Madeline Island is an island of the U.S. State of Wisconsin, part of the County of Ashland, and located in Lake Superior. The community of LaPointe is approximately two miles southeast of Bayfield, Wisconsin, and connected to that town seasonally by a 20 minute ferry ride or an ice road. It is the largest of the Apostle Islands, although it is not included within the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. It is the only island in the Apostle Island chain open to commercial development.
The major industry on Madeline Island is summertime tourism. Cars aren’t used often on the island and walking or riding bicycles, which are available to rent, are the encouraged forms of transportation. Kayaks and canoes are also available to rent and provide an opportunity to explore some of the underwater caves and hollows of the cliff faces. There are many campsites within Big Bay State Park on the island, though as demand is high and reservations are required, many of the spots are reserved months in advance. The island is renowned for its beautiful beaches on Lake Superior. Swimming is a less frequent activity due to chilled water temperatures.
Madeline Island is the traditional spiritual center of the Lake Superior Chippewa, and was one of the earliest settlements in the area. An Anishinaabe legend says that Great Spirit Gitche Manitou told the people to travel west to the place where the "food grows upon the water", which led them to the wild rice that grew in the marshes in nearby Chequamegon Bay. Madeline Island was also the home of Chief Buffalo, who was instrumental in resisting the efforts of the U.S. Government to remove the Chippewa and in securing permanent reservations under the Treaty of La Pointe of 1854 that remain today. The bulk of the Ojibway on Madeline Island resettled to the Bad River Reservation east of Ashland, however, Chief Buffalo was granted a tract for his family on the mainland just west of Madeline Island in what is now known as the Red Cliff Indian Reservation. The island was originally called Mooningwanekaaning ("The Home of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker"). The first white settlers were French fur traders, who in 1693 established the fort that eventually became the community of La Pointe. In the 19th century La Pointe became the site of an important post of the American Fur Company under Michel Cadotte, whose wife, Ikwesewe (Madeline), is the island's namesake. The island's fur trading history has been preserved in the Madeline Island Historical Museum.
The unincorporated community of La Pointe, which is the main settlement within the town of La Pointe, is located on the southwestern tip of the island, with Grant’s Point being the southeastern most point. Aside from its proximity to the federally managed National Lakeshore, Madeline Island also contains the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources's Big Bay State Park, a 2,350-acre (9.5 km2) park on the south-central shore of the island. It is sometimes called Eagles' Nest for the bald eagles that make their nests in the tall pine trees on the cliffs. It encloses a large lagoon and a unique bog/dune ecosystem. There is another, smaller park on the island called Big Bay Town Park, offers camping, and entry is free to the public. It has access to the longest beach on the island, and adjoins the state park. With help from the summer's sun, the surface water temperature in the sheltered bay can rise to 70 °F (21 °C) while the water just off shore might remain a frigid 50 degrees.
The island itself is fourteen miles (21 km) long and three miles (5 km) wide. It is the only developed island of all the Apostle islands, although there are lighthouses on many of the islands and small, preserved fishing communities on a few (such as Stockton Island, Raspberry Island and Manitou Island). The 2000 U.S. Census reported the permanent population of the island as two hundred forty-six, which does not include seasonal residents. Madeline island has a school that educates children through 5th grade. Middle and high school-age children attend school in Bayfield.
The island is a popular vacation spot for people from all over the Midwest. The golf club sports a course designed by Robert Trent Jones that features double greens.
The island can be reached only by ferry during the summer months; in the winter, ice usually becomes too thick for ferry traffic. The last ferry runs of the season are typically in mid- to late January, though in recent years the ferry has run well into February, and in 2006 ran the entire winter. When ice conditions allow, the ice road officially opens to vehicle traffic from Bayfield across the frozen surface to Madeline Island. The ice road is traditionally marked by Christmas trees and is officially an extension of County Highway H. If ice is too thin for automobile traffic, but too thick for ferry traffic, access to the island is by airplane, snowmobile and windsled only. The windsled often operates in early winter and spring.
On the eastern end of the island is an exclave of the Bad River Indian Reservation of approximately 195 acres (0.79 km2).
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)