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Door prizes

On Wisconsin peninsula, autumn colors gild a much-loved landscape.

Around the Upper Midwest, Door County is the tourist destination that other tourist destinations envy.

Everything a tourist loves, it’s got: Lighthouses, craggy shorelines, sand dunes. Golf courses, boutiques, bistros. Bicycle paths, hiking trails, beaches.

There’s a little bit of New England in the white-frame buildings of Ephraim, where tourists click photos of Wilson’s, a century-old ice-cream parlor. There’s a little bit of Europe in Sister Bay, where goats graze on the sod roof of Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant. There’s not much that isn’t picturesque.

Of course, things can get a little hectic, a little crowded. Door County has been discovered.

“It’s so close to so many urban areas that people love it; they love it to death,’’ says Matt Schaeffer, an East Troy, Wis., vegetable farmer who grew up visiting his uncle on Washington Island. “It’s beautiful.’’

One October, while taking a photography course at the Clearing in Ellison Bay (see Classroom in the Clearing), I found that Door County also is a great place to look for fall color. Each day, the leaves on the trees brightened, and by the end of the week, they had burst into a spectacular array of scarlet, gold, vermilion and russet, lining highways and forming canopies over country lanes.

And in the warm sunshine, everything else seemed vivid, too: The yellow submarine I saw leaving the marina in Sister Bay. The white and red pumpkins I bought from a roadside cart. The wildflowers I photographed along Europe Bay beach.

It’s not hard to find your own colorful moments in Door County. Here's a starter guide, a springboard for autumn wanderings:

Tourism 101 in Door County: There are certain things every tourist has to do. Outdoor fish boils are the Door version of a lutefisk feed, a humble peasant repast that, through the years, has acquired a folkloric cachet. One of the best places to have one is at the Wagon Trail Resort on Rowley’s Bay, where I found Hubert Marchewa standing over a boiling pot one afternoon, looking at his watch.

“Eighteen minutes for potatoes, seven minutes for onions, seven minutes for fish,’’ said Marchewa, a Pole who’s one of the Door’s legions of imported workers. “The fish is very good. It doesn’t look good, but when you take it out, it’s good. “

The Viking Grill in Ellison Bay also is a good place to go for fish boils. Dessert usually is cherry pie, another Door tradition. Many people like to get a cone from Wilson’s, the 1906 frame restaurant in Ephraim, and eat Swedish pancakes at Johnson’s in Sister Bay, though there’s always a line.

Getting away from the crowds: Actually, it’s not that hard; the best way is to come midweek. But even on weekends, the villages of Egg Harbor and Fish Creek peel off many of the tourists heading north, and traffic thins beyond Sister Bay. In Ellison Bay and Gills Rock, visitors still can glimpse the old Door.

“We’re still laid-back up here, and we want to stay that way,’’ says Russ Maiworm, who runs the old-fashioned Hotel Disgarden in Ellison Bay with his wife, Rita. “We don’t mind growing, but we want to keep it civilized. Not like in Sister Bay — that’s just wacko, all those condos.’’

In Gills Rock, ferries provide transportation to Washington Island, a mellow outpost of Scandinavian fishing and farming families who actually welcome tourists.

“The locals really enjoy the tourists who come,” says Matt Schaeffer, who was waiting for the ferry with his dog, Gidget. “It relieves the isolation they feel; six months a year they just sit there and look at the same people.’’

That’s still not the end of the line; from Washington Island, backpackers can take another ferry to Rock Island, once owned by a wealthy inventor. Today, it’s a 912-acre state park, with 40 primitive campsites and 10 miles of hiking trails (See Iceland paradise).

Spending time outdoors: There’s a lot of development on the Door Peninsula, but almost all of it is along the Green Bay shoreline between Egg Harbor and Sister Bay. The interior is countryside, sprinkled with orchards and a few artist’s studios, and the Lake Michigan shoreline is lined by estuaries, beaches and forests, including those in Newport State Park, Wisconsin’s only designated wilderness park.

Newport surrounds the peninsula’s best beach, a long, pine-fringed crescent straight east from Ellison Bay, and it has the choicest and most secluded campsites, right on Lake Michigan near Europe Lake. Whitefish Dunes State Park, south of Jacksonport, has nature trails through sand dunes. And Peninsula State Park, wedged between Fish Creek and Ephraim, is a tourist destination in itself, with its 1868 lighthouse, wooden viewing tower, 18-hole golf course, theater, cedar-lined beach, hiking paths and paved bicycling trails.

