Category: Features
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Northern Door is well known for its orchards and fishing boats and fallow dairy farms. And while most visitors are familiar with Mink River, few of them know that the peninsula once was home to mink ranches.
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This summer at Gibraltar School, as classrooms are cleaned, last year’s paperwork is completed, and faculty members prepare for September, the school is phasing out some of its old equipment.
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Water Thief is Climate, Study Claims
A public hearing that the International Great Lakes Study Committee originally didn’t even plan on holding turned out to have more depth than any other, study officials said Tuesday.
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Bobby McCullough was a preschooler in 1954 when Birds Park came into his life, but he remembers very clearly driving north through Baileys Harbor in his family’s 1947 Buick, when his mother suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, my God, isn’t that wonderful!” The wonderful thing she’d sighted was a funny old concrete house, painted white and blue, […]
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“How are you?” It’s the most common of questions, and usually doesn’t elicit much thought before a response. “I’m fine, thanks,” is the standard, no-thought response, whether true or not. But for the 400 or so international students who come to Door County to work in its kitchens, dining rooms, and shopping aisles each summer, […]
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Farewell to the Father of the Norzwich
The Father of the Norzwich, Gerald Norz, died June 8 at age 78. For 30 years he was a fixture, along with his wife Ann, in the aisles and behind the deli counter at the Fish Creek General Store.
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When 4,000 people show up for breakfast, it’s not just a meal; it’s an event.
Now in its 28th year, the Dairy Breakfast, sponsored by the Sevastopol High School Future Farmers of America (FFA) alumni, serves anywhere from 3,500 to 4,400 people. -
Egg Harbor Decides to Decide Later on Marina…Probably
A clearly frustrated board of trustees decided to take a little more time to decide on new referendum language at a special board meeting Monday evening at the Paul Bertschinger Community Center.
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Emotions High as Egg Harbor Discusses Marina
Emotions were on full display at the Thursday, May 28 joint meeting of the Egg Harbor Village Board and Harbor Committee as a defensive village board discussed what to do in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote against building an expanded marina in the tiny village.
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In June, about 350 young men and women will graduate from five Door County High schools. They’ll walk stiff and halting across a stage, trying not to look awkward in front of family and friends, and trying to remember the right way to turn.
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Voters in the Village of Egg Harbor voted down a proposal to build a new and expanded marina May 26 by an 87 – 81 margin.
The controversial project had the support of all five village board members, but voters disagreed with the size and cost of the project. -
Southern Door County’s Belgian Wayside Chapels
Along the roadsides of southern Door County, in the heart of the Belgian-American settlement, an observant traveler might notice small unobtrusive buildings standing slightly apart from a brick farmhouse or painted red barn. These simple structures, built of wood and adorned with a cross on the roof or above the door, could easily be mistaken […]
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Silent Revolution: Door County’s silent sports community gaining traction
After the spring thaw, a narrow trail hides beneath the matted bed of leaves on the floor of Peninsula State Park. The air is crisp, the trees are still, and the silence of the forest is disturbed only by the rustle of a breeze through the lightly burdened branches of blossoming sugar maples, basswoods and […]
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THE Farm: A Living Museum of Rural America
I first went to THE Farm in 2003 or 2004, having avoided it for many years; I had ignorantly assumed it was some sort of hokey petting zoo for kids, and I hadn’t had kids yet. I agreed to go only because my cousin and his young daughter, Scarlett, were in town – THE Farm […]
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On Call, On the Edge: Fighting Fire in the Door
“When you’re entering atmospheres that are in excess of 1,000 degrees, you’re living life on the edge,” Caleb Whitney says wryly about his job as a firefighter and company officer for the Baileys Harbor Fire Department. Indeed, the firefighters of northern Door County live on many “edges” simultaneously, straddling the lines between fire and water, […]
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Sherwood Point Lighthouse: The Keeper of the Ship Canal
Known for its uncharacteristic red brick and for its double distinction of being both the last Door County lighthouse to be automated and the last manned lighthouse on the Great Lakes, Sherwood Point Lighthouse is perched at the end of a serene country road, near Sturgeon Bay’s Idlewild area. The story of Sherwood Point is […]
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It’s Not Easy Being Green: Zigzagging Toward Sustainability
By now, you’re probably feeling inundated by all the media buzz highlighting “sustainable this” or “green that.” People talk about how easy it is to become sustainable and how environmentally unfriendly everyone else is, while “to do” lists detail behaviors that will lessen your impact, or “carbon footprint,” on the planet. Even though I’ve written […]
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Dimmed Lights Brightened: The Long Road to Restoration on Plum and Pilot Islands
For over a century they served as beacons for ships and fishermen in the treacherous passage through Death’s Door, the foreboding stretch of water between Lake Michigan and Green Bay at the tip of the peninsula that would steal its name, Door County. The lighthouse on Plum Island and the range light on Pilot Island […]
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Agriculture has played an important role in Door County’s economy, environment, culture, and social structure for more than 150 years. Today, the county is home to hundreds of farms – over 90 percent of which are individually or family-owned – as well as agriculture-related businesses providing equipment, services, and other products farmers need to grow, […]
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Gas Prices Change Habits on Door County’s Water
“Remember that man who used to come up every summer?” Robbie Leclair asks Christy Sully, both dockmasters in the Sister Bay Marina office on a busy Monday morning.