ALMOST CHRISTMAS, BALMY, BLIMEY!

A Christmas-time scene at the Ferry Dock, 1994.  L to R:
Arni Foss (who now sails as a Captain for the Interlake Fleet on the
Dorothy Ann/Pathfinder); Jon Gunnlaugson (deceased);  Mark Dewey
(Scottsdale, AZ);  Dave Johnson (retired); Erik Foss (Ferry Captain, active);
Bill Schutz (Office Manager, active); and Al Thiele (retired).

WASHINGTON ISLAND, WISCONSIN -

After pestering from Erik Foss to put out another blog, and then another, it so happens we've featured him several times in recent posts, and now once again.

The crew that posed that day by the old Ferry Line office had their photo taken in a setting of fresh snow covering the roof, garland and ground.

Arni and Erik are two of four Island brothers.   Dave (not shown) sails as an Engineer for Interlake.  With the dumping of foreign steel and lessened demand by U. S. mills, a number of Great Lakes freighters are tying up early this season, rather than running into January or early February as has become customary in recent decades.   Arni and Dave are home now, enjoying the Christmas holidays with their families.  Kirby, the fourth and oldest brother, who is retired from his career with the Wisconsin DNR in park management, is a Town of Washington Supervisor and farmer.

With unexpected warm weather, the past two days having been an exception, there is hardly any ice in the shallows of the harbors, and none to speak of around the bay of Green Bay.   Three days ago the NOAA water temperature map for Lake Michigan reported a large section of warm water that extended from mid-lake to the shoreline near Traverse City, Michigan, a substantial warm pool of water with water temps between 46 and 48 degrees F.  This wasn't only a warm topmost layer, but apparently a consistent temperature top-to-bottom.  (Hoyt noted this wasn't too far off summertime temperatures.)   Quite extraordinary to see such temperatures in early winter, and its a sure sign that even if the lake temperatures cooled dramatically starting tomorrow (which isn't in the forecast), we should not see floating or solid ice for several more weeks, at minimum.  Such a warm winter start would have made for relatively easy, late season sailing for the lakers, especially those occasions when they transit the narrows, shallows,  and sometimes ice-choked currents of the St. Mary's River while on their typical upper lake runs.

See more detail and additional Lake Michigan information
at:   GLERL.noaa.gov

Generally speaking, mild December weather doesn't mean a lack of wind altogether, and so we still anticipate weather patterns with strong winds, such as Christmas Eve may bring a few days from now.   Best advice to Christmas ferry travelers?  Plan ahead and travel early to avoid possible difficulties with sailing delays or cancellations.    Ferry reservations become effective tomorrow, Monday, Dec. 21st.

Another Foss photo

On Thursday, I greeted Rev. James Reiff as he stepped off the ferry Washington for a brief Island visit.  Jim was Trinity Lutheran Church pastor from 1981 to 1985, and this was one of only a couple of Island visits since his tenure here decades ago.  My invitation for this visit had to do with the Stavkirke 20th anniversary year since its dedication, and with the instrumental involvement Jim had in getting that idea off the ground.

We drove to the Stavkirke where I took several photos and Jim refreshed his memories.  While we visited, Erik Foss dropped in.  Erik was one of Jim Reiff's confirmands back in the early 1980s.   When details came reluctantly to mind for Jim Reiff, Erik was able to complete a name or date quite easily, prompting further memories of the project.  This sort of recall isn't surprising for one who frequently displays the Foss family trait of a steel trap mind where local or maritime history is concerned.

Erik Foss with former Trinity Pastor Jim Reiff.

Needing to warm up from the chilly air, we walked over to the church itself and met Trinity's current Pastor Alan Schaffmeyer, Church Secretary Joan Hansen, and other familiar faces, before making a quick swing through the nave.   Hanging above the pews there is a beautiful model of the Island freighting schooner, Madonna, hailing port of Detroit Harbor on its transom.

This model was dedicated as a memorial to the young Kelly Jess, son of Karen and Butch Jess, and Jim Reiff was instrumental in obtaining the model, a symbol very typical in Scandinavian churches, Jim said, and something often positively commented about by visitors.

Some years later another sailing ship model, a Mackinac schooner made by carpenter John Herschberger as a memorial to his wife Patty's sister, Deborah, was hung in the knave of the Stavkirke.

With background information from Jim Reiff, and with details provided by others closely associated with the planning, construction and use of the Island Stavkirke, my goal is to assemble photos and supporting information into booklet form, to be available for the 2016 summer tourism season.

-  Dick Purinton

ICELANDIC CONNECTIONS

Archivist Janet Berggren (L) and volunteer Kirby Foss (R) assisted
Jonas Thor and his wife, Anna, at the Island Archives.

