Up North 2026: Minnesota and Wisconsin

July 16th, 2026 - July 19th, 2026

Thursday, July 16th

    Every now and then, I notice we live in the future in subtle ways. More so than electric vehicles, more so than generative AI, the most futuristic technology that I’ve encountered of late has been free wi-fi on Delta flights. Paid wi-fi has been a common phenomenon for a decade now, but for myself and for most people, if it costs extra, it might as well not exist. But when the masses gain access, the future arrives, and so did I in the greater Minneapolis area. While every other one of my fellow passengers were hunched over in their seats, staring at their phones, I was hunched over in my seat (also holding my phone, mind you) but glancing out the window, waiting to come out of the clouds and see the spread of farms, or rivers, or residences marking this area of the country.
    But despite the descent, the clouds continued, and continued, and continued. My phone lit up.
    “WHAT IS THIS AIR QUALITY,” Neha had texted me, the friend I was expecting to see in Minneapolis.
    I deftly toggled to the weather app, and was immediately startled to see a great purple warning label.
    AQI: 500 – HAZARDOUS. Do not go outside for more than a minute at a time.
    Seeing the maximum possible value for pollution made me immediately assume it an error, and I flipped through a few other locations. I abused the future to do a quick search, and a knot in my stomach quickly formed. A hundred or so wildfires had started a flagrant crusade against the noble trees of Canada, and a truly ridiculous amount of smoke was choking out Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The fires had even snuck across the border (illegally, it seemed) and taken up root in Minnesota. Trump and the other Republicans were likely furious.
    Nervously, I shot some messages to some friends in Detroit and asked for their take on the situation. Each of them responded with epic pictures of visually impenetrable smoke from the calm behind their office windows, oblivious to my nearly outdoor-exclusive trip I was embarking on. Neha texted again, asking if we should cancel the trip. I cursed the future for disrupting the final half hour of my plane ride and salting it with worry.
    We landed, and I put on a medical mask to show that I was trying. I called an Uber. The driver was also masked.
    “Nice weather,” I said, getting into the car.
    “You could have come at a better time,” he replied in an east African accent. “I was just downtown and was starting to get dizzy. Well, you’ll see in a bit. It’s quite bad.”
    “Does this happen ever year?”
    “Mmm, every year… Well, I want to say yes, but no. Maybe every other year. Maybe not this bad though. It’s up in Canada, and the wind blows it all down.”
    I saw a hazy outline of what seemed to be the downtown skyline through the windshield.
    “I was looking at the forecast. There might be some rain this weekend. Do you think that would help?”
    The driver glanced at me in the mirror pitifully. “Well, maybe. But these are big fires. I’m not sure a little rain will do much.”
    Oh great. I meant rain to clear the air of smoke, not rain to put out the fires. Now he thinks I’m an idiot.
    We arrived at a coffeeshop downtown that I had chosen somewhat randomly, Corner Coffee, and I thanked him. Even with my mask on, the air tasted like a campfire. It felt hot and particulate in my throat, and I hurried inside.

    On the grand spectrum of coffeeshops, this one was wholly unremarkable. The ceilings were high, and some plants hung in the rafters.
    “What is a Nordic latte?” I asked the bald man behind the counter. He was caked with strange tattoos.
    “It’s a latte that’s very, uh, Nordic.” he laughed at his own joke. “It has cinnamon. And some other spices. It’s very good.”
    It doesn’t take a lot to sell me. I sat at the bar and started reading my book on Elagabalus while an attractive woman in a Warriors jersey heated up pastries. Someone tried to flirt with her and I felt bad for both of them. The coffee was fine. The barista who made it sat down next to me with a laptop, peering at the screen closely. My phone lit up. It was Neha.

