Madeline Island Road Trip

Impulse trip! In uncharacteristic fashion, Bee and I booked a last-minute campsite on Madeline Island. I’d never been there and always wanted to go.

What and where is this place, you ask?

Well, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore includes 21 islands and close to 70,000 acres of shoreline in Lake Superior at the northernmost tip of the state of Wisconsin.

The National Park Service oversees its six historic lighthouses and 80 percent of the land area designated national wilderness.

The Apostle Islands have fascinating sandstone sea caves, a few old-growth remnant forests, and lots of wildlife. 

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Madeline Island is the largest Apostle island and the only inhabited one, home to the town of LaPointe.

The island is not part of the national lakeshore, although a large portion of it is protected in Big Bay State Park.

Madeline is the only island in the chain open to commercial development and private ownership. Historically, it was a spiritual center of the Ojibwe tribe.

On the road

We didn’t realize how long a drive it is from the Twin Cities. It’s over 4 hours, which is almost as long as driving to the North Shore.

We had lunch with my brother in Carlton. He had designed a route for us through beautiful Jay Cooke State Park and over a cool bridge that took us from Minnesota into Wisconsin. Thanks, brother!

One of my favorite stops along the way was the little town of Washburn, Wisconsin. Lovely historic stone buildings on the small main drag, including some striking street art.

We were sooooo lucky we just happened to be traveling during lupine season.

The incredible quantities of these wildflowers lining the roadside, often covering entire fields, completely captivated me.

While I’ve seen them in northern Minnesota, nothing like this. Spoiler: my lupine obsession only gets worse.

Harbor town charm in Bayfield

Bayfield is the port town from whence you catch the ferry to Madeline Island.

The only word I can use to describe Bayfield is: darling. So cute it hurts a little bit.

Lined with pretty historic storefronts and appealing restaurants, Rittenhouse Avenue descends right into the harbor.

On a side street I discovered lady liberty as a lawn statue. That’s one I haven’t seen before!

Love charming harbor towns like I do? Check out Kenosha, Wisconsin and Grand Marais, Minnesota!

Getting to Madeline Island

The Madeline Island Ferry Line runs frequently in the summer months. You can catch the ferry between 6:30 a.m. and 11 p.m., on the hour from Bayfield and on the half hour from Madeline Island.

In winter, the island is accessible by ice road. (Me: eek.)

You won’t want to go back and forth too often; it costs $18 round trip per person plus $31 for your car. That totaled $67.00 for us to get there and back, which could get prohibitive.

Dogs ride free, so that helps. If you’re a dog.

Note: When I originally wrote this post in 2019, the total round trip fee for 2 and a car was $51. So it’s increased about 30% over a 5-year period. Ouch! The largest jump was in the per-person rate.

When you’re budgeting your stay, be sure to factor in the cost of the ferry! It makes it not really worth it to stay for just one or two nights, and I noticed an increase in day trippers.

Camping on Madeline Island

There are two campgrounds on Madeline Island, one in the city park and the other in the state park. A friend of mine has stayed in the Big Bay State Park campground twice and says it’s nice. We stayed in the city-run Big Bay Town Park campground.

Get ready for one of what my friend John calls my disaster camping stories. If you don’t find these entertaining, skip down a few paragraphs for things to do on Madeline Island.

Our campsite was not peaceful

Bee, who is generally quite cheerful, declared our site to be the worst campsite EVER.

It was right at the intersection of both the road in and the road out of the campground, and very close to the main highway as well.

In general, the sites are rather small and lack privacy. We set up our tent a mere stone’s throw from our neighbors, a family with 5 children.

Ahem. So when we first got there, I saw a bathroom sign and headed over. It was a pair of pit toilets and none too clean.

Thinking this was the main bathroom for the campgrounds, I hightailed it out of there to tell Bee we must leave. Okay, it wasn’t the main bathroom. Whew.

Though of the 5 stalls in the women’s bathroom, 3 were out of order.

Expensive showers and out of orders

We discovered the showers are pay-by-the-minute. Holy moly. $1.75 for the first 3 minutes and 25 cents every 30 seconds after that.

