You may be driving up to Door County, WI, a north-easterly finger jutting out into the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan, to vacation in charming seaside villages with good shopping, casual eateries, relaxing scenery and outdoor fun such as sailing, golfing, hiking and biking.
However, once you get there you realize after passing several galleries, art studios and numerous potters that Door County is also an art colony.
You can take art classes or try your hand at creating jewelry, glass-like sculpture and ceramics and also visit artists in their studios.
Plus, you should have no trouble finding paintings, pottery, jewelry and glass pieces to take home or give as holiday presents.
Even if you are going to spend most of the vacation exploring, relaxing or playing, you are likely to stop at a gallery.
So, first stop should be the Visitors Center, (Destination Door County) 1015 Green Bay Road, in Sturgeon Bay. It’s on your right before you reach the canal bridge and cross onto the main vacation part of the peninsula.
Pick up the “arts guidebook” (Not in caps) which has an excellent map (but you can also get a larger map at the Center.
Door County Coffee and Teas (J Jacobs photo)
If you are not staying in Sturgeon Bay you might want to take a latte break at Door County Coffee and Teas, 5773 Hwy 42, Sturgeon Bay (actually Carlsville) before continuing on the peninsula so you can look through the arts guide before checking in to your condo or inn.
Door County Coffee and Teas is where many folks stop when they get to the Door and then when they leave it.
You won’t get to all the places listed in the book. Really.
4999 Plumb Bottom Rd., Egg Harbor. It’s potter Chad Luberger’s first place and now he and wife, jewelry maker Angerla Olson Luberger, have four galleries.
Hands On studio (J Jacobs photo
Take a look at the studios on the grounds of Hands On Art Studio, 3655 Peninsula Players Rd, Fish Creek. If you like what you see schedule a time to return and create. I made a piece similar to these which look very much like what I saw later at the Art Institute of Chicago store but anyone could do it.
Edgewood Orchard Galleries
Edgewood Orchard Home – Edgewood Orchard Galleries, 4140 Peninsula Players Rd. Fish Creek. Best if you wore walking shoes because many of the sculptures are on paths through the trees. Leave time to visit the two floors of the main gallery.
Fine Line Designs Gallery and Sculpture Gardens
Fineline Designs Gallery. 10376 Hwy 42, Sister Bay (actually at Ephraim’s north end). Good gallery but also found fun outdoor items to bring home.
Ellison Bay Pottery
ellisonbaypotterystudios.com 12156 Garrett Bay Rd, Ellison Bay, WI Longtime Door County potter. Call to check hours (920) 854-5049.
While at Ellison Bay Pottery follow the signs to The Clearing, a folk school at 12171 Garret Bay Rd. The Clearing | The Clearing Folk School. The building and grounds are worth a stop but also ask for the classes and programs brochure.
They are historic, they have saved lives. “They“ are the 11 sort-of tower-like, mid to late 19th century structures that are celebrated in Door County Wisconsin’s twice-a year Lighthouse Festivals.
If you saw Think lighthouses for next vacation you know some are seen by water and others can be visited or viewed on land and that some are definitely off the proverbial beaten path.
But during the Lighthouse Festivals: Spring June 9-11 and Fall Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2023, visitors can take boat and land tours that bring them up to and often, inside, many of these historic structures.
Or go to The Door, as it is popularly called, now through early October when four lighthouses are generally open to visitors and even more can be seen and photographed.
Your mission, if you accept it, is to see as many of The Door’s lighthouses as can be fit into a vacation. But remember this is a vacation so enjoy the Peninsula and divide the lighthouse sights into day destinations.
Doing the middle of the Peninsula from Lake side to Bay side
Two of the lighthouses, Cana Island off Highway Q near Baileys Harbor on Lake Michigan and Eagle Bluff in Peninsula State Park on Green Bay, are easy to visit spring through fall. They sit approximately opposite each other on the Peninsula so can fit into one day by taking County Road F across.
Stop in their keeper’s rooms to see the furnishings and how they lived at the lighthouses.
Eagle Bluff LTH in Peninsula State Park (J Jacobs photo)
Both lighthouses are definitely worth a visit but save extra time for Cana Island whose tower is the most photographed in Door County. It has one of the last 3rd order Fresnel Lens of two still operating on the Great Lakes. The lens, installed in 1869, can be viewed at the top of the tower. You’ll get your exercise in for the day or week because Cana has 97 steps up but the rewards are terrific views.
If the lake cooperates, the lighthouse and island are reached by walking across a sometimes wet, always stony, causeway or by taking a bumpy tractor-pulled, hay-wagon ride.
Operated by the Lighthouse Preservation Society and the Door County Maritime Museum which has three sites, Cana Island has a fine, new building on the lighthouse side of the causeway where visitors now pay to be on the island and visit the lighthouse. Stay for a short, good video, see a couple of exhibits and pick up information on lighthouses and the Maritime Museum.
Cana is a bit of a twisty drive from the town of Bailey’s Harbor. After seeing how Cana Island LTH is placed, visitors can better understand that lighthouses are on islands or a rocky tip of land.
While in the area, visit the Range Lights on Ridges Road. The big news is that visitors can, as of late May 2023, go inside the Upper Range Light which has been updated for volunteer lighthouse keepers to stay during the summer.
Visitors can park at The Ridges Sanctuary building, the Cook-Fuller Albert Nature Center that is downtown Bailey’s Harbor. Take its boardwalk to the Upper Range Lighthouse or park in the tiny lot across from the red-roofed Lower Range Light on Ridges Road and walk up the path. The two lights are still operating. When a boat has them lined up the lights are used to safely guide it.