    “Where are you posted up?”
    “Some coffee place. Corner Coffee”
    “Oh I love that place! Good choice. The guy that runs it is a bald dude who grew up in India or something”
    I turned to the guy next to me and held out my phone.
    “Excuse me. Is this you?”
    He stared at my messages, then at me, then at the messages again. He poked the screen, scrolling up for some much needed context he would not find. He looked at me again.
    “Yes. It’s me, I think. Yes. Who is this? Who are you? I don’t understand.”
    I clarified, to the extent that it was worth clarifying. He was no less perplexed. I asked him to clarify the India part, and he obliged.
    “Mmm, I was actually born and raised on a commune in northern India. Right on the Nepali border, in the Himalayas. After that, I went onto become a doctor.”
    I tested my Hindi. He smiled and asked if I knew Malayalam. The only Malayalam I know is a swear word, so I informed him I knew no Malayalam.
    “What sort of doctor?”
    “Trauma surgeon. But as you can imagine, being around people suffering and dying all the time was very difficult for a kid raised in a commune. So I transitioned to plastics. It’s a lot less sad of a field, and I enjoyed cutting people up and burning them.” He grinned sadistically.
    The conversation shifted to my presence in Minneapolis. I explained the lighthouses, and the bald guy was completely fascinated.
    “Have you written a book? You should write one. It would be incredible. Hmm, are there lighthouses in San Francisco?"
    I glanced up at the woman in the Warriors jersey, now cleaning glasses, now part of the discussion.
    “There are quite a few. Alcatraz is the most famous. Have you been to any?”
    She smiled. “I must have seen them here or there. But next time I see them I’ll be sure to take note and think of you.”
    I smiled back. The third barista floated over too.
    “Hey, have you seen the movie The Lighthouse?”
    After leaving the coffeeshop, I met up with Neha near her apartment, and we acquired a rental car, and we headed north for Duluth. Much to my chagrin, the road north was still I-35. You never really escape your demons, especially when they’re clad in asphalt. Neha took a call, and tried to explain to me the economics of CPGs. It took four hours to travel those two hours, but we arrived in Duluth.
    The air was about forty times worse, so the next hour was spent hitting every CVS, Walgreens, or hardware store in town searching for N95 masks. Everyone was friendly as hell, and told me sorry, they were out of masks in a friendly as hell way. Neha got the bright idea to start trying clinics, and after hitting 4 or 5 of them (or rather, every clinic in town) we came out with exactly one N95. Neha put it on, said it hurt her nose, and relegated it to her lap.
    Our next step was the Duluth harbor to see the three lights. A lesser harbor might have one lighthouse, or perhaps two. But Duluth had three. We crossed the aerial lift bridge, which was quite frankly awesome, and pulled over.

    “Do you want to come out and see the lighthouses?” I asked Neha.
    She looked like I just said the stupidest thing ever. “Uhm, obviously not. I’ll stay here. Have fun.”
    I looked blankly at her and adjusted my completely ineffective medical mask, and stared at her N95. It seemed a waste that she was the one with the N95 if she was going to sit in the car with the AC on circulate, and doubly a waste if she wouldn’t wear it.
    “Uhm, are you going?”
    I left the car. I couldn’t make myself be too annoyed, though. Neha registered for a relaxing weekend in northern Wisconsin, not an apocalypse road trip through the fires of Mount Doom.
    There are two breakwaters jutting north out into Superior from Duluth harbor, and a breakwater light decorates the point of each side. However, the eastern breakwater light is part of a range system, and the rear range light sits in a small park at the opposite end of the breakwater. The range was lit in 1901, and the solo pierhead was built in 1910. Despite the air being about as thick to pea soup, there were quite a few people out and about. I shot some pictures, and had a friendly guy in a Twins shirt take some photos of me with the rear range.

    Next on the docket was Wisconsin Point lighthouse, on the other side of the border. Duluth on the Minnesota side and Superior on the Wisconsin side are practically a contiguous city, but crossing over to Wisconsin made me feel like Superman before the yellow sun. Neha was willing to get out of the car for Wisconsin Point, but only for about three minutes. I was sure glad the N95 was safe in the car and didn’t have to inhale all this nasty smoke.
    Duluth Harbor is considered to be the safest harbor in the world cause it has two ten mile sandbars flanking either side of it. The Wisconsin side’s sandbar is Wisconsin Point. I’ll let you guess the Minnesota side’s. Lighthouses were built on each side– Minnesota Point became the first light station in the state in 1858, and Wisconsin Point’s station went up in 1913. Minnesota Point is currently in ruins, and somewhat difficult to get to, so after visiting Wisconsin Point we continued east.

    An hour later and we were in Washburn. Washburn is a nifty little town south of Bayfield, most notable for its railroad history. Bayfield, being the biggest city in the area, was originally supposed to be the end of the line, but the railroad company gave up in Washburn instead, causing the city to explode in population and dwarf Bayfield. Washburn has around 2000 blinking heads in it today, about four times as many as Bayfield, so I suppose they still owe the railroad companies a favor. The town’s pizza restaurant seemed appealing enough, so we pulled in.
    At Lyla’s Wood Fired Pizza, you can find a wood firing pizza oven behind the bar, and Lyla standing at the counter, swaying gently with a soft smile plastered to her face. I wondered if she was on drugs, but then I figured she might just be from Wisconsin. Neha and I stared down the chalkboard menu.

    “I’ll have a margherita and a Spotted Cow,” I chimed. Lyla typed something into the point of sale.
    “What?! Shouldn’t we split?!” Neha asked, suddenly upset.
    “I don’t want to split. I’m going to eat a pizza myself.”
    “Are you– ugh.”
    Lyla laughed and rang me up.
    We sat at the bar. The five or six tables were permanently full, and several people came in to get pizza to go. The mustached man running the oven reminded me of my Uncle John, and he bantered with nearly every customer by name. An impossibly cute waitress, hair cropped just below her earlobes, floated around, and Uncle John would hail her over with a gentle “Lucy, I’ve got another salad for you,” each time. Being at the bar, Uncle John handed me my pizza himself. After an incredibly long day, it was the best pizza I’ve ever had, and the Spotted Cow was rich and creamy and whatever you could possibly want in life.