A buzzer sounds when you’re approaching the end of your 3 minutes. I didn’t realize that was so you could feed more money into the machine, or you’ll have to start all over again with another three.

Yup. Guess who enjoyed a 6-minute, $3.50 shower. I suggest that unlike me, you read the instructions.

The sinks in the bathroom were cold water only. Brrr. The dishwashing station was out of order.

We forgot a little something. And our air mattress died

Madeline Island in June can be pretty chilly. We were prepared for days in the 70s and nights in the 50s. We weren’t prepared for one of the basic necessities of camping: a tarp.

Apparently last year we decided our tarp was too small, and got rid of it. And were going to get a new one. But forgot.

It rained the day we came. We set up our tent on cold wet ground with no tarp underneath. I was concerned.

We did have a plastic mat inside the tent. I suggested we put it under the air mattress. Bee felt that was not necessary. (Yes, homicidal thoughts occurred later.)

I woke up in the middle of the night freezing to death, completely enraged to be wide awake and shivering while Bee was sound asleep! She who didn’t want to put the mat under the air mattress!

I went to huddle in the backseat of our vehicle and mutter. When I returned, Bee was awake and our air mattress had deflated completely.

Lucky for us, we were driving a borrowed van. We slept in it the next two nights. And vowed to get camping cots for our next camping trip.

The tent was a convenient place to eat to escape from the hummingbird-sized mosquitoes.

Things to do on Madeline Island

We had 2 full days on Madeline island. The first we spent at the beach; the second we explored the island.

While we didn’t have enough time to spend at the state park to justify the entrance fee, I would certainly recommend checking it out. Big Bay State Park boasts more than 7 miles of hiking and nature trails with views of Lake Superior.

Go to the beach

The beach is a short walk from Big Bay Town Park, and a benefit of staying at the city campground.

If you’re not staying at the Town Park, there’s a parking lot and public access. From the lot, you walk down a flight of steps to a bridge crossing a still lagoon.

The lagoon, by the way, is huge and it’s a great place to kayak, canoe, and paddle board.

Crossing onto a 1.5 mile stretch of sandy beach, stroll down the boardwalk that runs for over a mile along the shoreline. Veer off at any point to claim your spot on the sand.

The water was apparently quite warm, as people swam for hours.

I should mention there appeared to be some kind of algae problem going on. The waves washing in to the shore had a distinctive yellow tint. As plenty of people were swimming, it didn’t appear to be causing any major issues.

Drive around the island

Madeline Island is truly a nature-lovers’ paradise. Parks and wilderness preserves cover more than one third of the island.

You can drive all the way around the island, or rent a bike, or a scooter. We drove. It’s a beautiful place, heavily wooded.

There’s a paved road on the part of the island closest to the town of LaPointe. The rest are gravel roads and, I assume, inaccessible in winter. Keeping the snow plowed would be impossible.

You may be surprised, but I discovered more lupines. Some were even growing by a picturesque abandoned log cabin. Sweet!

Watch the sunset from the pier

We watched the sunset both nights from the pier in LaPointe. There’s a great place to have ice cream and you can walk with your cone over to the pier.

Eat ice cream

Pro tip: When asked if you want the child- or the adult-sized ice cream at Grampa Tonys, you will naturally say adult, as I did. In fact, I laughed in the guy’s face.

Turned out the joke was on me, as the adult must be sized for the Jolly Green Giant.

I suggest getting the child-sized for a cone, just because otherwise a lot of it ends up on your arm. If you get the dish, there’s enough in the adult sized for two to share. We can heartily recommend the salted caramel and the black cherry.

Explore LaPointe

One of the earliest European settlements in this part of the country, the community of La Pointe started out as a fur trading post, established by French colonists. 

The population ranges from 220 in the winter to 2500 in the summer. The island’s main industry is tourism, and a large number of residents spend all or part of every summer here.

The town library offers free wifi. Even if the library is closed, the back porch is left unlocked.

This impressed us. You can sit there out of the weather, use the wifi, and page through some used books for sale.

