The Island is Washington Island, off the tip of Door County, Wisconsin. You must cross Death's Door to get there—Death's Door being the name of the strait to the south of the Island that connects Green Bay with Lake Michigan. It was a dangerous place for sailing ships more than a century ago, but the Porte des Morts name probably goes back to the 16th century and the Winnebago Indians, whose demise as a tribe may have begun with the loss of 500 warriors in a storm on Lake Michigan--500 warriors sneaking up on the Potawatomi. It's confused as history--the Potawatomi may have been the bad guys in the story.
Today you cross Death's Door on a ferry boat run by the Washington Island Ferry Line. It's a domesticated experience, doesn't feel risky or adventurous. On a windy day the boat goes up and down over the waves and cars at the front of the boat get wet. Walking across the deck might be hard on such days if you're timid or careful about your balance. But the engine churns loudly underneath you and you feel secure on these boxy vessels.
The Island is a small place, with a small population. In the height of the summer tourist season there may be 2000 people there including day-trippers. (I heard that somewhere, I'm not sure). Many people have summer homes on the Island and others (like my family) camp, rent cabins or stay at one of the quirky motels, hotels, or resorts.
This last weekend my daughter and I stayed at the Cedar Lodge Resort. The present owner has been there for 41 years and has been trying to sell for the last four. It's on West Harbor, with a beautiful water view from the lawn. Inside--butt-ugly was my first reaction, with an avocado green refrigerator, burnt orange vinyl flooring in the bathroom, and a cut-velvet greenish-gold sofa in the living room. It's not my favorite place to stay on the Island (that would be the Sunset Resort half a mile to the south), but it's what you can get last minute for Columbus Day weekend, the biggest weekend of the fall.
But a weekend on the Island is not about the decor. The gentility and consideration of Island hosts. is not stuck in the 70s. It's assumed and innovative. There was a night light in an outlet in the kitchen in our apparent. Seemed like a strange place for a night light but it was exactly what was needed to light the way to the bathroom from any bedroom in the middle of the night. There were cast iron skillets on the stove if we'd cared to cook. The space heater kept the living room warm. The shiny new chairs on the porch and the old chairs around the fire pit focused on what was important: the view.
You can sit and look at the water on the Island and people will let you be. You can talk, or not, knit, read, write, walk, poke around, go to an Island festival or go out to dinner. Low expectations are rewarded. The restaurants aren't extraordinary. The service is friendly but not super well-trained. If you're open-hearted and respectful, that's what you'll get back.
It's okay to just be on the Island. Maybe that's because as many times as I've been there, I am still a tourist, not a resident, someone who brings commerce to the place, who spends money on the Island. Whatever I do is okay, because I'm there and gone and will pay my bill. I'm just there for a short time and don't have to figure out how I fit into the overall scheme of things, the social system.
Or maybe it's because Washington Island has a tolerance for quirkiness--old Icelandic settlers who fished and farmed potatoes and must have been plenty quirky. Its map is marked with odd little places, businesses that come and mostly go, museums curated by retired volunteers with long memories. Some people succeed, some come and go and just keep trying things, whatever. The woods and the water dwarf everything else, and the clouds that blow across the sky bring fresh starts twice a day or more.
I go to the Island to turn my face toward the lake, into the west wind, out to the sunset and up into the night sky. I try to take it all in--pine trees, maples, rocks, forests, light, to live and breathe the chilling beauty of every moment I'm there. I know myself as a child of God in those woods even as the sky beyond the water tells me I cannot begin to know the depth and breadth and otherness of God's being.
I haven't unpacked my suitcase yet. Not yet.
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