Detroit Harbor, Washington Island -

Jonas and Anna Thor of Reykjavik, Iceland, recently visited Washington Island for one week as our guests.  The Thors have traveled here before. Jonas led three tours of Icelanders as they traced the route of Icelandic immigration in the midwest.   On those tours, Hannes Andersen was their step-on Island guide, imparting local knowledge of settlement here.  Hannes himself had visited Iceland several times, and he maintained contact with cousins there.

I began email correspondence with Jonas Thor in the late spring of 2012, when he planned another tour of Washington Island (although that tour didn't materialize).  At one point in our exchanges, I referred to letters in Mary Jo’s possession that had been mailed to her great-grandfather, Arni Gudmundsen, between the years 1880 and 1930.   Jonas offered to translate them.  This “exchange” of old letters for translation is ongoing, and we both realized there could be more such letters on Washington Island, in attics or trunks, that would describe in fair detail the life and times of those who lived then in Iceland, as the family members corresponded  back-and-forth with one another over the years.

Icelandic immigration is a topic of longstanding interest of Jonas Thor’s.   He taught for ten years at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, wrote several books about Icelanders as they settled across North America, and more recently, through his historian's background he helps set up tours, both for tourists in Iceland, and for Icelanders who visit North America or Europe.

The tour company with which he is associated is Icelandic Farm Holidays, a cooperative of rural farm owners who provide lodging and meals for their guests.  These farms - like our B & Bs - are found at various locations rimming the coastline of Iceland.  There, tourism has been on the rise, with many visitors from European nations, but also from Japan and China.  Tours for Icelanders who travel abroad are with historical connections in mind, but they may also be simply traveler holidays.

Thor is eager to learn more about Washington Island’s Icelandic settlers:  family names; family stories; the location of individual family home sites; and even the whereabouts of individual Icelandic settler burial plots.  These sorts of things, he says, are of great interest to Icelanders, knowing where family members dispersed to and their history upon arrival in the new continent.  From our talks, it appears 

that Jonas already knows more than many of us do about our Island's early history.

Arni Gudmundsen (immigrated from
Iceland in 1873), wife Haldora,
 daughters Gudney Anna, Johanna Andrea,
Margaret Sigridur (mother of
Arni Richter.) Year unknown. 

It comes as no surprise, then, that in addition to speaking on this same topic at the Archives program Sunday afternoon, June 9th, Thor also spent a great deal of time at the Island Archives.  For a start, Archivist Janet Berggren provided Thor with an Index of Washington Island Icelandic immigrant family names. 

The Washington Island Archives intends to assist him in his research by encouraging Islanders to bring in Icelandic settler family photos, and letters sent to them by Icelandic relatives that need to be translated.  Because this topic is a big one, Thor has narrowed his interest for correspondence and photos to ones that date roughly 1870 - 1914, an era when over 16,000 Icelanders (equivalent to about 20% of the population) left Iceland for North America.  

Archives staff will scan old letters and family photos (with the owner retaining the originals), and then forward them by email to Jonas Thor.  In this way, both Icelandic files and the Island Archives will have copies. 

If this process can be streamlined and continued, Jonas Thor’s dream may be realized:  to eventually organize such available information on a website, so that interested people everywhere can benefit from those connections.

(Note:   I have a number of booklets that describe the various tour offerings of the Icelandic Farm Holidays company.  Ask me for one when you see me, if you’d like a copy. Otherwise, on the web go to:   www.farmholidays.is  )

-  Dick Purinton

KODAK MOMENTS?

 Rock Island scenes given as gift by C.H. Thordarson, March 30, 1920

Washington Island, Wisconsin -

A recent Wall Street Journal article Jan. 5, 2012 described the imminent demise of the world-famous Kodak company:

  "Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing to seek bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would cap a stunning comedown for a company that once ranked among America's corporate titans."

What does this news item have to do with Rock Island and the album shown above?  Likely, nothing, except for the film emulsion or paper, most probably a Kodak Company product.  However, there has been for some time an accreditation to George Eastman for photos taken on Rock Island in the early years of C.H. Thordarson's ownership.   The connection has persisted, but so far, no hard evidence has come to light to connect Rock Island with the famous creator of every day photo products.

