While no longer serving the spiritual comforts of its former parishioners, it appears that at least the old St. Mary’s Catholic church in Port Wing, WI, which was closed in 1999, is providing some kind of comfort yet and not totally abandoned to fade into ruins. I wonder if the bell tower is high enough to see over the other buildings to watch the Lake Superior waves rolling into the bay. It could be an interesting spot to watch the sunrise and sunsets from.
Still Providing Comfort
Upstream from Wednesday’s picture in the Houghton Falls State Natural Area is an area called Echo Dells (also known as Lover’s Glen). It is a picturesque pre-Cambrian sandstone gorge along the Lake Superior shore comprised of a series of water carved rock cliffs and caves with small waterfalls as the half mile stream meanders towards Lake Superior and drops sixty feet to a sandy cove at Houghton Point. A second falls can be seen in the background as the stream makes a curve around a harder piece of sandstone.
The dramatic formation has been a popular recreation and picnic spot since the late 1800’s and normally the water level is very low in the fall which allows the stream bed and the caves to be explored. But my first visit to this area was in the winter and I wasn’t about to climb down the ice and snow cover cliffs and chance breaking though the ice on the backed up water. And my recent visit was just after a big storm so the dry creek bed was filled with water and since it was still raining, the slippery rocks prevented access again. Maybe one day I will get to explore the rock formations and caves on a drier day.
Echo Dells
The arrival of the railroad in 1883 to Washburn (south of Bayfield, WI) stimulated quarrying and logging activities. There was three quarries located in the area known as Houghton Point and the railway carried the brownstone building material to Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Cincinnati.
The Houghton Point quarry opened in 1892 but the brownstone industry quickly ended by 1903 as the stone was replaced by concrete and other building materials. And eventually, the rail service was discontinued and abandoned. The old railway cuts through the Houghton Falls State Natural Area and the old railway culverts over the creek still exists, although I wouldn’t want to have derailed by the deep ravine as the creek drops sixty feet as it makes it way into Lake Superior.
Old Railway Over Plunging Creek
During one vacation on the western shore of Lake Superior, probably thirty-five plus years ago already, we encountered a seagull with a bad leg so we would try to make sure ‘Hoppy’ got a treat each day. Last week on the south shore of Lake Superior, I encountered another ‘Hoppy’ and spotted him each day on the beach, especially since he was an outcast and normally on the fringe of the group or by himself.
But I shouldn’t have called him Hoppy since he never hopped, as he just stood on his one good leg or flew, no hopping around. So instead I should have called him ‘Crooked Leg Charlie’.
Crooked Leg Charlie
All over the world, there are reports of lake monsters, with the Loch Ness Monster being a very famous one. Even the Great Lakes has their sea monsters, like Bessie and Mishipeshu (an underwater panther), but I found my own sea monster resting on the south shore of Lake Superior after the storm.
And in keeping with the naming theme of several other great sea monsters; like ‘Nessie’ the Loch Ness monster, ‘Bessie’ the Lake Erie lake monster, ‘Tahoe Tessie’ the cryptozoological creature in Lake Tahoe, ‘Cressie’ the eel-like creature in Canada’s Crescent Lake and ‘Issie’ Japanese’s Lake Ikeda monster, I am naming my Lake Superior monster ‘Sessie’. I probably was very lucky to be out on the beach before dawn to spot Sessie before she returned to the water.
Sessie
Last Wednesday, near Outer Island on Lake Superior, 17 foot waves were recorded and smaller waves crashed the shores in the morning, but even with a stormy day, the sun managed to peak out just before it set, giving a red glow on the fresh sandy beach where the seagulls felt the mist from the smaller waves still rolling in.
End of a Stormy Day
At the end of the dog days of summer, it is almost hard to remember that six months ago I was dealing with minus 25 degree wind chills during a very cold winter in which most of Lake Superior was frozen over, as seen here from Houghton Point near Washburn, Wisconsin.
Houghton Point
On the western shore of Lake Superior, a new beacon of light shone across its water for the first time on July 31, 1910, when the third order Fresnel was lit in the new Split Rock Lighthouse on a 130 foot cliff.
Since there were no roads in the area at the time of construction, all the building materials and supplies arrived by water and hoisted to the top of the cliff but Split Rock Lighthouse became such a tourist attraction so a road was built to it in 1924.
Light on the Rocks
The light from the Raspberry Island Lighthouse tower’s fifth-order, fixed lens was exhibited for the first time on July 20, 1863, shining its beacon on the Lake Superior waters in the Apostle Islands.
When built in 1862, Raspberry Island Lighthouse was a two-story, rectangular dwelling with a square tower rising from the center of its pitched roof for the single lighthouse keeper and his family.
As the workload increased with the addition of a fog horn, the old lighthouse was greatly expanded in 1906 and converted into a double dwelling with room for two families and an unmarried assistant. The head keeper occupied the first and second stories on the south side of the lighthouse, what was essentially a three-bedroom dwelling, while the first assistant had the ground floor on the north side and the second assistant three rooms in the upper floor.
Raspberry Island Lighthouse
Yesterday the ice broke up and quickly disappeared by the ice caves on Lake Superior near Cornucopia, Wisconsin. Last month people were still visiting the ice caves, walking on the frozen surface of Lake Superior and two months I had brave the cold weather to visit them too. I am glad I wasn’t on the ice when it broke up as the creaking and cracking was spooky enough when I taking pictures.
Click here to view the ice break from the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. (Click on the Next button to cycle through the ice break up pictures.) The webcam shot is looking out the opposite direction as the image below, so the cliff in the back on the left, is the same cliff on the right in the image below looking towards the webcam.
Frozen World
