2024 Traveler’s Journal: the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, jewel of Lake Superior

Lake Superior is an inland sea that is highly respected by mariners worldwide as a serious body of water for travel and navigation. A beautiful archipelago of 21 islands extends northeasterly from just off-shore near Bayfield, Wisc., to the outermost reach at the north tip of Devil’s Island.

The islands, along with a large piece of adjacent Wisconsin coastline, were preserved in 1970 by the creation of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

A later designation in 2004 further helped to ensure the wildness and protection of this extraordinary national treasure as 80% of the islands were encompassed in the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness Area.

Experiencing the Apostle Islands is a full-spectrum adventure. The remarkable geological history extends as far back as your beliefs will stretch.

A rich cultural history of indigenous people inhabiting the islands dates back thousands of years and is followed by centuries of European exploration and settlements.

The natural history of flora and fauna reveals the stories of seeds and species that traveled out to these Islands by wind, water and ice.

Historic commercial endeavors have flourished and floundered and range from the fur trade to lumbering, on to farming and fishing, and up to today’s modern tourism.

For more than 25 years, we owned and operated a sea kayaking outfitting business that hosted trip guests from half-day to week-long adventures in the Islands. Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands are also renowned destinations for sailing.

Whether you are on a commercial trip or out on your own, kayaking or sailing, the magic of these islands is inescapable. The allure of open water crossings from one island to the next, the challenge of watching and anticipating the weather with a keen eye, the peaceful calm while sitting around a beach campfire at the end of an exuberant day…. these are the ingredients of a world class experience on a world class Lake.

This multi-media presentation takes the viewer on a journey through time, a telling of old and new, a narrative of digestible facts and intrigue. If you are looking for a future travel destination, we’re confident that this information will inspire and point you directly towards a Superior adventure!

About the presenters

For Gail Green, family trips that included international travel and outdoor experience were fundamental components of her early life. With an adventurous lifestyle woven into heart and soul, she sought the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains at the University of Colorado in Boulder for her fledgling ‘away from home’ education. Her major (and minor) soon focused on intense and intimate connections with the outdoors and natural world via skiing, kayaking and travel.

With a skill base in these areas, Green’s propensity for leadership manifested over the years in occupations including ski school coordinator and sea kayaking instructor trainer. From 1991-92, she was one of a 17-member team of Americans, Canadians and Russians selected for an expedition to circumnavigate the world’s two largest freshwater lakes; Superior and Lake Baikal in Siberia. These resume landmarks became the stepping-stones to her ultimate career as co-owner of an outdoor adventure center that specialized in sea kayaking trips.

Green’s bio is not complete without mention of her growth and professionalism in creative process and how it fused the edges of all her previous experiences. The most noteworthy manifestation of this creative pulse was the development of a series of art/adventure programs to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. During the week participants infused the exhilaration from outdoor activities into multi-media workshops such as ceramics, cooking, writing and painting. Guests were learning not only to directly “give voice to their experience” through art expression, but also gained new life tools and insights that accompanied them home.

Grant Herman’s grandfather took his family on extended canoe trips every summer in the 1930s. The great stories of these trips sparked his enthusiasm for the outdoors and fueled my interest in paddling at a very young age.

Connecting with the water through multiple disciplines in kayaking and canoeing has been a life force. Like his grandfather, Herman was enamored with being immersed in the natural world and he sought to further my understanding of these miraculous systems. He organized many of my own family adventures around these interests. Over the years, paddling has mixed with other outdoor pursuits including x-country and telemark skiing, backpacking and road biking.

At college, the study of experiential education was in its inception. Herman was drawn to it, and eventually received a master’s degree in the field. He later taught at Northland College in Ashland, Wisc. where he became coordinator of outdoor education for 15 years, and then the coordinator of the environmental studies program.

In 1995, he joined his wife to found an adventure travel company called Living Adventure. With the company up and running, he stepped out to take a year-round position as operations director at the large YMCA Camp, Manito-wish. Outdoor program offerings varied from two-week summer camp experiences for fifth-graders to 55-day Canadian wilderness expeditions for high school seniors.

Green and Herman are happily retired and live in Sequim.

About the series

Traveler’s Journal, a presentation of the Peninsula Trails Coalition, raises funds to buy project supplies and food for volunteers working on Olympic Discovery Trail projects. Shows start at 7 p.m. at the Dungeness River Nature Center, 1943 W. Hendrickson Road.

Admission is a suggested donation is $5 for adults. Attendees are encouraged, but not required, to wear mask.

For more information, email Arvo Johnson at amjcgj@gmail.com.

2024 Traveler’s Journal Series

When: 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 15 (door opens at 6:30 p.m.)

Presenters: Gail Green and Grant Herman

Presentation: “Jewel of Lake Superior; the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore”

Where: Dungeness River Nature Center, 1943 W. Hendrickson Road

Cost: Suggested $5 donation (adults)

Coming up: “Patagonia” with John Popinski, Feb. 22

Photo courtesy of Gail Green and Grant Herman / Sailing in the Apostle Islands.

Photo courtesy of Gail Green and Grant Herman / Hiking among the cliffs on the Apostle Islands.

Photos courtesy of Gail Green and Grant Herman Kayakers paddle under a sea cave arch on Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands.

Photo courtesy of Gail Green and Grant Herman / Kayakers explore the shipwrecked remains of the Fedora, a 282-foot-long bulk carrier that sank in 1901 in Lake Superior.