great Lakes in the 1820’s as a Royal Navy Surveyor. That included Chequamegon Bay and areas surrounding present-day Bayfield and Madeline Island. When the Bayfield Land Company platted their town…
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Mawikwe Sea Caves
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore; Bayfield County, Wisconsin, USA (August 2007) Sea caves adorn several points along the Apostle Islands and the nearby mainland shore of Lake Superior. Sailors, sea kayakers and other adventurers flock to northern Devils Island, Swallow Point on Sand Island, and Mawikwe Bay along the Bayfield Peninsula, to explore these natural wonders…
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Madeline Island Historical Museum
La Pointe, Ashland County, Wisconsin, USA (August 2007) We rolled off the ferry and nearly onto to the doorstop of the Madeline Island Historical Museum (map). Flags from each era of European-American settlement fluttered in the wind, high above the stockade corner. The modern 50-star United States flag claimed its rightful prominence atop the pole.…
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Big Bay on Madeline Island
Ashland County, Wisconsin, USA (August 2007) With the exception of the immediate boundaries of La Pointe, the most popular spots on Madeline Island were the adjacent state and town park along Big Bay’s sandy hook. “Popular” was a relative term however. We never felt crowded anywhere on the island. We found Big Bay State Park…
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Little Sand Bay & Hokenson Brothers Fishery
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Bayfield County, Wisconsin, USA (August 2007) Little Sand Bay hugged the northern edge of the Bayfield Peninsula. It fell between Point Detour and Sand Point, a gateway to the westernmost Apostle Islands. A National Park Service visitors center could be found there. It included a campground, a marina, and the historic…