Lower Range Light at Baileys Harbor (J Jacobs photo)
Another lighthouse is near there but it’s privately\ owned. Built in 1852 and called the Bird Cage because of its style of lantern room, it’s on a Baileys Harbor island. Deactivated in 1869 when the range lights were built, it can be seen on the lighthouse festival’s boat tour that leaves from Baileys Harbor Marina.
Go North
For a full day’s adventure head to Gill’s Rock where there is small gem of the Maritime Museum. Then take the Washington Island (Car) Ferry from neighboring Northport to Detroit Harbor on Washington Island. Tip: check the ferry schedule on-line ahead of time. It gets busy in the summer.
The ferry captain usually points out the lighthouses. Travelers can see the Pilot Island LTH and Plum Island Range Light’s tower. Plum Island is also open to visitors this summer.
The plus is that Washington Island is an interesting, multicultural place to visit.
In addition, another ferry continues north to Rock Island where the Pottawatomie LTH sits in Rock Island State Park and can be visited in the summer. First constructed in 1836, it is considered the earliest lighthouse in Door County.
Rock Island LTH (Photo by Dan Eggert, courtesy of Destination Door County))
BTW, if you do venture across to Washington Island you are crossing waters the French called Port des Morts. With more than 275 shipwrecks, the waterway between Door County Peninsula and Washington Island became known as “Death’s Door.”
Well, not so much lately with well-built ships, but sometimes when the weather is really bad the Washington Island Ferry does not cross. Visit Traveling Death’s Door | Destination Door County for more info.
However, given that people live on Washington Island, shop there and stay there, the ferry has regular summer and winter hours.
Go South
A third day should include the impressive structures at the southern end of the Peninsula’s tourist region: the county seat of Sturgeon Bay.
Sturgeon Bay is divided by the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal that has the Sherwood Point Lighthouse on the southwestern edge of the canal and the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Light on the northeastern edge of the canal where there is a bridge and narrow walkway to the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal North Pierhead Light out in Lake Michigan. They are worth seeing in person and by water.
Sherwood Point LTH (Photo by Mike Tittel courtesy of Destination Door County)
Sherwood Point LTH is used by the military as a respite to be rented for active members. It is not on view except during the Lighthouse Walk, the second weekend of June which coincides with the end of the Spring Lighthouse Festival. Opened in 1883, it became the last of the Great Lakes lighthouses to be manned when automated in 1983.
The Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Light Tower on the northern edge of the canal opened in 1899 and became automated in 1972. Park near the station’s gate and walk on a driveway up to the seawall.
Then, in the “can’t-miss it” category is an impressive red structure that is the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal North Pierhead Light. The lower-level walkway out to the pierhead light is open to the public up to a painted line.
Whether the Sturgeon Bay lighthouses are at the starting or ending point of your lighthouse destination vacation, there is another must see structure in Sturgeon Bay. It looks like a lighthouse but it really is the newly compeleted Kress Tower of the Door County Maritime Museum.
Surrounded, as Door County is on three sides by water (not counting its ship canal), the many tales of the Peninsula’s watery life and boundaries are in three maritime museums – Sturgeon Bay, Gills Rock and Cana Island.
Kress Maritime Museum Lighthouse Tower(Photo by Dan Eggert, courtesy of Destination Door County)
The main one at Sturgeon Bay recently grew to 10 stories high as the Kress Maritime Museum Lighthouse Tower to tell all its tales. “It’s not really an official lighthouse,” said Executive Director Kevin Osgood. “But it is used by boats,” he added.
Osgood recommends starting in the Maritime Theatre and an interpretive center on the first floor for a video, then taking an elevator up to the Baumgartner Observation Deck on Floor 10 and walk down.
“You get an idea of the vastness of the area from the Observation Deck and the scale of the Tower,” he said. “Visitors can take the elevator but when you walk down to each floor you learn about the area’s history,” said Osgood.
As an example, he pointed out that in the stairwell to “People of the Water” on Floor 8 that features Native Americans and early settlers, “You hear them speak their languages.” (Visit Native American Historical Sites for more information and Door County locations.)
All the floors are interesting, from geological formations (The Door has part of the Niagara Escarpment) to the Door’s ship building industry, but if you ferried over to Washington Island you might want to know more about what’s on Floor 2: Shipwrecks. Many of the shipwrecks are sitting in less than 60 feet of water.
Figure at least an hour to do Kress Tower. But now that you’ve visited at least a few lighthouses and at least part of the Door County Maritime Museum (You had to be in one at Cana Island) you know that doing Door County lighthouses takes planning. Driving the Door takes time. Speed limits are strictly enforced and The Door is larger than first-time visitors expect.
If you crossed from Bailys Harbor to Peninsula State Park you saw that Door Peninsula is a large, agriculture-oriented finger separating Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The entire mass is about 80 miles long and 25 miles across and includes part of Brown and Kewaunee Counties. In addition, there are two more lighthouses on the Lake Michigan side: The Algoma and Kewaunee Pierhead LTHS at the very southern end of the larger peninsula land mass.
Whew! Visiting even a few of Door County’s lighthouse towers, range lights and pierheads becomes a different way to spend a vacation. However, the Door is also a destination known for its inns, boutiques, bistros, cherry orchards, wines and cheese. So go for it.
When you first get there: As you approach the tourist and lighthouse part of the Peninsula before you cross the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, stop in at the visitors center called Destination Door County at 1015 Green Bay Rd., Sturgeon Bay to pick up a map of the county and a guidebook.
