Navigation

Area: Rock Island

  • Abigail Edmonds. Rock Island.

    A Weekend On Rock Island

    Gabe arrived at my house with a sleek, lightweight backpack. His gear has special names that make us sound like adventurers—the pack is an Osprey Exos, with a Stoic tent and Therm-a-Rest RidgeRest sleeping pad packed inside. I carried a frameless pack that my parents bought in 1991 for a backpacking trip that was derailed […]

  • Thordarson’s Rock Island Boathouse: A Door County Treasure

    Patty Williamson takes us through history and inside the stunning walls of Rock Island’s majestic Thordarson boat house.

  • Len Villano

    Washington & Rock Island

    What is a potential visitor’s perception of Washington Island? This is a question I often ask myself, especially when trying to come up with marketing ads for radio or print media for the Washington Island Ferry Line, my employer of the past 40 years. There is the ferry ride, of course, pleasant enough most days, […]

  • Plum Island to Open to the Public

    It may be next summer or the one after that, but someday Plum Island will be open for visitors. “We recently completed our comprehensive conservation plan for the island which finalized the process we had to go through to open the refuge to public use,” said Sadie O’Dell, biologist for the U.

  • Pottawatomie Lighthouse. Tim Sweet.

    A Prize Worth the Journey: Pottawatomie Lighthouse on Rock Island

    Imagine, if you can, a time nearly 200 years ago when Green Bay and Prairie du Chien were the only two major towns in Wisconsin. When the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, the already thriving shipping trade between Green Bay and cities on the eastern Great Lakes increased dramatically. Troubled by the number of […]

  • Island Adventure: A photo essay of Rock Island

    Door County boasts more state parks than any other county in Wisconsin, and for those of us that live here, these green spaces prove to be haven-like playgrounds amidst our busy lifestyles. In my tenure in the county, I’ve spent countless nights beneath the stars at Newport, plenty of days on the beach at Whitefish […]

  • Faces of the Past: Chester Thordarson

    One of the most fascinating characters in Door County’s history has to be Chester Thordarson, particularly where Rock Island is concerned. Born in Iceland in 1867, Thordarson immigrated with his family to Milwaukee when he was nearly six years old. Chester and his family moved throughout the Midwest and by the time he was 20, […]

  • Rock Island: The Untrammeled Frontier

    As the passenger ferry “Karfi” pulls up to the break-wall at Rock Island, I’m cold, drenched and reminded just how much this place feels like the outer edge of all known civilization. Barring the sound of Karfi’s engine and the monumental stone boathouse on the shore, I could be Jean Nicolet stumbling onto this untrammeled […]