Ask Julie Anderson for the highlight of her summer, and she’ll start by telling you about a small Wisconsin island off the northern tip of Door County. It takes two ferry rides to get to Rock Island State Park, but once you arrive it’s a beautiful, car-free oasis with picturesque Lake Michigan beaches, flower-filled prairies and tree-lined trails.
The island is also home to Wisconsin’s oldest lighthouse, where Anderson volunteered to be a docent for a week this summer. While she was living there, she became enamored with the historic building.
“The stone and mortar are from the 1850s, and it’s still standing, which is impressive.” says Anderson, the chair’s assistant for the Department of Economics. “The lantern room is on the fourth level, and it has great views of Lake Michigan, all the fishing boats, and the stars, which were so beautiful at night.”
Pottawatomie Lighthouse sits on a high bluff at the northern tip of Rock Island. It was first built in 1836 and rebuilt in the 1850s. The lighthouse has a long history of keepers who would manually light the lantern each night, informing nearby boats of the namesake rocks of the island. Today, there’s an automated, solar-powered system that eliminates the need for daily lighting, but the lighthouse still recruits volunteers each year.
Anderson was one such volunteer lighthouse docent along with her aunt and husband. For seven days, the three of them were in charge of caring for the lighthouse, raising the flag in the morning and keeping an eye on the automated light system. But their main duty was giving tours of the lighthouse and sharing the history of it with visitors.
“It was a magnificent experience,” Anderson says. “I was thrilled to share all the knowledge I gained, because the visitors were very interested in learning about the lighthouse.”
Up to a 100 visitors would show up in a day, so Anderson and her team were kept quite busy. But they had free time to wander the island, attend a Department of Natural Resources-sponsored lecture and chill on the beaches. And while this was her first time ever serving as a lighthouse docent, she highly recommends the experience and hopes to do it again soon.
“Perhaps we’ll find an alternate lighthouse next time or another similarly exciting experience,” Anderson says.