    After eating, we pulled into the motel I had booked.
    “What is THIS?” Neha asked frantically. “What is THIS?”
    “Is this not it? No, see the sign? We’re in the right place.” I confirmed.
    “There’s no way. Zach, we are not staying here. Zach. This is a motel!”
    I looked around to verify that the motel was indeed a motel. It seemed to be.
    “Do you want to sleep in the car?”
    “Zach! Why aren’t we staying in a hotel? Are you kidding me?”
    The town of 2000 had exactly one chain store– a Dollar General on the edge of town. A Hilton was out of the question. I popped into the lobby.
    The owners of this lovely motel were an odd couple for this area of the country– a Taiwanese woman and her Italian husband, both starting to pick up speed on the far side of life’s great hill. They were excited to see me. I took the key and turned to leave, but the man had things to say.
    “Washburn is a great town. Right there, you have Time Out. Time Out has good food, no complaints. It’s a fun vibe. But on fourth street, you can got to Patsy’s. Now, Patsy has the best burger in Bayfield County. If you got Patsy’s once, you’ll go there again and again. My favorite is about a mile outside of town, at Good Thyme. It’s worth it. Now for coffee, there’s North Coast over on 5th. But if you want fancy coffee, you know, lattes and such, then you can try Coco’s a few blocks that way.”
    His spiel continued until he had covered the remaining three or four businesses Washburn had to offer. I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn’t delighted by the simplicity of this little place. I returned to the car to retrieve Neha.
    “Man, those people are the best. Such a sweet couple.”
    “Mmmm, I don’t know about that. When I talked to them, they were kinda…” Neha rolled her eyes and flashed her palms.
    “When did you talk to them?”
    “I called and tried to cancel when I saw the air quality. They were really grouchy about it. Said they wouldn’t refund for a same day cancellation. Even though I bet nobody was coming here anyway.”
    I let that one hang and we found our room. It was clean for a motel, and had a lot of lighthouse themed wall art, which made me happy. There was a full kitchenette with a sign over the sink reading, “Please do not clean fish in the room. Fish cleaning station outside and to the right!” A window faced what would have been the harbor, had the view not been obstructed by smoke. I set my stuff down while Neha continued the airing of the grievances.

Friday, July 17th

    Neha was not wrong that the inn was far from luxury, but the true manifestation of this was in my mattress quality, and I was up with the birds. I had a text message from an unknown number.
    “Hey Zach, this is Liz. I was supposed to take you out kayaking this morning to the Sand Island lighthouse. The AQI is still toxic. I’m willing to take you out, but it’s going to be rough. We won’t be able to see anything, and I’ll probably be glued to the compass the entire time to not get lost. But I’ll let you make the final call.”
    It looked like the apocalypse outside. I forfeited the attempt.
    “Alright. You’re the lighthouse guy, right? The one that came from Texas? That’s really too bad. If you come back in September, you can see the leaves changing, it’ll be gorgeous. Ask for Liz, I’ll take you. See you around ✌️”
    See you around. Peace sign. Is Liz the coolest person I’ve ever not met? Should I be in love? Did I wake up a character in a 90s coming of age movie?
    Taking the old man’s suggestion, I waited for Neha to rise and then we headed next door to Coco’s. The inside was beautifully eclectic– yellow and purple walls, tables and chairs of all different sorts, and a long counter covered in pastries. The menu on the wall had the usual fair– latte, cappuccino, raktajino, espresso– raktajino?
    “Excuse me,” I asked, excited as hell. “You serve Klingon coffee here?”
    “Yes, we have a raktajino. It’s a quad-shot, so be careful,” the barista replied in that wonderfully thick Wisconsin accent.
    “I’ll have a sixteen ounce raktajino and eggs and toast.”
    “Coming right up,” he said, writing something down on a notepad. My god, I really was in a 90s movie.
    Neha followed behind me, ordering a frittata. She tapped her food impatiently, as she had a meeting at the top of the hour.
    “What’s a frittata?” I asked.
    “It’s like an omelet that they cook on one side and then finish in the oven.”
    “So they cook it twice?”
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    “Why did you order something that needs to be cooked twice when you’re on a time crunch?”
    Neha looked mildly furious with my comment. “At least they’re cooking it to order! Look at your eggs and toast, that came out in two minutes. I bet they just had that sitting out and plated it when you ordered it.”
    I took a bite. Delicious.
    “As long as it tastes good, that’s fine with me,” I replied.

    I figured permanent respiratory damage was marginally more interesting than listening to another CPG meeting in the room, so I wandered around town. I shot some neat pictures in the harbor of some boats that looked like they’d run aground during the Reagan administration and have been waiting for things to get better before going back out into the lake. There was a bookstore I wanted to check out, but I thought Neha might enjoy it too, so I drafted her for a quick side quest, as the zoomers say.

    Without exaggeration, this used bookstore in rural, population 2000 Wisconsin was the most impressive collection of books I had ever seen outside of a university library. Shelves were packed tight, wall to wall, extending into a back room and loft that seemed to be additions to the building built later. Ladders granted access to the higher shelves. I asked the old man running the store if I could take some pictures.
    “Go ahead, go ahead. I need to run to the pharmacy, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
    Every genre was represented, from the common stuff (science fiction, fantasy) to the obscure (ballooning, Soviet photography) and the classic Zach favorites (foreign language, ancient history.) Excitedly, I showed Neha a Wolof grammar book and a Tibetan dictionary. She wasn’t much impressed. The oldest books were older than the United States– an ornate collection of Ciceronian epistulae. I struggled to choose between a handful of Loeb classics, a Hmong bilingual children’s book, and a 1910 Gothic grammar. I chose the Gothic grammar. It rang up to $42.

    We drove to Bayfield, and since the boats to the island were closed from the pollution, visited the museum instead. It was an old boat hanger, but they’d replaced the modern boats with historical boats. I will humbly grant that I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the Bayfield area and shipping on Lake Superior, and the exhibits didn’t have any breathtakingly new information. For a free museum though, it was worth the fifteen minute stop. An old man with a GREG reading nametag manned the front desk.
    “Any idea when the ferries to the islands will start running again?”
    “Ope, no, it’s hard to tell with all this smoke, ya know? It’s a real shame, our summer season is short up here, even losing a week is tough for a lot of folks.”
    I liked Greg immediately. We prattled on. He was great at talking.
    “I came up from Down South in the 70s.”
    “Before the national park opened up, yeah?”
    “Oh yeah, before the park. This area was poor. I grew up in the cities, and let me tell you, this area was poorer than even the inner cities. Folks had pigs, and they had little doors for the pigs to come in and sleep in the living rooms at night. When you’re that poor, your pigs are part of the family. But everyone up here is a good person. When the park opened up, tourism started and things are a lot brighter.”
    The conversation moved physically towards a map of the islands, and consequently, topically also towards the map of the islands. We both stood, arms crossed, pointing out various shipping lanes and historical fishing spots. Neha paced back and forth.
    After a touch more exploring in Bayfield, we drove down to Ashland to see the Ashland Harbor Breakwater Lighthouse, an annoyingly inaccessible navigational aid from 1915 on a breakwater not connected on either side to land. I was quite excited about this one, as it’s the first entry in the Wisconsin lighthouse atlas that I’ve had since I was a kid. Optimistically, I’d hoped to maybe see the two lighthouses on Long Island on the far shore. My optimism was beaten to death by the smoke, and then beaten some more when I couldn’t even see Ashland’s lighthouse in the middle of the bay.
    The only lighthouse left in the area was back in Duluth, at Minnesota Point. No matter how you shake it, an empty afternoon and a lighthouse only an hour away is a pretty sweet deal, and Neha was an absolute trooper to agree to that perspective. As young nineteenth century men are wont to do, we went west.
    As I alluded to earlier, Minnesota Point is not the easiest lighthouse to see. It’s on a long sandbar protecting the Duluth harbor, but vehicle access is limited to the first half of the sandbar. After that, there’s a small regional airport, and beyond that are woods. I geared up with my camera, hat, and newly acquired N95 mask. The air quality was sharply improving, so I invited Neha, but the idea of a walk in the woods was less appealing than staying in the car and shooting a Tiktok, so I left her to her machinations, shocked that she’d choose the comfort of the clean A/C over the rising humidity and a fresh breath of Delhi.

    At the trailhead behind the airport, I came across a pair of ladies with cameras, and asked if I was on the right path to the lighthouse.
    “Oof, the lighthouse is actually on the Wisconsin side. You’re on the Minnesota side. You need to go back down the spit, go over to Superior and then go up Moccasin Mike Road,” the blonde one said.
    “Darla, the thing we just saw was a lighthouse,” the brunette said, confused.
    “Oh.”
    “Oh… that’s, good?” I said, unsure of what to say now.
    “Just follow the path through the woods, after about 45 minutes you’ll see it poking up through the trees on your right. It’s pretty overgrown, but you’ll get some nice pictures,” she gestured to my camera. “If you keep going, there’s another old building out there with lots of graffiti. You should look at that as well.”
    I continued the mission. The path was surprisingly well trodden and cleared, and the sun was really coming out. It filtered through the canopy and felt like an almost perfect Midwest day.
    After a while, another group of hikers passed by.
    “Hey how’s it going,” I said, nodding to them.
    “Doing great, how are you?” said one of the girls.
    “Same side of the dirt,” I replied automatically. The natural silence was violently smothered by an awkward one.
    “Same side of the what?” I heard one of them whisper. Someone giggled. I increased by speed about tenfold.
    By the time I arrived at the lighthouse ruin, I was completely soaked in sweat. The tower was barely visible above the treeline, and was hugged by growth on all sides. A fence surrounded it, but someone had cut a hole in the fence and I crawled through without so much as a second thought, and entered through the portal. The sandy floor was the only surface not covered in graffiti, and the sky shone through the crumbling brick. The mortar was partially decayed away. I felt rather sad for this forgotten sentinel, the first of its kind in the land of lakes.

    The hike back to the car was strenuous as well, but less so with the warm light of house coursing through me, and Neha had clutched up by taking the car to get gas while waiting for me. I felt guilty it had taken so long, and apologetically lathered up with another layer of deodorant so that the circulating AC would remain unflavored.
    Naturally, now that I’d seen all the lighthouses in Duluth, I had to make a brief stop at the historical society to get my lighthouse passport stamped for all five, and then we were off to dinner. I had wild rice hot dish. When in Minnesota, eh.

Saturday, July 18th

    Back pain and I woke again nefariously early, and was sleepy until I noticed the AQI dropped significantly to reasonable levels (if ‘moderately bad’ air quality can be considered reasonable.) I was shocked and elated to see Ashland Harbor Breakwater out the window, a small tower in the shimmering lake, and sent a mental high five back in time to the younger Zach who requested a room with a lakeview.

    Neha woke soon after, and seemed somewhat grumpy, so I took all my sarcastic jokes and witty banter and locked them up in my brain’s basement. I at least have the self awareness to understand I can be overwhelming to people at their best, so I’d at least try to bottle it all up until noon, out of respect to my travel companion. Well, eleven maybe. After round 2 at Coco’s (this time a four dollar latte with local Wisconsin honey to go with my usual eggs, toast, and homemade blueberry jam) we broke for the Bayfield harbor.
    A bit of context– there are three different trips you can take with the Apostle Island ferry service: a ferry to Michigan Island (two lighthouses), with a stop at Stockton Island to drop off campers, a ferry to Raspberry Island (one lighthouse), with a stop at Oak Island to drop off hikers, and the Grand Tour, a nonstop loop that cuts through the Apostles to show views of the two lighthouses on Michigan, the lighthouse on Raspberry, and the lighthouse on Devils, as well as a bunch of local history.
    I obviously wanted to take all three– I wanted to see and climb as many lighthouses as possible. Neha, still a lighthouse enthusiast in training, wanted to take the Grand Tour and skip the other two. Since our planned Grand Tour was canceled the day before, she elected to go on the morning Grand Tour while I’d be on Michigan.
    “Do you want to come with me to Raspberry this afternoon? It’ll be fun,” I promised.
    “Ehhh… I think I’d rather go to a cheese farm instead.”
    I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
    Outside the ticketing office, a man as old as the lake itself was leaning against a railing. He had some kind of uniform on. He looked at me and I looked at him.
    “Are you the captain?”
    “No…” he smiled toothlessly. “The captain today, why that must be Captain Willy. You’ll find him down there.” He pointed towards the end of the dock, where a few people had gathered.
    I guess I was unsatisfied with the answer cause we continued staring at each other before he spoke again.
    “I’m…. the greeter.”
    “Oh! I’m sorry. Hello!” I said dramatically.
    He smiled. “Hello.”
    Having properly greeted the greeter, I hoofed it down the ferry, mindful of my tardiness and the growing line of people. A woman with a clipboard noticed my approach.
    “Party size?” she asked.
    “Er.. one. I’m alone,” I replied.
    “Oh. You must be Zachary,” she answered. Oof. I got on the boat.
    Turns out 70% of the boat was born without taste and chose to disembark at Stockton to go camping rather than visit Michigan Island. I say this after witnessing a couple that prudently asked if they could do both– visit Michigan first, see the lighthouses, and then on the return get off at Stockton. I immediately liked them for that.
    The group at Michigan Island was a solid one. The aforementioned couple, the spitting image of a midwestern family with two uncontrollable, mohawked rugrats, an older couple in their 50s or so, the two rangers, and yours truly. We got off at the dock and faced the stairs up to the bluff where the two lighthouses could be seen poking out from over the trees.
    “Before we go up, is there anyone here that, how should I say this, Likes Lighthouses?” the shorter ranger asked.
    I raised my hand. The ranger groaned.
    “Okay, I’ll try to mentally prepare myself for the hard questions. I’ve only been here for two seasons, but I brought my notes, so worst case scenario we can go through them together.”
    Her name was Angel and I was at once her number one fan.
    Up the bluff, we stood in a circle on the lawn between the two lighthouses, and Angel began narrating the history. Rather than quote her, I’ll just briefly record it myself, since Angel made two mistakes (at least, that I caught.)

