Science of Great Lakes Fisheries

By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc.

Crossroads at Big Creek is proud to host the kick-off event for this year’s FIRE & ICE celebration in Sturgeon Bay. A luminary-lit hike, with bonfires and hot chocolate, will take place from 5:00-7:00 p.m. on Friday, February 17. On Saturday, in keeping with the Fire and Ice theme, our afternoon family program will be “Ice Harvest,” a hands-on living history demonstration offered in collaboration with the Madden Tool Museum.

Crossroads’ Fish Tales Lecture Series will again present the “Science of Great Lakes Fisheries.” The series will begin on Monday, February 20, at 7:00 p.m. Dr. Dan Isermann, Unit Leader of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Wisconsin Cooperative Fisheries Research Unit at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point will present “Quest for Nests: Nest Fishing and Small Mouth Bass Recruitment along the Door Peninsula.” He will share the initial results of the research project designed to determine whether nest fishing negatively affects smallmouth bass.

Commercial fishing and ice harvest were among the first industries in Door County. Fishing, though diminished, continues and will be discussed during the Fish Tale Lecture Series. The ice harvest took place every winter on the Bay of Sturgeon Bay until the late 1890s.

The raw materials needed – ice and sawdust – were abundant in Door County during the logging era. Chicago, which disposed of its sewage in the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, needed unpolluted ice for home use – ice boxes actually were boxes containing ice! – and for meat packing. Milwaukee breweries also needed clean ice.

So as many as 700 men, mostly local farmers, sawed and removed large cakes of ice from the bay. The ice was stored in “ice houses” and was shipped to the cities in the summer months.

At the Ice Harvest demonstration, Mike Madden, Pat Madden, Dan Hanson, and Justin Skiba will demonstrate, using authentic tools, how ice was sawed and moved during ice harvest. Short video clips of ice harvest will be screened in the learning center during this free family event.

Ice, during the last glacial advance, shaped Crossroads’ Cove Estuary and the Bay of Sturgeon Bay making ice harvest and fishing profitable industries in the 1800s. In the later part of that century, the tourist industry evolved.

Last year, in conducting historical research on Crossroads’ Ida Bay Preserve, we learned that were it not for a fire which occurred in 1933, our preserve would probably have been part of a resort complex. It once was.

In 1902, ME Lawrence purchased the land to create The Cove preserve. A 1903 account in the newspaper, the Door County Democrat, described “resort grounds: beauty, style and rustic pieces featured, and new dining hall with seating for 300, and five acres planted with strawberries and 200 fruit trees …The Cove has made an enviable record for a new place, in that a number of people have fallen in love with what truly is one of nature’s beauty spots.”

Subsequent accounts described additional cottages, fishing excursions, an amusement hall, a swimming pool, nightly dance parties, fancy dress balls, July 4^th celebrations, and as many as 200 guests at a time. Meals also attracted locals taking advantage of the marvelous food. The resort boasted an irrigation system, waterworks and a private power plant to provide electric lights and hot water!

While the resort fronted the 300 feet of shore along what now is Cove Road, several cottages and “pleasure trails” expanded into the current Crossroads property, but most of the current preserve was used for gardens, orchards, and even butchering meat to supply the resort kitchens. For refrigeration, each winter Mr. Lawrence and his employees would go out on the bay to harvest ice.

But on May 26, 1933, just hours after a wedding was held at the resort, a massive fire destroyed the dining hall, kitchens, several cottages and the recreation building….essentially the heart of the resort, and it never really recovered.

Fire destroyed the resort made possible by ice. Had the fire not occurred, would The Cove still be a resort?

We will never know, but we will have small, safe fires at our Fire & Ice kick-off event, and while visitors enjoy the magic of our luminary-lit pleasure trails, perhaps they will reflect a bit on our history.