Most of the Apostle Islands light stations may be reached on the Apostle Islands Cruise Service[6] water taxi or by private boat during the summer. During the Annual Apostle Island Lighthouse Celebration[7] ferry tour service is available for all the lighthouses. In the tourist season, volunteer park rangers are on many of the islands to greet visitors.[8]
Erosion control
In 2004–2005, the National Park Service undertook a significant erosion control project at Outer Island, to stabilize the bluff which had proved susceptible to erosion since the station's earliest days. The project followed a similar effort completed the previous year at the Raspberry Island Lighthouse, and consisted of a three-part strategy: armoring the cliff base with a massive stone wall; improving drainage on the upper grounds to prevent runoff from undercutting the clay bank; and stabilizing the bluff face with "bio-engineering," i.e. planting carefully selected vegetation to anchor the slope. The rock wall at the bottom and drainage system at the top were completed, but a shortage of funds required scaling back the bio-engineering plans, and only the most critical sections of the bluff face were treated.[9]
Notable incidents
On September 2, 1905, Outer Island Keeper John Irvine performed a heroic rescue, when the 337-foot, three-masted schooner-barge Pretoria lost the line to its towing steamer Venezuela during a fierce storm. The Pretoria attempted to anchor about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) off the island, but when the ship began to break up, the ten-man crew attempted to flee in a lifeboat. Sixty-one-year-old keeper Irvine was alone on the island, his assistants having gone to town, but when the lifeboat flipped in the surf, he waded into the waves and rescued five of the ten men. On that same night, the steamer Sevona also sank in the Apostle Islands, striking a reef near the Sand Island Lighthouse, with the loss of seven men. This double tragedy preceded the better-known Mataafa Storm by several weeks.[10]
^Jane C. Busch, People and Places: A Human History of the Apostle Islands, U.S. National Park Service, 2008; David Snyder, A Compendium Of Written Communication Of The Light House Board For The Twelve Light Stations Of The Midwest Region, National Park Service, 1839-1881, U.S. National Park Service, 1992.
^U.S. National Park Service, Annual Reports, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, on file at AINL headquarters, Bayfield, Wisconsin
^David C. Cooper, By Fire storm and Ice: Underwater Archeological Investigations in the Apostle Islands. Wisconsin State Historical Society, 1991; James M. Keller, The Unholy Apostles: Shipwreck Tales of the Apostle Islands, Sheridan Books, 1984; Busch, op cit.
Further reading
Havighurst, Walter (1943) The Long Ships Passing: The Story of the Great Lakes, Macmillan Publishers.
Oleszewski, Wes, Great Lakes Lighthouses, American and Canadian: A Comprehensive Directory/Guide to Great Lakes Lighthouses, (Gwinn, Michigan: Avery Color Studios, Inc., 1998) ISBN0-932212-98-0.
Olson, Elna. " Lighthouse Memories: My Life on Outer Island." The Keeper's Log (Spring 1993), pp. 20–22.
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