Rocky Island Fishing/Summer Community: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, National Park Service

Rocky Island is part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, situated northeast of Wisconsin’s Bayfield Peninsula and along the southwestern shore of Lake Superior. The island is a dipper-shaped, 1,100 acre landmass that is north-centrally located within the archipelago. While Rocky Island has exposed bedrock outcrops along its northern shore, the island’s name is derived from the cobbles and pebbles lining the southernmost and northernmost portions of the islands. Rocky Island’s western shoreline, exposed to Lake Superior’s winds and waves, has sheer bluffs. Geological evidence indicates that Rocky Island and its eastern neighbor, South Twin Island, were a single island at one time, with a deep bay along its southern end. Rocky Island’s fish camps are located along the eastern shore, protected from the harsh lake winds and waves by the bay it shares with South Twin Island. The Rocky Island Historic District is significant for its association with historical patterns of commercial fishing, immigrant settlement, and shifting land use in this region. It encompasses a complex of dwellings and related structures along the eastern shoreline of the island. The period of significance is 1931 to 1958, spanning from the development of the fish camps to the shift towards recreational use. The Apostle Islands were a fishing center prior to these settlements, utilized by Native Americans and early Euro-Americans. The industry was supported by expanding population and transportation systems, as well as the fact that many newly-arrived immigrants had cultural ties to fishing. Fishermen began using Rocky Island in the 1870s, but the permanent camps were not constructed until 1931. In this year, families moved their operations - buildings and all - from neighboring South Twin Island after a dispute with the island’s land owner. The five sites that comprise the historic district are the Hadland Fish Camp, the Benson Fish Camp, the Edwards Fish Camp, the Nelson Fish Camp, and the Erickson Fish Camp. Although now owned by the National Park Service, the properties are, or have recently been, occupied by the families and descendants of Norwegian-American commercial fishermen who first developed the camps. After only a few years, the dominant use of Rocky Island began to shift from commercial fishing to the tourism/recreation emphasis that characterizes the region today. This change accelerated in the decade following World War II as fish populations were depleted. Though a minimal level of commercial fishing continues to take place, the shift towards recreational use was essentially complete by 1958. This change serves as a microcosm for a larger transformation of the northern Wisconsin economy from a resource extraction base to a tourism and recreation base. However, with the establishment of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in 1970, further development of the island was halted. The island residents, retaining use-and-occupancy agreements, maintained conditions essentially unchanged from those existing in the last years of the commercial fishing era. The most significant character-defining features of the Rocky Island Historic District are the fish camps. They are clusters of small, relatively easily transportable structures, seasonably occupied by the commercial fishermen and their families. Collectively, the historic district retains integrity in multiple aspects. Although some of the cabins have been moved, they were designed to be mobile and remain in historically appropriate settings. The five camps share a cohesive style of vernacular design, and the structures, many of which are constructed of materials recycled from other buildings, retain integrity of historic materials. Although there have been some changes, the landscape retains the character and associations it had during the period of 1931-1958.

Rocky Island Fishing/Summer Community: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, National Park Service

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