This white church blends into the white snow after nearly two feet of snow and more snow is on the way, but it makes a pretty scene (if you don’t have to shovel a path to the door).
Church in the Snow
Picture of the Day for February 16, 2014
On Oct. 1, 1665, Jesuit Father Claude Allouez and Father Jacques Marquette arrived on Chequamegon Bay, La Pointe, and established the mission of the Holy Spirit. This was the first Catholic church/chapel anywhere on the North American continent north of New Mexico and west of Lake Huron.
On July 17, 1835, Fr. Frederic Baraga, the famed “snowshoe priest”, came to La Pointe on Madeline Island and re-established the Catholic mission, at the site of the La Pointe Indian Cemetery. Although the mission building is no longer extant, the old cemetery that remains is the burial place of Chief Buffalo, an important Chippewa leader.
With a congregation dating back to 1838, it is the oldest continuous Catholic parish in Wisconsin. The first St. Joseph church was built of logs and burned down in 1901 and the current church was rebuilt in 1902.
St. Joseph’s Church on Madeline Island
