At the very tip of Door County is the small village of Northport. Well, I use the term "village" rather loosely because there's really nothing at Northport other than a small restaurant and the terminus for the Washington Island Ferry that takes you across to Washington Island. Cindy wanted to spend a day on the island, so we did just that.
Washington Island is located six miles off the Door County peninsula. To get to the island, the ferry takes you across some straits called the "Ports des Morts" (Door of Death). Years ago, shippers used to try to cut some time off on their travel to and from Green Bay by cutting through the straits. The currents coming from Lake Michigan that collided with the currents coming from Green Bay made the passage way very treacherous, causing many ships to collide with the rocky shore of several small islands in the area. Hundreds of ships are on the bottom of the straits and the area is now a very popular destination for scuba divers each summer.
It's not cheap to get to Washington Island. It's $11 bucks a person and another $24 bucks per car round trip. The trip takes about 30 minutes. Here are the cars lining up for the ferry that runs about every 30 minutes in the summer months. We were seventh in line for the trip across to the island.
After we got on board, we settled into our seats on top of the ferry. 
It was a beautiful mid-August day and we were looking forward to experiencing the lake breezes as we went to the island. They really squeeze as many cars on to the ferry as they can. The ferry can also accommodate large semi's, delivery trucks and other commercial vehicles. On our trip across, they hauled 25 cars. Figure one car and at least two people per car and that's a minimum of $1150 bucks per round trip for the ferry line.
The ferry stays open year round as a number of people live on Washington Island all year. There's a little less than 700 people who make their home on the island. Many of the residents are decendants of Icelandic origin. Washington Island has the largest concentration of Icelandic heritage residents than any other place in North America. In fact, it's one of the oldest and largest communities of Icelandic heritage in the world, outside of Iceland, itself.
Washington Island is, indeed, a small community with a number of shops, restaurants, hotels and business services located there. Its also has it's own school system and city services. One of the first things we did was to find the Washington Hotel (above left) and have lunch there. Look for my post on our lunch at the Washington Hotel coming in a couple days.
Washington Island is mostly rural with a number of small wheat farms that blanket the open fields between the trees. This picture is from atop Mountain Tower, in the center of the island. Actually, it really isn't a mountain, but a somewhat large hill with a viewing tower on top.
Here's a picture of the tower. Cindy didn't want to climb up it, but I did. It was about 60 feet to the top. Cindy was able to make it up the first 20 feet before her fear of heights set in. I have to tell you, it was a monumental pain in the ass to get to the top, especially for a guy with a bad hip and who is horribly out of shape.
But to even get up to the tower, you had to climb these steps. It was about a 175 foot climb up these bastards. You can't even see the bottom of the steps from the top. Thank God they had little rest benches about every 50 feet. I figured that if I could make it up those steps, I could make it the next 60 feet to the top of the tower. I did, but it nearly killed me.
All through Washington Island they had some pretty neat little roads to travel on. I think we went down every road while we were there. This picture was down a little road that looked like it was enveloped in trees. We encountered a lot of bicyclists out roaming the island and taking advantage of a great summer day.
Also taking advantage of a great summer day were a number of swimmers at Schoolhouse Beach. Schoolhouse Beach is unique in that there is no sand on the beach, but large smooth white rocks that are easy on your feet to walk on. In fact, Schoolhouse Beach is only one of five beaches in the world that has this type of rock for the beach. The others are in Mexico, France, Sweden and Norway. The harbor Schoolhouse Beach is on is about 100' deep, making it a popular mooring spot for vessels that traveled to the island in the 1800's.
Here is a picture of the white stones they had on the beach. There were signs saying it was against the law to take the rocks from the beach, but it didn't say anything about flinging them into the harbor as we saw a number of kids do while we were there. The constant surge of water coming into the beach must bring back a lot of the rocks that are tossed out into the harbor.
It was getting late in the afternoon and we thought we'd better head back to catch the ferry before the last one left for the mainland. We just missed the 5:00 p.m. ferry, but were the first ones in line for the 5:30 departure. The last ferry leaves for Door County at 6:00 p.m. during the summertime. There was an attendant there who we were talking to about the ferry service. I asked her what happened if we were to miss the last ferry to the mainland. She said, "You'd be spending the night on Washington Island."
I said, "Does it happen a lot?"
She said, "Oh, yes. Much more than you'd imagine. Time just gets away from some people when they come out to visit."
She said a lot of people will sleep in their cars right here waiting for the first ferry in the morning. She told us, "We had a situation a couple weeks ago where a family of six missed the ferry and the father refused to get hotel rooms on the island since he already had rooms back in Door County. So he made his wife and kids sleep in the van."
I said, "OK, let's say that you missed the ferry, but you have to get back to Door County because you're having dinner with, say, the President of the United States. Is there an emergency ferry service that can get you across?"
She said, "No, not an emergency service ferry. You'd have to take one of the Washington Island ferries. And if it was just you they were carrying, it would cost you $450 dollars."
I said, "Wow! So, I guess it is a good thing to pay attention to the time and the ferry schedule."
She said, "That's a good rule when you come out here."
The girl, who was in her early 20's and had just graduated from college, was a native of the island. I asked her what it was like to grow up out here. She said, "I suppose it was like growing up in any other small town across America. Yeah, we couldn't just get in the car and go shopping in Green Bay, but we had a lot of the things we needed brought out and sold in the stores."
She said that while it was great to grow up there, she was ready to move on. She had accepted a position in Minneapolis for a job there that would begin in September. She said, "Yeah, I'll miss it here."
Then she stopped for a moment and said, "For a little while, at least."
Washington Island - neat place to visit for a day. But it was one of those, "Been there, done that" kind of destinations. If we go back to Door County, I won't be clamoring to head back out to the island.
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