The Door Peninsula Lake Michigan

A cedar grows out of layers of limestone on the Door Peninsula in Lake Michigan.  Sailors called this area Death's Door since there were so  many ship wrecks here in the past.  I took this photo on the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan.

The Great Lakes Rock

The Great Lakes Rock

From the round surf-polished rocks of Lake Superior’s shore to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan, I have roamed and picked up stones: agates, pudding stones and some bearing copper or fossils.  And I hiked the alvars on the Door Peninsula and Ontario’s Bruce with their layered limestone shores bearing fossils of ancient salt seas.   Lake Huron’s green waters pour into Lake St. Clair and its silty marshes and then to Lake Erie teeming with birds and fish. The waters pick up speed in the Niagara River to take a tremendous plunge over Niagara Falls.  The rock underlying the falls will wear away in time I am told, but not in my life time.  Lake Ontario’s flat shores have good soil for vineyards and farm lands.  Sailors and sports fishers enjoy Lake Ontario’s riches and the lake flows out through the St. Lawrence River with a myriad rocky islands. 

pictured are layers of limestone on Wisconsin's Door Peninsula. This formation is called an alvar.

White Cedar Lives a Long Time

White cedar on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin.  This tree is not large but it is old.  It can withstand strong wind and waves, cold winters and hot summers as it clings to layers of limestone on the shore of Lake Michigan. White cedar  (arbor vitae) can live for over 800 years.  It's a hardy tree indeed.

Door Peninsula Wisconsin

Lake Michigan on the Wisconsin side of the lake shows layers of limestone and a beach that does not show when water levels are high. I took this photo on the Door Peninsula. Here you may find fossils embedded in the sedimentary rocks. It's a great place to explore.

On the Door Peninsula

Ancient saltwater seas once covered what are now sweetwater lakes. The saltwater seas deposited limestone in layers. In the photo you can see how the limestone was formed over time in layer after layer. I took this photo on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. It juts out into Lake Michigan in such a way that sailors called it Death's Door due to hazardous conditions. Now it is simply called the Door Peninsula.

Read more about the Great Lakes in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes
with information about how these lakes were formed and what lies around and under the water.

The book is widely available on the www and in bookstores.

Wisconsin's Door Peninsula on Lake Michigan

I enjoyed visiting the Door Peninsula and comparing it to the Bruce Peninsula. These are part of the Niagara Escarpment.   Both have layers of limestone, evidence of ancient seas. I took this photo when the lake level was low exposing rocks, fossils and allowing plants to grow that are seldom seen. It's all part of the natural Great Lakes water cycle.  The lakes are low again this year. The lakes rise and fall in cycles.  This is normal.

There were so many shipwrecks off of the Door Peninsula that Great Lakes sailors called it Death's Door. Now it is simply the Door Peninsula, a place where you will see eagles soaring over Lake Michigan's waters and trees hanging onto the rock for dear life.

Door Peninsula Wisconsin

     With the golden sunrise at his back, the eagle leaves South Manitou Island and flies west across the clear, blue-green waters of Lake Michigan to the Door Peninsula, a finger of land jutting into Lake Michigan's waters from Wisconsin's mainland.  He is tired after his fifty mile flight that took him over the 45 degree latitude; exactly halfway between the equator and the north pole.  He rests in a tree on the shoreline and his head turns slowly and he tucks it under one powerful wing while one great foot locks around a white pine branch.

     On the west side of Lake Michigan the Door Peninsula stretches 75 miles separating the big lake from Green Bay.  Native Americans and French trappers found the channel so treacherous for their canoes they named it "porte des morts" or death's door.  Today it is simply called the Door Peninsula.

     It's shore line has been carved into caves, arches and cliffs by the turbulent waters. The limestone is part of the Niagara Escarpment laid down in ancient saltwater seas.  Fossils embedded in the rock show what creatures lived long ago.  Today ancient cedars cling to the rock and the woods ring with birdsong. 

    The area is famous for its fish boils: whitefish steaks, potatoes and onions prepared over an open fire. 

     The eagle sleeps in the branches of a white cedar clinging to layers of limestone.

A white cedar grows on layers of limestone.  I took this photo on Wisconsin's Door Peninsula.  Here you may find fossils of ancient sea creatures in the stones from the times when salt water seas instead of freshwater covered much of the U.S.

Read more about this in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes, available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and many other stores.

Alvar on the Bruce Peninsula

I took this photo on the Bruce Peninsula in Canada, a finger of land that juts into Lake Huron. Here and on the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin these peninsulas are of limestone and sometimes fossils may be found embedded in the rock. The tree pictured is a cedar. Many shipwrecks lie under the waters surrounding these peninsulas since the waters are trecherous. The Door Peninsula was so named because sailors called it "Death's Door."

I like this photo so well I asked my publisher to use it for the cover of my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes.