Little Sand Bay Pre Visitor Center 1960

In 1960, my family stayed at the Johnson Resort on the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin, a gateway to the Apostle Islands.  I remembered the trip well and a few years ago returned to see what had happened to the resort.   We found the old operation had been transformed into the Little Sand Bay Visitor Center.   To call it a resort is misleading - it was a working net fishing operation and also provided an entryway and services for people on the Apostle Islands.  Dad had been a newspaper reporter until a few years before and took pictures as if he was documenting a story, a handy thing now.

This is what the operation looked like.  We were given a ride in the boat during our stay to watch the fishing nets being worked.  Part of our large red station wagon - our family car - can be seen above the big boat.

If you were to turn around and look to the right from the prior picture,  you'd see this part of the dock system.

Herman Johnson, the man on the left, ran the resort.   This is the view us tourists' view of the men working the nets from the top of the fishing boat.

This is us, watching.    One of the primary things I remember was how cold it was - we were underdressed.

The bigger boat moved around as different nets were checked and worked.

The smaller work boat was towed between nets.

Here Herman is cleaning fish.

My sisters and I watch the fish cleaning.

This is me, holding a brown trout I supposedly caught.  It was actually from the nets - I can admit this now because both dad and Mr. Johnson are gone, beyond the clutches of the law.

We rented a boat and poked around along the shore.

I wandered about in the woods near the resort and found this fungus on a rotting tree.  Dad produced this artwork - which I thought was silly at the time but have kept it as a memento since.   It is useful now to know what day it was found and a few of the key vacation details.   I was 11 years old at the time so I wasn't interested in hard facts.   This pictures bring it all back to me.  Except for the cold, we had a great time.