Oak Island

Its amazing to me how mother nature can heal herself after years of use, "Oak Island" an Island slowly carved by the glaciers 11,000 years ago along the South shore of Lake Superior was used for centuries by the Ojibwe people for base camps to harvest food, then as a base camp for pirates during the fur trades in the 1700's, a cord wood business supplied fuel to passing steamships as early as the 1850's. The island was logged for pine from 1880-1890, and hemlock through the 1920's. There were as many as 6 lumber camps on the shores of Oak during the logging years. Before and during the "Great Depression", commercial fishing camps came to the islands, the Manitou fish camp is still in tact, and preserved on Manitou Island. Then in 1943 a fire burned most of Oak Island. In 1970 the "Apostle Islands National Lakeshore" was created to protect the islands from future commercial use. There are reminders of the past to be found on the islands, all of them interesting, and curious. I'll spend this next weekend here, and maybe take a paddle over to Raspberry Island to check out the restored lighthouse.

The Picture is along the North shore of Oak Island during a trip I took with Ron S earlier this year.