Rock Island Trek A Natural Feast Charlotte Lukes and friends take a rest at the water Tower along the Thordarson Loop Trail on Rock Island State Park. Geologically, botanically and historically, Rock Island State Park stands out as one of the most awesome of all the gems in the "Door County Jewelry Store" of preserved natural wonders. Fortunately this unique park is improving from year to year through help from the active and supportive group, "Friends of Rock Island." Equally important has been the appointment of the new park manager, Kirby Foss, a native of Washington Island. It was in June of 1968 that Emma Toft and I took a ferry to Washington Island, drove to Jackson Harbor and, from there, rode the people ferry, Karfi, to Rock Island. The main event of our outing was the hike to see the Potawatomi Lighthouse situated high on the bluff at the northwest corner of the island. Miss Emma and her people had come to know a number of Door County lighthouse keepers and their families through the years, dating back to the first keeper of the Rangelights at Baileys Harbor in 1870. Naturally this visit was quite nostalgic for her. We were about midway along the trail to the lighthouse when suddenly Emma, with her keen vision, discovered a very young fawn lying amid the wild sarsaparilla plants within two or three feet from were we stood. What a perfect site this proved to be for Emma to recount one of her favorite fawn experiences. It so happened that in June of 1959 Bill Carrick, Door County’s game warden at the time, was alerted to a young fawn whose mother had been accidentally killed by slipping and falling over one of the precipitous cliffs on Rock Island. The fawn was delivered to Miss Emma for caring. She had proven her skill through the years of caring for orphaned fawns and this little animal, as you might expect, was nicknamed "Rocky." Within a week or so after Emma began caring for little Rocky, the famous nature writer, Edwin Way Teale and his wife, Nellie, visited Emma and explored Toft Point during the course of his writing the book, Journey Into Summer, published in 1960. Teale later told Miss Emma that his photo of Rocky, the Rock Island fawn, included in the book, was requested by more book reviewers than any other of the many photos contained in the book. Yesterday, July 23, our hike to see the Potawatomi Lighthouse with our friends, Hermi and Dale Krueger of Appleton, left us gasping at the incredible beauty and wonders of the park. The lantern room on this oldest of all lighthouses on Lake Michigan, built in 1836, had already been removed when I first visited Rock Island in the mid 1960’s. Today, thanks to the expert craftsmanship of Tony Hodges and other members of the Rock Island Friend’s group, the lantern room has been reconstructed and completed. What a thing of beauty it is, and the view of the islands to the north from that high vantage point is quite awesome. What is so intriguing is the precipitous, triple-notched cliff at Potawatomi Point that rises over 150 feet above the waters of Green Bay. An excellent account of the geology of this 912-acre island, around one and one-quarter square miles, was written by Prof. Robert R. Shrock of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, assisted by J.H.R. Hovard, in 1934. This richly-illustrated story, "Geology of Washington Island and Its Neighbors, Door County, Wisconsin," was published in 1940 in the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and letters, v. 32, p. 199-227. We climbed down the well-constructed series of wooden steps to the beach directly below the lighthouse where we ate our picnic lunch in blissful peace on the rocks. What a wilderness paradise! Here exist some of the most interesting paper birch and northern white cedar trees and their wildly adventitious roots, precariously clinging to the steep cliffs, that I’ve ever seen. A thick bed of "herb Robert" wildflowers with their brilliant tiny pink blossoms, one of the wild geraniums, carpets the very base of the bluff. Fortified by some fresh sugar snap peas in the pod, peanut butter and wild blackberry jelly sandwiches and a bottle of water, we decided to hike the entire Thordarson Loop Trail, about a five-mile route. This would take us around most of the perimeter of the island and provide us with interesting plant-life and spectacular views of the steep wooded bluffs to enjoy that we hadn’t experienced before. Charlotte, with her amazing skill of luring songbirds to within close viewing range, "brought in" American redstarts, cedar waxwings, an indigo bunting, eastern wood pewee and black-throated green warbler along the eastern segment of the trail. A high point of the long hike was enjoying the tall, beautifully-constructed stone water tower where we also rested and got a close look at a female indigo bunting. The great electrical inventor, Chester Thordarson, native of Iceland who came to own most of Rock Island in 1910, had many imposing structures built there of dolomite cobble. Surely the most outstanding building, clearly visible from Washington Island, is the great Viking Hall Boat House which reflects the rich Scandinavian background and history of this region. Memories of your visit to Rock Island State Park will remain in your heart and mind for a long time. Here’s to one of the most exquisite gems of Lake Michigan! This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 07/28/2000. © Copyright 2000 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.