Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island

On Thursday we decided we’d make the ferry trip to Madeline Island and visit the state park there. If you don’t own a boat this is the only way you can get out on one of the islands right now. There are tour boats, but after Labor Day they don’t make any runs where they drop you off on the islands to hike or camp. But the ferry to Madeline Island runs all year, as long as they can get through the ice. Notice the school bus! This was the 11:30 AM ferry from the island, so not sure what was going on with the bus, but there were students on it.

Anyway, once they unloaded we drove aboard and at 12:10 PM were well on our way from Bayfield to LaPointe, on Madeline Island. It was cool and cloudy but the clouds were supposed to clear a bit.

We drove all the way around the island and pretty much just saw trees. We came to Big Bay State Park and went to the Point Trail. More nice trees.

Then we came to the shoreline,

and it was beautiful.

The water was crystal clear.

This is the point, and it is a huge rocky outcrop.

The rocks along the shore are sculpted by the waves. By this time, Bud wasn’t feeling too great, so he went back to the truck to rest and Matey and I continued along the shore.

More rocks and caves.

Whole stretches of the shore were undercut.

The clouds were mostly gone and the sunshine peeked from under the rocks.

With the sun at my back the red rocks glowed.

Such a beautiful place.

Matey and I looped back through the woods.

That’s a paper birch root “ball”, but it’s more like a giant dinner plate.

It was over six feet in diameter but only about a foot thick. The Anishinaabeg sign in the Frog Bay Tribal National Park mentioned that paper birch have a very shallow root system. They sure do!

Back in LaPointe we lined up for the ferry…

and took it back to Bayfield. The clouds were building up,again, they just went away so we could see that gorgeous shoreline.