Wanted: People willing to work for $2.50 a day on an island with no running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity and a steady barrage of visitors clamoring for tours.
But wait, there’s more.
“We provide all the furnishings they would need and a propane refrigerator and stove. They provide the food,” explained Bill Ferraro, management assistant for Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in the National Park Service’s Bayfield office.
“We provide the radio communications, uniforms and then we pay them $2.50 a day.”
And there’s one more perk: “We take them on and off in our park boats.”
Usually “on and off” comes about every 10 days during the summer season from June to mid-September.
The offer sounded so good to Nancy Peterson of Minneapolis that for the last five years, she’s either quit her job or taken summers off to travel north to (light)house sit on Sand Island.
“It’s not that hard to get along,” Peterson said of the nearly spartan lifestyle as a summer volunteer for the lights of the Apostle Islands. “There’s a graciousness to it.”
The kayak enthusiast doesn’t mind hauling her drinking water from the mainland and her wash water from the surrounding Lake Superior. She’s okay with just a small, solar-powered light in the kitchen–enough light to eat, but not to cook by.
Gene Wilkins and his wife Lennie Wilkins, who spell Peterson on her off-island week on Sand Island, find themselves drawn north to the light each year, too. For the retired couple, the guiding beacon reaches far south, down to Temple, Texas. Gene spends most of his summer on the island as alternate lighthouse keeper or campground host while Lennie does her volunteer service on the mainland.
Gene Wilkins agrees that late 1800s-era life suits him for the summer.
“It’s very charming, very quiet. We wouldn’t want it any other way. I don’t think electricity would fit well.”
The couple finds many reasons to make the annual summer trek.
“The people, the weather and the whole idea of the lakeshore. It’s a very unique park, as you know,” he said of the Apostles Islands National Lakeshore. “Bayfield, the islands, and I can’t stress too strongly the collegial interaction we have with the park staff.”
The Wilkins, currently working at Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia, have volunteered at parks throughout the United States. They always return to the Apostles.
“We always kind of think of the apostle islands as our park home,” said Gene Wilkins of their last four summers at the Sand Island light.
Each of the seven lights among the Apostles has a summer caretaker, most volunteers. Up to 90 volunteers serve the National Lakeshore during the summer on short- or long-term tours of duty.
On Raspberry Island, the seasonal park ranger, Matt Welter, serves as the only paid staff member. Now that Welter, who has served on the island each summer since 1992, continues his work toward a master’s degree, the islands may lose one of their recurring characters: “Toots” Winfield, first lighthouse assistant.
Welter dons a turn-of-the-century uniform to play “Toots” for visitors. Ferraro said he doesn’t know if the park service will reprise that role, although it will hire another seasonal ranger next year.
Whether “Toots” gets reincarnated again next summer depends on the talents of that ranger.
The first lighthouse was constructed among the islands in 1857, a conical light tower and small, 1 1/2-story keeper’s home constructed of rough stone with exterior walls stuccoed and whitewashed. A charmer set on Michigan Island.
Unfortunately for the Milwaukee contractor who did the work, the federal government actually had authorized the light to be built on Long Island to accommodate vessel traffic to the busy port of Bayfield, founded in 1856.
The contractor, at his own expense, then constructed La Pointe Light on Long Island. Another light, Chequamegon Point Light, was added to Long Island in 1895.
Other lights were added among the islands as shipping needs dictated. In 1863, the light was built on Raspberry Island, in 1874 on Outer Island, in 1881 on Sand Island and the final light was lit on Devils Island in 1891.
The islands still harbor a small, solar-powered light to warn vessels. Those lights are maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard while the original lighthouses come under the Park Service’s responsibility.
Each lighthouse’s design varies, and each island, according to their summer keepers, has its own personality.
Displaying the playful boasting sometimes connected to Texans, Gene Wilkins doesn’t leave any doubt which is the “best” of the Apostle Island lights.
“It’s the focus of all the major lighthouses nearby,” he insists of his summer Sand Island home. Speaking on behalf of his care-taking colleague, Wilkins said, “Nancy and I consider that all the others are just works in progress.”
He’s done temporary tours of duty at other lights, “but always would go back to the `premier’ light station,” Wilkins said.
While Wilkins’ pride in Sand Island’s light is half joshing, Ferraro said volunteers often develop an affection for their station.
“By August, you get the feeling they develop a personal attachment to the lighthouse, almost like you have to ask permission from them to come out,” Ferraro said.
Visitors–sometimes constant visitors–present one duty of an island volunteer.
Peterson said the flow can get tiring on holiday weekends. Sometimes she’ll get drop-in visitors who stay a few hours, for chat and a cup of tea. She’s had guests arrive at almost all hours from 6 a.m. to 11 at night.
Wilkins and Peterson never begrudge the tours, though. Especially on Sand Island, they both said, where this summer’s early rains turned the 2-mile trail from the boat landing to the lighthouse into ankle-deep mud traversed only by the hardy or foolhardy.
When the visitors aren’t arriving, when the litter is all picked up, the grass mowed, the windows washed, and the minor maintenance done, volunteers have time to do–or not do–whatever they want.
“Last summer, in the summer of 1995, I did almost all of my Christmas presents while I was out there. I did Turkish, hand-knit socks,” Peterson said. “This summer, I did some knitting, I paddled my kayak, I did lots of reading and lots of just sitting and watching the lake.”
Peterson usually works as a job coach with developmentally disabled people in St. Paul and lives in the heart of Minneapolis. She finds the quiet time a good reason to return each summer.
She likes living with the history of the place and takes pleasure in knowing that her own feet will be among those that caused wear in the stone staircase. Those are the kinds of things one notices living in the peace of the island lights.
“The stone staircase is worn down, with footprints actually worn into the staircase. For the last 115 years, they’ve put their heel there, they’ve put their toe there and you’re also wearing the stone down.”
Wilkins likes almost everything about life on the island.
The couple had some small difficulties to overcome in this northern clime, Wilkins admitted. Fish boils, for instance.
“That’s no way to cook fish,” he insisted, then joked: “It tastes okay if you put enough jalapenos on it.”
Wilkins added in a good-natured drawl, “you people talk funny up there, too. You can imagine how long it took for us to say `Chequamagon.’ I still can’t spell it.”
Despite such drawbacks, the Wilkins’ names already are on the list for those volunteering again next year.
Told that this story would let others know about volunteering, Gene Wilkins decided to change his tune and add something about his island for any potential volunteer rivals.
“You might say,” he advised with a smile that could be seen even across a phone line, “that Sand Island is very unreputable.”