    Bayfield and Ashland were one of the bigger shipping ports on Superior when they opened up the Sault Ste. Marie, and a lighthouse was needed in the Apostle Islands to guide ships in. Congress approved money for a lighthouse in LaPointe, on Madeline Island, but the District Inspector thought that ridiculous and asked the light to be built on Long Island to cover the eastern approach. When the contractors pulled up in 1857 to build it on Long Island, a different local official told them Michigan Island was a much better site, and ordered them to stand it up there instead. When the Lighthouse Board caught wind of this, they were furious and ordered the lighthouse dimmed and a new lighthouse built in the proper place at the contractors’ own expense.
    However, it turns out that Michigan Island actually was a great spot for a lighthouse, but the existing lighthouse was too short for the location. Fortunately, a bend in the Delaware was straightened out and the existing range system was marked redundant, so the rear range was shipped to Michigan and erected next to the old tower in 1929. Thus, the oldest and newest lighthouses in the Apostles are roommates.
    Angel roughly covered this, getting a few dates off by a year, and supplementing with some of the more dramatic stories from the keepers who lived here to hold the attention of the more casual enthusiasts. She was a good narrator, and after covering the history, split us into two groups (the obnoxious family and the rest) and took the first group up, leaving everyone else to wander the grounds. I went inside the old lighthouse and read some exhibits. I was delighted to see Gull Island lighthouse mentioned on one of the boards, as it is often overlooked in the literature. Like Sand Island Light, I harbor a deep love for Gull Island’s tower as I wrote the Wikipedia page for both.

    “Was the Amaranth the tender for all the lighthouses in the district?” I asked the taller of the two rangers.
    “No, just the lighthouses on Superior. Interestingly, the Amaranth was called up during the second world war and disappears from the records, so it probably saw action and was destroyed.”
    I was delighted to learn that, because it was a new piece of information. We chatted for a while. She was impressed with my lighthouse count, and soon enough it was time to ascend the New Michigan Island Light tower. It was an easy climb.

    The view from the top was lovely, despite the smoke on the water in the distance, which was in fact grey, not deep purple. The old lighthouse looked tiny below us, being about 60 feet to the new lighthouse’s 110.

    “Can I take your picture?” the ranger asked me, probably guessing that a lighthouse enthusiast like myself enjoys having his picture taken in front of the lighthouses he visits.
    I had left my bag at the base of the lighthouse, and when I descended I noticed Angel looking at it.
    “Are you from Austin?” she asked. She was from Houston.
    “How did you end up in the Apostles? You must be quite the lighthouse fan,” I perceived, for I could fathom literally no other reason to work here.
    “I actually don’t like lighthouses at all,” she laughed. “Life just kinda pushes me around, and I let it. I’ve been all over– education, interpretation, this is just the latest adventure. They slot me wherever they need me, I’m not an expert anywhere. If you came last season, you’d have seen me on Raspberry Island. Hannah’s over there now, you’ll meet her if you check that island out, which, I’m assuming you will, with your enthusiasm.”
    I had a good time talking to Angel, and asked her to take a picture of me in front of the new tower.
    “Saaaaay, Hook’em Horns!!!” She called out excitedly. Ever the people pleaser, I obliged.

    By now, most of the island has picked up on my lighthouse knowledge, and when we returned to the boat, about five people were trying to occupy the two spots on either side of me. The couple in their mid 50s won out. They were from Utah, but drove all across the country searching for disk golf and paddleboarding. They’d paddleboarded Town Lake in Austin, and had an above-average knowledge of the lighthouses around the country, having seen many on their adventures. When the wife mentioned Door County, I wordlessly pulled out my Door County ballcap that I had in my bag, much to her delight.
    “I never asked– what do you do for work?” the man queried.
    “I’m a machine learning specialist for General Motors. But I’m in supply chain– I don’t build anything inside the car. So if you have any complaints about that, don’t blame me!” I joked.
    The husband and wife looked at each other and both turned to me.
    “We waited six months for a part before we could even drive the Chevy we had just purchased,” the man said. “Maybe this is the right person to gripe at.”
    He asked if I like my work, and I told him that even though supply chain isn’t terribly sexy, the problems are interesting, and I enjoy working on them. He said he felt the same way about his work– people don’t like listening to him talk about it, but that doesn’t matter cause he enjoys it. I asked what industry he was in. With a straight face, he answered.
    “Air quality.”
    I let that one hang, and adjusted my mask.
    I chatted with a few others on the boat. The dad of the family of four proudly told me that his college roommate was the park historian at Split Rock, and I should absolutely try to see that lighthouse. Angel found me again and let me read her notes on the history, which were enjoyably dense. I talked to the first mate a bit and got his perspective on some of the islands– Michigan was the best, having a little bit of everything, but Sand Island is a close number two. Long Island would be awesome– two lighthouses and a shipwreck– but the boat company didn’t think people would be interested enough to warrant a regular service out there. I committed to writing his boss a strongly opinionated letter and he laughed.
    After landing back on the mainland, it was already time to queue up again for Raspberry Island. The ranger and first mate joked that I was already an expert and didn’t have to pay attention to any of the safety presentations. By now the winds were changing and the sky was getting dark and close and again, and the omnipresent campfire smell and acrid, stick-to-your-throat sensation were back. I sat next to a deeply enthusiastic family who were more than happy to talk about lighthouses with me. I showed them my passport and they oohed and ahhhed appropriately. The family was from Wassau, and their aunt and uncle were volunteering at the lighthouse, and were going Up North for the weekend to see where they’ve been summering.

    We docked at Raspberry and were greeted by the aforementioned Ranger Hannah, a rather awkward girl in her mid 20s. She lacked the experience of Angel, and it was hard to stay focused. She took us up the stairs to the bluff where the lighthouse was built. About a dozen guys were enthusiastically playing croquet on the lawn. I was happy to see that, considering it was once a common pastime by the lighthouse keepers of the area. The lawn was beautifully manicured, having tons of flower beds and a large, well-kept vegetable garden started by a 19th century keeper’s wife. My favorite were the orange daylilies.
    We proceeded on the tour– it was somewhat bog standard. My favorite Raspberry Island keeper, Francis Jacker, didn’t get too much attention. He was an artist, a fluent Ojibwe speaker, and is the reason the site was finally awarded an assistant keeper. Much of the attention was on Keeper Lee Benton.
    “When we walk through the dining room, I want everyone to look through and tell me what they think is the oldest item in the room,” Hannah stated, marching us on through. I took a quick glance. It was quite obvious– most of the items were early 20th century, but the clock had US LIGHT HOUSE stamped on it, indicating it was commissioned by the US Lighthouse Establishment, which became defunct in 1910, giving way to the Bureau of Lighthouses. Hannah asked everyone on the tour what they thought. I was the only one who answered ‘clock.’
    “It was… the clock!” she announced. “Great guess.”
    It wasn’t a guess, but I didn’t say that.
    After the tour, I found her chatting with the Wassau family’s uncle, one of the two volunteers on the island. They helped me stamp my passport.
    “How many have you been to?” the old man asked.
    “How many do you think?”
    “Hmm… You’re what? 25? I’ll guess 20.”
    “Close. 132.”
    He was impressed.
    Hearing that, Hannah absolutely locked in. She had a lot to say about the lighthouses in the Apostles, up on Superior’s north shore, over on the upper peninsula. She desperately wanted to see the lighthouses in California and Massachusetts. I recommended she add the Outer Banks to her bucket list as well.
    “Are you a lighthouse buff or just a guy who likes taking pictures of them?” she asked.
    “The 132 lighthouses doesn’t answer your question?” I joked.
    Suddenly Hannah looked quite embarrassed. “Okay, I mean– I don’t know, maybe you– nevermind.”

    Back on the mainland, I heard a shout. “Excuse me young man, would you like a ride?”
    Neha’s timing was pretty flawless. We drove exactly 12 seconds up the street and parked in front of a restaurant that looked good from the outside. I became deeply weary when I realized that everyone inside was in a suit or cocktail dress. My linen shirt might have cut it, had I not been wearing shorts, and Neha’s crop top was definitely underdressed. But Neha is far braver than I, and I followed her to the bar. I ordered the Wisconsin vegetarian classic– a margherita pizza and a Spotted Cow. Well, two Spotted Cows. I had to make up for missing one last night.
    “Would you guys like to see a dessert menu?” the waitress asked.
    “No,” I said automatically. There was an ice cream place down the road I wanted to hit before we went back to Washburn.
    “Yes, we’ll take a menu,” Neha corrected me. “I can’t wait until you get a girlfriend someday and she has to deal with your ‘no dessert’ silliness.” Neha loves to talk about the disappointment this theoretical girlfriend will face someday.
    She ordered some kind of cake.
    “So, what do you want to do after this?”
    “I wanted to get ice cream next door.”
    Neha froze and lowered her spoon, squinting her eyes.
    “Why did you let me order dessert?!”

