Visiting the Apostles

In doing some research for the trip, Jeff found the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and shared it with me.  The Apostle Islands are about 20 islands in Lake Superior off the northern coast of Wisconsin in Bayfield County.   The area was, and continues to be, inhabited by members of the Chippewa Nation.  White settlers also made their way to this area and tried to farm on the mainland coast and the small islands.  Some left and some stayed.   

Lake at Top O' the Morn Campground

I was unsure of the campgrounds in Bayfield, so I reserved a site at a campground in Iron River that had very good reviews.  It was on a lake, and located right off Route 2.  The campground on its own was very nice.  Unlike the over-promise, under-deliver experience we had in Deer River, this campground matched the website and reviews.  The lake is crystal clear and very nice, the rental pontoon boats on waiting in the lake, and there's a pretty swimming beach with a floating jumping deck out in the lake.  There are lots of people here, but it doesn't feel too crowded.  Instead of looking like a regular campground office, this office looks, well, like a bar.  It's dark, and there's no store, and there's a counter with about eight stools at it.  Behind the seating area at the bar is a rec room with a television.  

The only downside to the campground is its location, about 55 miles from Bayfield and the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.  But the drive there was fairly scenic, so it wasn't so bad.  Now that we've been up there, should we ever want to go back, we know of closer campgrounds that looked pretty good.

Bayfield is a cute town, with a main street with stores, a coffee shop and some restaurants.  There's a dock at the end of the street where you can charter a sailboat to tour the Apostle Islands, take a water taxi to an island to explore, take the ferry to Madeline Island or take a boat tour of the Apostle Islands.  


We booked the boat tour for this morning, figuring the water would be calmer in the morning, and there would be less chance of rain.  Lately, the afternoons can get cloudy and we've had a slight shower or two.

Bayfield

We headed to Bayfield this morning and got there around 9:00 a.m.  Ruth and I walked over to the Bayfield Coffee Roasters shop so I could get a cup of hot tea.  They had freshly baked blueberry scones so I got one, and Ruth got an "eggie," which is a crustless quiche.  It was a lovely shop, painted an off white with coffee pots on display on shelves.  It was a place I could sit and read a book and sip tea for awhile and be very happy.  Sadly, today was not that day, because we had a boat to catch.

People started lining up for the boat tour pretty early, so we got in line around 9:15.  We found seats on the upper deck of the boat and we all hoped for smooth seas and nice weather.  

Sea Caves

The tour goes around many of the 22 islands in the archipelago.  We saw a bachelor fish camp that operated until recently on one of the islands.  Men would come and live at the camp and fish all day to earn money.  The camp is no longer operational, but the National Park Service maintains it to show visitors how the fisherman lived.  Another island once housed a sandstone quarry, but now the trees have overgrown it so you can't really see anything unless you hike on the island.  

Devil's Island has sea caves which we could see from the boat.  Devil's Island is one of the outward facing islands and takes the brunt of winter storms.  The storms cause water to crash upon the rocks, and erosion helps to carve out caves.  It's fascinating to see, even from the distance of the boat.

The boat tour was about three hours long, and to be honest, I'm not sure we'd do it again.  Unlike some of the boat tours we took off the coast of Maine in Boothbay Harbor or Bar Harbor, there's not much to see on the islands because most of them are not developed.  They all look the same, minus a few lighthouses and the sea caves.

As our cruise was coming to an end, the wind picked up, and the calm waters we left on the lake now had whitecaps.  We were lucky to get in when we did.  

After we got off the boat, we let Ruth pick a place for lunch.  She chose a place right by the dock, and once again, she chose well.  The Pickled Herring Restaurant had some great sandwiches and a pleasant server.  Jeff had a conference call at 2:00, so he left lunch early to take the call in the Jeep while we finished our sandwiches.  Then Henry, Ruth and I walked around town and picked up a few things.  They have a funny shirt here that says "Lake Superior:  No salt water.  No sharks.  No worries."   We picked one up for Henry.

We decided to take a ride to check out the mainland part of the national lakeshore.  Our first stop was a sandy beach area with a boat launch.  The sand on the beach is a reddish tan color and it's soft on your feet, softer than other beach sands I've walked on.  I looked for sea glass but didn't see any.  We stayed on the beach, and then Henry and I went into the Visitor's Centerto check it out and get the kids' passports stamped.  The ranger told us that some people see eagles around the Meyer's Beach area of the park, down the road a bit, so we took a ride down there.  It's another nice stretch of beach where people take kayaks out to explore the lake and the coast.  Not far away are more sea caves that are much easier to get to on a kayak than the ones on Devil's Island.  The kids and I walked the beach for a bit, and then we met up with Jeff and headed back to the car.  

We drove through a tiny town called Cornucopia, and we found a combination laundromat-convenience store.  I ran in for some drinks for the ride home, and also picked up some local cheese.  We had hoped to find a cheese shop but hadn't yet.  Looking over to the left, I saw a store and asked Jeff if I could go in, just in case they had a better cheese selection.  It was a great general store with a bit of everything: food, gifts, wine, a deli, pottery, and drinks.  I found a couple good Wisconsin cheeses, some local brown ale infused bratwurst, and a candle from Madeline Island.  If the family wasn't waiting for me in the car, I would have browsed a bit longer, and surely spent more money.


The drive back was a bit interesting, because we decided to take a backroad through the county back to our campground instead of going all the way back to Bayfield and then down to Iron River.  It turned out that they had stripped all of the pavement off about nine miles of the road and were in the process of repaving it.  Without enough notice to turn back, we ended up driving over a gravel road and playing a short game of chicken with a construction vehicle before making our way back on paved roads.