La Pointe

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Village Outpost on Madeline Island

Hamilton Nelson Ross

Foreword by Thomas Vennum Jr.

An engaging and readable account of a little-known treasure of the Great Lakes, told with flair, humor, and solid scholarship.

224 pages, 6 x 9, 40 b&w photos, 30 maps
Paperback: $26.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-321-3
Publication Date: 09/20/2000

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Description

Just off the southern shoreline of Lake Superior lies the beautiful Madeline Island. Part of the Apostle Islands, this historically and culturally significant island has served as the home of the Ojibwe people for generations. After French traders and other European colonizers arrived in the late seventeenth century, the island became an epicenter of the fur-trade era before finally transforming into a summer vacation spot for businessmen and industrialists. Today the island attracts thousands of summer tourists, vastly outnumbering the year-round residents. In this reprint of a book first published in 1960, Hamilton Nelson Ross provides a 300-year overview of the town of La Pointe and the surrounding communities.

Ross first visited Madeline Island from his native Beloit as an eight-year-old, returning again and again over his lifetime to the Ross family cabin in La Pointe. His years of careful study and observation served him well. Ross told the region’s story so eloquently that his book helped persuade Congress and the President in 1970 to ensure the preservation of these isolated and unspoiled islands by designating the area as the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. This reprint edition includes a foreword by Thomas Vennum Jr. of the Smithsonian Institution, providing additional context for this classic book of Wisconsin history.

Author Bio

Hamilton Nelson Ross

Hamilton Nelson Ross, originally from Beloit, was introduced to the village of La Pointe in 1894 during his first childhood visit to Madeline Island. In the years that followed, he roamed the Apostle Islands, driven by a deep interest sparked by the tales and traditions he encountered about the area’s past. This curiosity led him on a journey to uncover the factual history behind the myths and oral stories. Perhaps more than anyone else before or after him, Ross developed a deep, personal understanding of the islanders and their way of life.