Sunday, July 19th

    The prior night, Neha had mentioned that she needs about 10+ hours of sleep to function, so I made an intentional effort not to wake her and to get ready and packed quietly. I wandered over to Coco’s at 7am sharp with my Elagabalus biography, and ordered the same as yesterday. I love consistency. I began reading.
    As usual, the cafe was quite crowded, and I kept half an eyeball on the scenery around me. A lot of people were dressed in camo and neon orange– Wisconsin church clothes. It occurred to me it was Sunday. A young girl and her father sat at the table in front of me, and when the girl’s sippy cup rolled off the table, the dad caught it in midair with reflexes and precision that would make a Packers wide receiver blush. The little girl and I made eye contact, and we both made shocked expressions. Her feelings affirmed, she turned to her father.
    “You’re so coo daddy,” she said.
    A part time worker arrived with his family, all ten of them, and they ordered breakfast. The order came out to ninety nine dollars on the nose. The people working poked fun at him, saying he was on the wrong side of the counter. He seemed completely embarrassed.
    I started feeling antsy so I shut my book and wandered over to the harbor. The smoke had returned and Ashland Harbor Breakwater Light was no longer visible. I meandered through the grassy fields just outside of town and thought that on a prettier day, with a clearer sky and warmer sun, Washburn would not be too different from Rippon, the town Down South my aunt lives in. Neha was awake, so I returned and we packed the car. The Italian man thanked me profusely for my stay. We left Washburn due west for Duluth. Instead of turning south, however, we went north instead, making for the uppermost part of Minnesota, and the northern shore of Lake Superior.
    It felt weird to drive to the end of I-35. I hate that road, and so to personally drive over the northern terminus onto peaceful, slow moving MN-61 gave me great satisfaction. The drive up there is wonderful, especially the parts along the lakeshore, and would have been triply wonderful had the view not been choked with smoke. There’s only so many times one can complain about the smoke, and I intend to figure out what that number is.
    We made it to Split Rock Lighthouse, the most famous lighthouse in Minnesota by far and one of the most famous in all of America. I parked at the far end of the lot.
    “Park closer,” Neha ordered.
    “Why? We get to walk more if we park over here.”
    “What? Dude, just park at the front.”
    I dutifully obeyed.

    Split Rock Lighthouse is easily one of the most commercial lighthouses I’ve been to. The museum is extensive, the gift shop massive, and the grounds very well kept. The lighthouse perches above a massive cliff, and the cliff perches above a beautiful, shockingly clear turquoise lake. The lake perches over some sediment or more rocks or something, we’re losing the plot here.

    Hannah had explained the other day that Lee Benton, the keeper at Raspberry Island, had also worked at Split Rock, and challenged me to find pictures of his son in the exhibits, unlabeled. I cheated aggressively by asking one of the staff.
    “Oh! Actually, I can help with that! Right this way.”
    I followed her into a bedroom in the keeper’s cottage.
    “Right here,” she smiled.
    “Perfect,” I smiled in turn. “Thank you so much.”
    It was absolutely not his son. It took another 10 minutes of wandering around before I found a picture of the real kid, and mentally thanked Hannah for the bonus lore.
    I spent some time checking out the lens as well– a shockingly large third order lens. A lens so large, I had assumed it second order at first. There were only ever four second order lenses on the Great Lakes, to the best of my knowledge, but I can never remember where they were located. So a third order would still be in the top 10% of Great Lakes lenses. Maybe I’ve been away from the other three American coasts for too long.

    At this point in the trip, I was shooting on several manual settings, and my shots were royally fucked up, taking on a weird sepia tint. They’re still cool shots, but I’ll establish here that they are anything but intentional. I like to tease Neha for her social media addiction, but to her credit her human photography is razor sharp, and she took a few pictures of me around the grounds with the lighthouse. I was quite touched that she’d use her skills on me like that, until she turned around and handed me her phone to return the favor. It turns out I was the test dummy and she was just measuring the angles. I couldn’t be mad.

    “Alright, back to Minneapolis,” Neha said as we walked back to the car.
    I stopped. “So. Here’s the thing. On our way here, we drove past two other lighthouses. So it wouldn’t really make sense to skip them right? Cause they’re on the way.”
    Neha looked exasperated. “Are you kidding– fine. I guess it’s on the way.”
    We drove south, back along the shore, and turned into Two Harbors. I accidentally called it Twin Harbors about sixty times because Twin Peaks is a really freaking good show that Nicole won’t watch with me. Down in the harbor of Two Harbors there is a gorgeous red brick lighthouse, surrounded by a chain link fence and an ingress via an old shed– another gift shop. Neha and I walked in. Behind the counter was a small sign: “Adults– $10. Children– $6.”

    “Nope,” Neha said, turning 180 degrees and letting the door slam.
    “Uhm, I guess just one please.”
    The old woman chortled.
    The grounds were quiet, save the wind, which carried a nice healthy smoke across the hillock. The lighthouse was an active bed and breakfast, so my access was limited to the tower, and unfortunately I could only climb up to the oil platform, with no access to the lantern or the gallery. I spotted some others entering the grounds, and didn’t much feel like socializing, so I descended and left.

    Outside the grounds were half the population of Twin Harbors, out and about on a beautiful smoke laced Sunday afternoon. A breakwater pier built in several stages over the years jutted out into the lake, and at the point of the breakwater was, unsurprisingly, the Two Harbors Breakwater Lighthouse, built in 1906. The breakwater seemed to be an established walking path. The lighthouse was incredibly charming and made me think of a lifeguard tower on a beach, and with the smoke, the differentiation between the sky and lake was minimal, giving an eerie, liminal perspective. I was giddy.

    “By the way,” I said, spinning the car keys on my finger. “There is actually one lighthouse between here and Duluth, so it’s technically on the way.”
    “Are you serious?! No way.” Neha’s eyes bulged.
    “I’m joking, I’m joking,” I reassured. “I’m navigating for Minneapolis.”

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