Category: Outdoor
Getting outside in Door County is a must! While you can always explore a trail or lake shore on your own, the calendar is dotted with guided hikes, wildlife tours, bird watching treks, and cross-country skiing meetups. Find a group bicycle ride, a naturalist session, or paddleboard tour and explore Door County’s natural wonders.
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Local birding experts all agree that Door County is a special place for birds and bird watchers. Consider Door County’s geological diversity: the combination of limestone cliffs, sand dunes, boreal forest, deciduous forest, cedar swamps, bogs, lakes, bays, and open farmland; “all of those things spell multiple species,” says local birder Willard A. Hartman. “We’re […]
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Racing Home: Sailing the Hook Race Death’s Door Challenge
Sailboat racing has brought friends and families together off the shores of the Door Peninsula for nearly a century. And as intriguing and adventuresome as these races are, none can compare to the granddaddy of them all – the Hook Race Death’s Door Challenge. Spanning 197.4 nautical miles, this course pits experienced crews against each […]
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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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A Jacksonport Tradition: The Polar Bear Swim
Winter in Door County brings to mind cross-country skiing, sledding, ice skating and…swimming in Lake Michigan? Usually swimming in the lake is reserved for the summer months, but an exception is made on New Year’s Day as hundreds of people start their year off with a swim in Lake Michigan. If you are up to […]
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Gliding Through Door County Winters
Being a year round resident in Door County, I’m often asked by visitors how I survive the winter. My answer is the same that a Norwegian or Swedish person may have given over 5,000 years ago: I ski. In Norway and Sweden cross-country skis were an essential survival tool used for hunting in deep snow. […]
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Summer Soirée: Inspiring Culinary Excellence
Summertime, especially in Door County, means family, friends and (ideally) beautiful weather. Unfortunately, the summer months are all-too brief. Why spend that limited time eating indoors when you can host an outdoor summer dinner party and spend more relaxed time with your loved ones? Entertaining outdoors might be a little more work (although it certainly […]
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Every summer in Door County there are an endless number of wonderful theatrical and musical performances for one to participate in, but if you are looking for a unique experience this summer look to the sky in August and nature will put on amazing performance — the Perseid Meteor Shower. The Perseid Meteor Shower begins […]
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Underwater Terrain: Exploring Our Clear Water Sanctuaries
Warm sunny days in Door County are to be revered for many obvious reason. For one, consistently warm summer days bring the temperature of the surface waters that surround the peninsula to a comfortable level for immersion. During this rather short-lived period, Door County’s waters are ideal for snorkeling. With hundreds of miles of shoreline […]
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The Toft Family: Preserving a Piece of the Peninsula
Most Door County residents and visitors, if they know of the Toft Family at all, have probably heard only of “Emma Who Saved The Ridges,” as a Milwaukee Journal Magazine headline once referred to Emma Toft. Emma was certainly involved in protecting the area known as The Ridges Sanctuary, although many others were equally involved. […]
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Door County Classic & Wooden Boat Show
Summer is here and once again the Door County Classic & Wooden Boat Show will be held on the grounds of the Door County Maritime Museum & Lighthouse Preservation Society in Sturgeon Bay. Now in its 14th year, this two-day celebration of handmade and lovingly restored boats will take place Saturday and Sunday, August 7th […]
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I consider myself a sailing aficionado. In my free time, when I’m not sailing, chances are I’m a) goading, b) guilting or c) bribing one of my yacht-owning friends into hoisting the sails and taking me along for an offshore cruise – none of which, I admit, tends to require much effort. For the card-carrying […]
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The Ephraim Yacht Club: Sailing Toward a Milestone
This summer the Ephraim Yacht Club will host the 99th Annual Ephraim Regatta and the popular slogan – “There will always be an Ephraim Regatta” – will once again ring true. The oldest continuous regatta in the United States, the Ephraim Regatta was first held in the summer of 1906, the same year the Ephraim […]
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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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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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Fall on a Bicycle in Door County: Routes, Trails, and Rides
Fall in Door County can be characterized by sunny days, cool evenings, bountiful apple orchards, fun festivals, incredible leaf colors and a general feeling of relaxation in the air. The best way to experience this change of season is on a bicycle. Whether you are an avid bike rider, a weekend warrior, or you haven’t […]
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Preserving the Door’s Landscape
As Door County residents and visitors, we are drawn to the area’s natural beauty. Fortunately, we have many public and private organizations, not to mention individual landowners, working to ensure that Door County’s beauty and environmental diversity are preserved for future generations. To date, Door County contains more than 38,500 individual tax parcels, over 22,000 […]
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The Risky Careers of Christmas Schooner Captains
When the late summer storms on the Great Lakes began to stir, and the gales of November rattled the very souls of the schooners, the lake captains saw their transport business diminish. But there came a realization of a new seasonal run — Christmas trees! Christmas trees for those cities and communities where pine forests […]
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Those of us who have chosen Door County as our home for at least part of the year have done so because of the natural beauty and natural landscapes. We love the wild places, and we especially love the wooded areas. Many of the homes in the county are located on wooded lots or have […]
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On Your Plate: Ultimate Picknicking
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — And Wilderness is Paradise now. -from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam With miles of beaches and coastline, sixteen county parks, and five state parks, Door County may be […]
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March maple syrup, spring asparagus, vine-ripened summer tomatoes, sweet corn, fall squash…the farm markets of Door County are harvesting the bountiful crops for every season. There are dozens of “off the farm” and “on the farm” markets in Door County, and they offer both specialized crops and the entire gamut of vegetables and fruits. All […]