Our current issue features:

Dimmed Lights Brightened
The long road to restoration on Plum and Pilot Islands
By Myles Dannhausen Jr.

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 stood as hopeful guides in a sea of lore, but they, too, would one day require a guide to keep their lights burning.

As time passed and the construction of ships and navigation techniques advanced, the lights would become unnecessary. In 1962 the United States Coast Guard abandoned Pilot Island, and in 1991 they left Plum Island as well, moving their Northern Door summer operations to Washington Island. (more)

Agriculture in Door County
By Mariah Goode

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, process, market, and deliver food to consumers. (more)

Villabunk - A Modern Look at Scandinavian Design
By Jessica Sauter

Nestled in the woods of northern Door County rests Villibunk, the retreat home of Alice and Bob Chrismer, residents of Evanston, Illinois. Though the Chrismers call it their cottage in the woods, this is not the traditional storybook cottage or log cabin so often found on the peninsula.

On first glance it appears as though a giant child has stacked together a few rectangular blocks and wandered off. Upon closer inspection the modernist Scandinavian flare and concise design of architect David Salmela highlight an amazing and interesting structure that pushes past many concepts of traditional Scandinavian design. (more)

Tin Lizzies, Oil Lamps, Making Toast with a Pitchfork, Swimming with the Cows:
Happy Memories of Long Ago on Kangaroo Lake
By Patty Williamson

I couldn't have imagined, when we found an old cottage we loved on Kangaroo Lake 16 years ago, that the history of this place and its people would lay claim to my life for nearly a decade.

When our neighbor, Wil Anschutz, learned that I am a writer, he suggested that I research a history of the lake. (more)

Ellison Bay Art Crawl: A Grassroots Movement
By Kay McKinley Arneson

The adage “one good turn deserves another” might best describe the beginning, and the reason for the continued growth, of the Ellison Bay Art Crawl.

The Art Crawl began six years ago when Mary Ellen Sisulak and husband Rob Bussler, owners of Turtle Ridge Studio-Gallery, wanted to find a way to thank their neighbors for helping their business recover after it was destroyed by fire in 1996. Reading about the success of a similar event in American Craft Magazine, Mary Ellen felt that by organizing the crawl, she could help promote her friends’ art-centered businesses. (more)

The Art of Music with David Bell
By Allison Vroman

“You need to know your craft before you can know your art.”

These are the words of David Bell, a musician who has chosen to make Door County his home. While similar sentiments have surely been echoed throughout time by any number of painters, sculptors, actors, performers and musicians, the words, when spoken by Bell, seem to have a profound simplicity to them. Perhaps this feeling comes from the fact that in addition to being an accomplished clarinet player, Bell is also a respected professor of music.

Perhaps this feeling comes from the fact that in addition to being an accomplished clarinet player, Bell is also a respected professor of music. (more)

An Unlikely Hero: Iva Grasse
By Katie Dahl

On the social networking website Facebook, 196 graduates of the Gibraltar Public Schools have formed a fan club for a hero they all share, a person the website calls “the coolest person in the world.”

In a forum where other Wisconsinites are creating fan pages for Jacob Leinenkugel or Brett Favre, these young people are taking the time to honor a more unlikely hero: Iva Grasse, a clerk in their school library. (more)

Autumn’s Glory: Fall Camping in Door County
By Lauren Bremer

Naturalist and preservationist John Muir once noted, “The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” The Universe he’s referring to is not necessarily the cosmological universe, but rather the deep, mystical sense of knowing that comes from understanding the

interconnectedness of the natural world and its beings. Muir, along with a great many other thinkers, writers, and naturalists felt that the best way to know one’s self and fellow humans was to immerse themselves in nature, namely to reduce living to the barest necessity and be boldly faced by the self without distractions. (more)