Apostle Islands National LakeshorePagina 25 di 48
Manitou Fish Camp: A Ramshackle Winter Fishing Camp in the Apostle Islands
For centuries people have fished the waters around the Apostle Islands, and traces of their work remain: fish bones at Native American archeological sites, a rotting net reel on Rocky Island, whole buildings at Little Sand Bay. Manitou Fish Camp, in Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, tells another of those stories. The page’s epigraph calls fishing in winter a pretty tough life.
Historic Manitou Fish Camp. NPS photo.
A camp that never made anyone rich
The camp is an unplanned collection of rough buildings on the edge of a forested island. It never played a major part in the fishing economy of Bayfield, and the men there earned a daily living, not a fortune. It took its present form in the 1930s. In 1938 Hjalmer “Governor” Olson and his brother Ted bought the land and its existing buildings from a land company for $600, looking for a place with stable, thick ice for winter fishing.
For three decades it drew local men. No one thought of it as a permanent home, and some, like the Olsons, came and went all year, though most came in winter. They walked out onto the ice and fished through it. Some were young and starting out; others had jobs as plumbers, sailors, loggers or even a lawyer. Because no boat was needed, the start-up cost was low, and the fishing gave a steady income in hard times.
Olson sold the camp in 1964 but kept the use of the site until 1983, and his friends kept visiting to fish and party, so it was more of a hangout than a frontier refuge. In 1983 the National Park Service began restoring the camp to the look of the 1930s.
Map of Manitou Fish Camp. NPS.
The structures
Local fishermen say the shacks have changed little since the 1930s.
| # | Structure | What the Park Service says about it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Governor’s Cabin | Built about 1900 by Swedes logging cedar, then used by John Hanson, who stayed to fish. Olson recalled that Hanson and a companion were lost in a boat on their way to the island in November 1935. The Olsons moved in when they bought the camp, and some of Hanson’s things remain, including a table, an iron stove and a short-legged chair. Hjalmer Olson’s nickname came from a new suit he wore to a show in Bayfield, not from any authority; as Ted Olson put it, they let people stay rent free |
| 2 | Smokehouse | Built by Hanson to cure fish and meat, which fed the camp and usually were not sold. Olson hung fish by the tails over a slow-burning fire |
| 3 | Windlass | Built by Olson from salvaged logging and fishing materials to haul his skiff out in rough weather and before the ice set in |
| 4 | Net drying reel | Gill nets were wound on it to dry in the sun; whitefish and lake trout were the catch worth selling |
| 5 | Small twine shed | Held tools and netting, a stove for heating and cooking, utensils, a sled and a homemade ski pole |
| 6 | Large twine shed | Nets and floats hang from the rafters with lures and barbed hooks. It was also a stable; Olson’s horse Jim drowned when the ice broke, and his manger is still on the wall |
| 7 | Bunkhouse | Built by Ted Olson on Ironwood Island and rebuilt on Manitou in the late 1930s; now staff quarters |
| 8 | Ice fishing cabin | Sheathed in corrugated tin, and reportedly cold; used for days or weeks at a time by men with names such as Jingling Johnson and Black Pete |
Governor’s Cabin. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
Manitou smokehouse. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
Windlass. NPS graphic.
Net drying reel. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
How the fishing worked
Some fishermen used gill nets: fine nets hung like curtains in the water, which tangle fish too big to slip through the mesh. Before nylon, nets were cotton or linen and rotted if left in the lake. They were wound on the reel to dry, then pulled into a wooden box with the mesh coiled in the center and the leads and floats at the edge, and a careless job meant hours of untangling. In winter men chopped holes in the ice and set nets under it with a “running board” and ropes. Many men instead jigged for lake trout with hooks and lines, which was simpler and cheaper for someone between jobs.
Before snowmobiles, men hauled catch and supplies on small wooden sleds that carried 400 to 500 pounds, on a weekly trip of about three hours across the ice between Manitou and Red Cliff. Many kept one or two large dogs to help pull.
Small twine shed. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
Large twine shed. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
An older use of the island
Wilfred Peterson of the Red Cliff Band, who stayed in the bunkhouse, set gill nets for spawning lake trout on the rocky reefs near the shore each October. That followed a traditional practice that archeologists have dated on Manitou as early as 1640, and studies show Native Americans repeatedly came to the island in autumn to net trout and whitefish.
Bunkhouse. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
Ice fishing cabin. NPS photo: Neil Howk.
Visitors leaving by boat are invited to look back and notice how quickly the camp fades into the forest, and how small it is against the lake and land, yet how this narrow edge gave shelter when the comforts of town were out of reach.
Sources
- National Park Service, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Historic Manitou Fish Camp; fishermen’s recollections are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx’s own words.