The front porch, complete with tables and chairs, appears to be a hangout spot for local youth. All lounging about using the wifi.

Pick up a brochure detailing several self-guided walking tours with maps at the Ferry office on the island or in Bayfield.

Free downtown walking tours happen 11 a.m. Monday through Friday from the end of June to the end of August.

In addition to historic buildings, LaPointe has a really fun and funky vibe. There’s a bar covered with amusing signs and a giant moose that has a bicycle underneath. Pedal the bicycle and the moose emits gonging bell-like sounds.

You can even wait on this bench to catch a bus to the Mall of America. Though you might be waiting for quite some time.

Have an art experience

LaPointe’s funky vibe extends to an art gallery that houses a bar with live music, the Bell Street Gallery.

The gallery ARTBAR offers live music 3 or 4 nights a week from June through September and serves local beers, along with wine and soft drinks.

In the main gallery, you’ll find artwork from 40+ local artists, while an open-air pottery garden surrounding the wine bar displays pottery and sculptures from ceramic, glass and metal artists.

For more information about Madeline Island, check out the Chamber of Commerce website.

And more…

There are plenty more things to do on Madeline Island that I can’t speak to personally. A friend has chartered a sailboat for a ride around the bay.

The thing I would most like to do would be to tour the other Apostle Islands. There’s a slew of historic lighthouses, and you can even scuba dive to see wrecks and rock formations.

Brunch ends when?

We intended to brunch in Bayfield before heading home, but what with sleeping in and breaking down our campsite, we missed the brunch hours, which end much earlier than in the Twin Cities.

Like, at 10 or 11 a.m. So we ended up in a coffee shop with some coffee cake.

We followed our noses to a nearby candy shop where they were baking something called wine bread.

This Croatian specialty is a yeast dough filled with fruit and cream cheese, topped with a butter glaze and nuts. The bread’s name comes from the days before refrigeration, when it was baked with fermented fruit.

The utterly heavenly smell had us standing in line to buy a loaf to take home (read: stuff our faces in the car on the way home) but one must order ahead. Gah! They could make a killing offering individual slices of the bread for sale.

History on the road home

On our way home, we enjoyed the views of Lake Superior from Highway 13.

At the public beach near Ashland, we found an historical marker identifying this teeny log cabin as the Radisson-Groseilliers fort.

Two French traders, Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers, came to Chequamegon Bay from Montreal in 1659. They collected a great many furs.

When they refused to share their profits with the French governor of Canada they ended up in jail.

Feeling bitter, they later went to England and persuaded the Prince to sponsor an expedition to Hudson Bay. That’s how the English, rather than the French, ended up in control of the Hudson Bay Company.

In summary

In sum, Madeline Island is an excellent road trip destination. The drive through the beautiful Wisconsin countryside is peppered with some likable little towns.

The beyond-charming Bayfield has restaurants and shops aplenty. Spend some time strolling through town, enjoying the historic storefronts and the harbor.

Hop on the ferry to get to Madeline Island.

Things to do on Madeline Island include driving the road that circles the island (by bike or scooter hire if you like), hiking in the state park, and spending time at the beach.

While small, LaPointe has plenty to see and do. Take a walking tour, with a guide or on your own. Visit the art gallery, try out the bicycle under the moose, and be sure to have a massive ice cream cone and watch the sunset from the pier.

More Midwest Road Trips

• The beautiful Minnesota North Shore
• Southeast Kansas Road Trip: Best stops include Route 66 & the Tallgrass Prairie
• Camping & Hiking in Cascade River State Park
• Itasca State Park, home of the Mississippi headwaters
• Fall Colors Drive on the Great River Road
• Road Trip to Roseau MN on the Canadian border
• (For more camping disaster stories, see Cascade River and Itasca. Thank you in advance for your sympathy.)

Discover More Things to Do in Wisconsin

• Fall colors along the Wisconsin Great River Road
• Visit Wisconsin Rapids cranberry country
• Things to do in Kenosha
• Kenosha Food is Fabulous

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