Cave Point County Park, just north of Whitefish Dunes, is a good place to clamber around on the craggy shoreline. On the north edge of Bailey’s Harbor, The Ridges Sanctuary is a state natural area that has five miles of trails and is known for its wildflowers, including more than 25 native orchids. Farther along Ridges Road, across from the house with fire number 1981, a short drive leads to the trails of Toft Point Natural Area, where the family of environmentalist Emma Toft once ran a fishing camp.

There’s canoeing and kayaking on the Mink River, and Nature Conservancy trails lead into the estuary from each side. From County Road P/Mink River Road, watch for a green-and-yellow sign marking a small parking lot; from there, it’s a beautiful hourlong walk through a corridor of cedar and along a forest floor turned bright yellow by the fall leaves of ferns and baby maples.

Even town parks can be quiet refuges. Ellison Bay has a little park with a nice sand beach and pier. When I was there, Jim Coller had taken the day off work in Green Bay and come up to sit under a huge tree and strum his 1904 banjo: “There’s no sad thing you can play on a banjo,’’ he said. “It’s all happy.’’

Seeing the sights on bikes: The Door is made for bicycling. One year, I rode out of Ephraim on County Road Q across the peninsula to Cana Island Lighthouse and Baileys Harbor, then on County Road F to Fish Creek and through Peninsula State Park back to Ephraim; that’s 36 miles (See Outdoors in Door County ).

Another year, I mapped a 25-mile route that takes in the best sights of the “tip of the thumb.’’ From Ellison Bay, I took Garrett Bay Road to Hedgehog Harbor, stopping at a plaque that marks the wreck of the schooner Fleetwing, bound for Chicago with a load of lumber when it went down in an 1888 gale.

The harbor is just short of Porte des Morts, or Death’s Door, the name the French gave the treacherous strait between Washington Island and the tip of the peninsula, which takes its name from the passage.

“Sometimes, when it’s really rough, you can see the ore boats just sit here, because they don’t want to go through Death’s Door,’’ said Myles Lees of Kenosha, Wis., who has a family cabin nearby.

Cottage Road leads to Gills Rock and joins Wisconsin 42, which ends at the ferry landing in Northport. From there, Porte des Morts Road leads to Park Lane, which leads to Weborg Park, a tiny park atop a rocky beach that’s fun to explore. Heading west, take Park Drive to Timberline Drive and south to Europe Bay Road.

From there, a bicyclist has three options: east to Europe Bay beach, south on Newport Drive to the east trailhead leading to the Mink River (look for the “Schonbrunn’’ sign), or west to Wisconsin 42, in which case you’ll turn right on Badger Road, left on Birchwood Road and return to Ellison Bay on Garrett Bay Road.

If you’re on Garrett Bay Road on a Saturday between noon and 4 p.m., stop for the open house at the Clearing, a folk school in the Scandinavian tradition. Its stone cottages and buildings sit on 128 wooded acres on the bluff.

Stock up on goodies. In fall, the shops hold sales and the orchards overflow with produce. When I stopped by Seaquist’s Farm Market just north of Sister Bay, it was enticing customers with a hay-bale maze, pumpkin painting, a blues/gospel band, an apple-tossing game and lots of free samples. Everything looked marvelous — freshly made doughnuts, cherry cider coolers, berry pie, chocolate cherry bars, jars of chocolate amaretto sauce with cherries and pecans. . .

So I bought some. Well, I bought a lot. In Door County, fall comes only once a year.

Trip Tips: Fall in Door County

Getting there: If you're coming through Green Bay, don’t follow Wisconsin 29 into town; instead, take U.S. 41 north two miles, then I-43 around Green Bay to Wisconsin 57.

Fall color: It’s always hard to tell, but the waters of Lake Michigan make the climate more temperate, making colors show later than in areas just as far north. Mid-October is a good bet for peak color.

Accommodations: Reserve up to a year in advance for fall weekends. But there are hundreds of B&Bs, cottages, condos, cabins and motels; use the Internet. Among the possibilities:

The 1902 Hotel Disgarden B&B in Ellison Bay has rooms for $95-$105 and two-bedroom housekeeping units for $130,  877-378-3218, www.hoteldisgarden.com.

On the Lake Michigan side, Wagon Trail Resort on Rowley’s Bay is a large resort that caters to tours and groups. It rents lodge rooms, cottages and vacation homes and is famous as the home of Grandma's Swedish Bakery. In its marina, it rents kayaks for paddles into the Mink River Estuary, 888-559-2466, www.wagontrail.com.

To reserve campsites at Peninsula and Newport parks, call 888-947-2757; www.wiparks.net.

Events: Autumnfest in Baileys Harbor, third Saturday in September. Townline Art Fair in Ephraim, second weekend of October. Fall Festival in Sister Bay, third weekend of October.

Information: 800-527-3529, www.doorcounty.com.

Last updated on September 17, 2008