Category: Door County News
Door County news from the pages of the Peninsula Pulse and Door County Living, the peninsula’s trusted, local sources for information about Door County, Wisconsin.
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Connecting Two Worlds: The Washington Island Ferry Line
The distance from Northport pier, on the northern tip of the Door peninsula, to Washington Island’s Detroit Harbor is just a few miles, but in so many ways the two may as well be worlds apart. Between the shores run the foreboding waters of Death’s Door, which earned its moniker in the days when sailing […]
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Snowshoeing provides the means for truly discovering those places on both our cognitive and paper maps. For those who love being outdoors and for those who aren’t sure, snowshoeing affords the freedom from groomed ski and snowmobile trails and is a great way to stay in shape through the winter months. Romantic images of explorers […]
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I’ve seen you do it, and I do it, too: pull over to the side of the road, jump out of the car, and attempt – most often in vain – to capture the essence of a big old wooden Door County barn with a camera. My particular favorites are those slightly or even largely […]
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A Slice of Americana: Friday Night at “The Outdoor”
In much of America, drive-in theaters are abandoned relics of a bygone era. Decrepit old snack bars crumble in overgrown parking lots, still pointing valiantly at the bones of a decaying screen. They are some of the saddest sights on the American landscape, the old speaker posts standing like tombstones marking the graves of youth […]
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“Grudge” – the Enduring Rivalry between Sister Bay and Baileys Harbor
The annals of sport are filled with storied rivalries. They’re called clashes, battles, and feuds. In Door County League baseball, one of the best is referred to simply as the “Grudge.” It’s Sister Bay versus Baileys Harbor – Bays versus A’s, North versus South. And in its heyday, it featured as much intensity as an […]
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Chambers Island: An Escape to Simpler Pleasures
On the horizon, most directly across the waters off of Fish Creek and Ephraim, lies an island that vacationers to Door County rarely visit. Chambers Island is situated approximately 7.5 miles northwest of Fish Creek, west of Horseshoe Island, and 11.5 miles northeast of Marinette. Chambers Island is about 3,200 acres and boasts a 350-acre […]
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The Leap: A Photographic Essay of Door County Weddings
With its serene atmosphere and changing seasons, Door County has become a popular location for destination weddings. Beyond choosing among the numerous venues within the county, couples have also found alternative ways to bring the area’s traditions into their ceremonies and receptions, be it in a field of flowers, on a century-old farm or along […]
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“There’s no business like show business!” “Two planks, a board, and a passion!” “The show must go on!” No other art form has traditions like those of the theatre. The stories are legion of how, in the midst of impossible conditions, the curtain always goes up. Actors tease that if they don’t show up for […]
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The last dry community in the state of Wisconsin is not likely to get wet any time soon. The village of Ephraim has had a long-standing ordinance against the sale of alcoholic beverages, which may the largest reason for its unique image throughout the county and the state. A minor uproar was sparked recently when reports […]
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Nearly two full years had passed since the last Gibraltar victory in boys basketball. Countless shots had been taken, practices survived, and ankles sprained. This is the familiar cycle of Gibraltar sports in the Packerland Conference: occasional stretches of a win or two or some close games, surrounded by disheartening, motivation-sapping losing streaks and disappointment. […]
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The Cosy Transformation from Bustle to Nestle
Door County in autumn smells like freshly brewed coffee tickled by the sweet bay breeze. Adorned by a cozy scarf and cotton knit poncho, I sit at a coffee shop and enjoy the comforting bliss of the nonchalant after-season, the post Labor Day sigh, the oncoming off-season for renewal and refreshment. Sitting outside, the cedar […]
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A Subterranean Exploration: Caves of the County
We often think of the earth we walk upon as solid and unchanging. Nothing could be further from the truth in Door County. Caves, sinkholes, open joints and fractures are everywhere in the carbonate rocks of the Door Peninsula. Bedrock here is known as the Silurian-aged Niagara Dolomite. Born from warm sub-equatorial waters 425 million […]
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Indulge: A Retreat to the Peninsula’s Spas
Relax, breathe, and melt into some very talented hands in Door County. Whether for a bachelorette party, honeymoon, or personal time, Door County now has quite a few options for special body treatments. Three spas, Lucia Luxury Day Spa, Lori’s Spa and Nail Studio, and The Spa at Sacred Grounds, provide a menu of different […]
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Destination Learning: Diverse offerings in the Arts, Crafts, and Humanities
Door County is known throughout the Midwest, nationally and even internationally as a premier vacation destination. The natural beauty, outdoor activities, boating, shopping and thriving arts and crafts bring millions of visitors to the peninsula each summer. For many visitors to Door County, the peninsula represents the ultimate in idleness. Time spent in Door County […]
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Fyr Bal: 50 Years of Celebration in Ephraim
Each year on the weekend closest to the summer solstice, the Village of Ephraim undergoes a transformation. Normally a tranquil lakeside community, known for its pastoral atmosphere and deep sense of history, during this weekend the village unfolds into a flurry of activity for ‘Fyr Bal’—one of Door County’s best known, if least understood, cultural […]
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Unique County Habitats Support Endangered Species
Have you looked closely at slabs of exposed limestone, stacks of rock talus, piles of sand, swaths of sandy-gravely soil along the lakeshore, stretches of thin patches of soil over flat beds of limestone/dolomite, wide expanses of thick perpendicular tree branches, and into centimeters of water in cool slow moving streams? These features in Door […]
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Stopping the School Finance Dominoes from Falling
The financial fretting that has enveloped Gibraltar in recent years has not been limited to its district walls. In an area as geographically isolated as Door County, the ramifications of public policy and financial constraint on one school act as the finger pushing the dominoes against each other down the slope of the peninsula. Door […]
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Rod “Chief” Billerbeck A Legendary Presence in Northern Door
The numbers are the first thing you notice, and how could you not? They pop off the page at you: 41 yeas as head baseball coach, 377 wins – a state record when he retired, 25 league or conference titles, and one state championship. I began the task of writing about the man responsible for […]
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Door County’s Artistic Identity: The Galleries and Artists of the Peninsula
Drive down any highway, street, or back road on the peninsula and you’re likely to notice an uncontested truth about Door County: galleries are everywhere. A quick phonebook count brings up 107 all together, though that number is probably low. Each day, it seems, a new gallery opens its doors, an existing one introduces a […]
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What is it about the imaginary line that circles the globe half way between the equator and the North Pole? All the way around the northern hemisphere, the line that demarcates the 45th parallel holds the viticulture secret to the growing, harvesting and crushing of grapes to make wine. From the Bordeaux fields of France […]