The album came to the Island Archives in November this way:   Ingert Johnson, wife of the late Al Johnson, called to say she had a book of photos of Rock Island that had been passed to her by the late Liberty Grove resident Bill Beckstrom.  Bill (we surmise) had been given it by the family of noted Door County Historian, H.R. Holand.   Holand's daughter was either given the album, or it was passed to her in his estate.  H.R. Holand, in his wide-ranging historical interests, had become acquainted with Chester Hjortur Thordarson, who owned Rock Island.  The inside cover of the album has a nice contour map of Rock Island, and the opposing fly leaf has the inscription:

                                         

To My Friend                        March 30, 1920 

        Mr. H. R. Holand

        who first told the 

       story of Rock Island to the

       people of Wisconsin

      I give this book.
            C.H. Thordarson


Thordarson purchased land on Rock Island in 1909 and 1910, and so we can estimate that the photos in the album were taken some time in the ensuing decade.  An interesting pair of photos shows a wooden tower (that I estimate to be in the 50-ft. range) in the high-ground interior of Rock Island.  An old fire tower?  Not so, says Kirby Foss, recently retired Rock Island Park Superintendent who worked on Rock Island for all but nine of his 33 years of state park service.

 "Phil Peterson referred to it as a survey tower used in the early survey of Rock and Washington Islands.  But he never found the tower or the exact location.  Neither did Tom Jessen, Phil's successor, or did I.  People who've hunted on Rock year after year, who have pretty well walked every spot of ground, they've never seen evidence of the tower.  Tom always thought it might have been made of hardwood, the fact there are no remains left."

If this was a survey tower, and it was used when the original surveyors were here, could it have possibly lasted some 80 years, when Thordarson came along?  Would anyone have dared climb an old tower, much less a newer one, to take a photo?  Or was it built at a later time, for a related purpose?  But climb the tower a photographer did, obtaining a panoramic shot from the tower's top, overlooking over what Kirby says is the SW notch on Rock Island, with Jackson Harbor in the distance.  (Original surveying was done as early as March 1835, according to notes in his book, Rock Island, p. 25, by Conan Eaton.)

The balance of album photos are of nature, woods, shoreline shots with rugged beaches littered with all types of logs, driftwood, and even identifiable pieces of shipwrecks.  The album also has photos showing old Rock Island's pioneer structures, some of them with repairs-in-progress as directed by Thordarson.  Dewey, Thordarson's oldest son, is shown feeding a young deer from his hand as others in the group looked on.  Early gardens and the beginning of a fountain were also featured in several photos.  These photos pre-dated when Thordarson shifted his development emphasis from the east side fishing village to the SW cove on Rock Island.  However, an old wood-framed boat house used by the Light House Service, NW of the present day Thordarson boat house, is shown in one photo.

Wooden tower on one of Rock Island's high points.

The photos are of very high quality, fine grain, and are backed with linen for durability.  It is possible Thordarson himself took the photos, or a friend who had photographic equipment and skills.

Could they really have been taken by George Eastman?   It's hard to say one way or the other with absolute certainty, however Rock Island from Rochester, NY would be a very long trip for Eastman. He would have had to make the trip several times in order to capture the multiple seasons shown in these photos.  And while the photos are of fine quality, they aren't necessarily outstanding in composition.  A few are blurry on the edges, due to wind movement of trees, etc.  Rather, these photos more closely depict, I think, what we might want to show others through photos if we owned Rock Island.

Tower view, looking toward Jackson Harbor.

When I presented this album from Ingert, our Archivist Janet Berggren showed me another album, this one with even more photo pages, that was already in the Archives vault.  It would seem that Thordarson, as proud landowner, gave these books to friends, and maybe kept one for his own family's use. Had these been Eastman's photos, Thordarson might have given credit to him as photographer, because he would have also been a friend, and an already famous figure in photography and American business.   That wasn't done, nor has the file of archived correspondence indicated exchanges between the two men.

Now, finally, there is an interesting Swedish connection pointed out by Ingert Johnson.  Eastland, she said, was actually Ostland (imagine an umlaut over the "O"), and that Eastland's family was noted in Sweden for starting a school of dentistry.    Having George Eastland as the photographer makes a much more interesting story, but other than for the fun of speculation, I don't think he belongs there.

Yet, thanks to Thordarson's efforts, we do have a great photo history of the island.

Old Rock Island contour map.  Highest point (210) is just above the "N".

One final note:  In some of the Thordarson correspondence he indicates a personal interest in trying to officially change the name from 'Rock Island' to 'Pottawatomie Island,' a name he believed was more historically fitting for the island. Certainly the naming of the lighthouse on Rock, Pottawatomie Light, had followed this path.

Holand, whose writings seemed to often honor early natives, might also have favored the name Pottawatomie.   In any case, Thordarson's photo album cover shows his preferred name in large letters, with top-billing.

Thanks to Ingert Johnson for passing this piece of history along to the Washington Island Archives.
        -  Dick Purinton