8-23-2023 Algoma to Gill's Rock, WI

(To the t-loggers who enter your kind words in the “comments” at the bottom, thank you for that but please, please sign your name so I know who you are, Nice Person!

Also, I’ve been asked if this is a motorhome trip.  No.  We are only here for a week.  We flew into MKE and will fly back this Saturday.)

 

Looking out from our deck
at the Algoma Beach Motel

Algoma Pierhead Light

Roberto and the light.  You can't
get out to the light unless you
swim part of the way.

There are 11 historic lighthouses on the Door County peninsula.  The stories at the few we’ve visited seem to be related to shipwrecks that created the need but not this one.  In 1878, about 8 miles north of the Algoma Pierhead Light, the schooner Daniel Lyons was northbound to New York and the Kate Gillett was headed south to Chicago carrying a load of fence posts.  They wound up on a collision course and the Daniel Lyons turned sharply to starboard but this evasive effort did not pay off.  The Kate Gillett impaled the Daniel Lyons punching a hole in her hull amidships.  The ship that did the hole-punching kept the hole-punched ship afloat until all the crew were rescued, then the ships disengaged and the Daniel Lyons sank.  It now lies more than 100 feet below the waters of Lake Michigan and is an historic landmark and archeological exploration site.  I surmise that if the Great Lakes were ever empty of water, a million ships would be found on the bottom.

Out past the breakwater, goin'
fishin.'  Nope, not this girl!

 

Rob standing at Christmas Tree
Ship Point.
The Algoma Pierhead
Light is way out there.

Algoma was the home of many captains and crew of the Christmas Tree Ships.  In the late 1800s and early 1900s, 52 schooners transported Christmas trees from up north to Milwaukee and Chicago, passing by Algoma. Several of the schooners lost the battle with the winter gales.  “Christmas Tree Ship Point” is designated here to honor those who braved the angry lake to deliver Christmas trees.

 

On the way north, we found Wienke’s Farm Market.  It’s actually a working farm featuring wonderful huge fresh zucchinis, beautiful corn on the cob and other shiny vegetables, cherry pies, homemade cookies, fresh cheese and curds, brats and other smoked meats including salmon pulled from Lake Michigan, jellies, jams and peppernuts.  Peppernuts (pfeffernüse) are a small cookie rolled in the thousands by the Krauts including moi as a child.  They are about ½” in diameter and I rolled about a million of them.  They sell for $8.50 per bag of about 20.  I may have missed my calling!

Wienke's Farm Market

 

Inside the wonderful 
Wienke's Market

Smoked meats galore!

Bearcats is a fish market and smokehouse.

YUM!  The ears are HUGE!

I took a stab and we wound up at “the best restaurant in Bailey’s Harbor.”  There are tables in the grass in the back yard a few steps from the lake.  It isn’t a sunny day, kind of gloomy as a matter of fact, but it’s warm and being on the water is a nice touch for a couple of desert rats who don’t see water at home.  The building was constructed in 1908 by August Schram and was a tavern and dance hall.  Poor old Gus died when he was 36 from a tooth infection.  His widow remarried.  The tavern stayed but out with the dance hall, in with the ice cream parlor.  Later, another owner continued the tradition and it is still a tavern and restaurant, the Harbor Fish Market and Grille.  We learned that the restaurant features a fish boil 4 evenings a week but the management here decided to upgrade it to a lobster boil.  The damage for attendees is $70 per person.  Our bill tonight for a whitefish boil will be $25 each.

Our table on the grass at
the Harbor Fish Market
and Grille

The black kettle in the foreground
is the centerpiece of the lobster boil.

August Schram's original tavern 
and dance hall, 1908

The same building 115 years later

 

After our delicious perch lunch and a few side trips in an attempt to spot the Bailey's Harbor lighthouse, which never happened, we continued north along the water to the tippy top of the peninsula to the Harbor Light Inn at Gill’s Rock.  We are in the First Mate’s room on the second floor overlooking the water.  The water is Green Bay.  Humbly I will admit something:  Until a couple of years ago, I didn’t know that Green Bay was actually a body of water.  Up till now, in true fashion of a devoted fan, I guess I thought that Green Bay was just the name of a town that was named after the Green Bay Packers!  Who knew?!

This Viking cruiseliner
anchored near our motel
in Algoma.  A tender
carries tourists back and forth
to land to see the haps.