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Traces in the Forest
A Flexible Flyer Evokes Christmases Past
 I found a child’s sled once, discarded in the forest near an abandoned cottage on an island in Lake Superior.
Not so much a sled, actually, as the remains of a sled. I was
hiking with a friend, and no longer remember which one of us first
noticed the odd angles of curved metal entwined in the roots of a tree.
We examined the puzzling object, then suddenly understood:
This was an old Flexible Flyer, tossed aside decades ago. The wooden
portions had long since rotted, leaving the steel frame and runners to
remind us that children once lived on this island, shouting, playing
and exclaiming with delight at the sight of presents beneath another
kind of tree, a Christmas tree.
There was no doubt in my mind that the sled had found its way
to the island as a Christmas present. The fishermen-farmers of the
Apostle Islands lived well enough on the bounty of the lake and the
fruits of their labor, but cash money was always scarce. A store-bought
sled would have been a major purchase, to be considered carefully. What
other occasion besides Christmas would warrant such a magnificent gift?
On
snowshoes, by dog sleds (this and photo below) and even with children’s
toy sleds, residents of the Apostle Islands have long found ways to
survive and thrive in winter. Photo Wisconsin Historical Society
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All the Apostle Islands, save Madeline, are deserted now at
Christmas, but that was not always so. Just as traders and trappers
once marked the day with “Joyeux Noël” at La Pointe, pioneer farmers
surely offered wishes of “Merry Christmas” on Sand and Basswood
islands, and Norwegian-born fishermen greeted each other with, “God
Jul!”
When and where was Christmas first observed in the Chequamegon
region? It’s hard to say. Did the fur traders Radisson and des
Groseilliers even keep track of the calendar in their rude lakeside
cabin in 1659? If they did not, surely the intrepid Jesuit, Claude
Allouez, marked the occasion six years later at his mission near the
mouth of Fish Creek.
No records tell us how Father Allouez observed Christmas, but
perhaps he followed the example of his missionary colleague, Jean de
Brébeuf, who preached on the shores of Lake Huron a few years earlier.
Eager to recount the Savior’s birth in terms his Indian listeners would
understand, he told of a child wrapped in rabbit fur rather than linen
and sleeping not in a manger, but on a bed of birch bark. Hunters, not
shepherds, knelt before him, and three great chiefs brought gifts of
pelts for the Babe. After preaching, Father Brébeuf led his
congregation in a carol he composed in their own Huron language, Jesous
Ahatonnia: “Jesus Is Born.”
Photo Hamilton Nelson Ross / Wisconsin Historical Society
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Years would pass before we can find clear, written reference to a
Christmas observance among the Apostle Islands. Long after Madeline
Island had passed from French hands, well after Stars and Stripes
replaced the Union Jack over its trading post, another renowned
missionary made his way to La Pointe: Father Frederic Baraga, the famed
Snowshoe Priest. Arriving in July, the energetic Slovenian cleric set
to work, building a chapel and teaching himself the Ojibway language.
His hard work was rewarded in the way he considered most important: On
his first island Christmas, Father Baraga celebrated by baptizing 22
new converts.
By the late 1800s, a new culture added its customs to the islands’
holiday mix. Among the cherished traditions of the Norwegian immigrants
in the little village on Sand Island was the Feast of St. Lucia, the
“Queen of Lights,” 12 days before Christmas. In the old country, young
girls would dress in white and carry candles from house to house to
dispel the winter gloom. Today, spotting the foundations of fishermen’s
cottages, it is easy to imagine their daughters preserving the ritual
as the waves of the lake roared an accompaniment.
Soon, though, the islanders adopted new customs. The Christmas tree
was not yet common in Norway, but the German tradition was already
established in America. In January 1911, the Bayfield Press noted:
“Louis Moe came in from Sand Island last Friday. He says an especially
pleasant Christmas was enjoyed by the residents on the island, and that
a large Christmas tree in the schoolhouse was a pleasant event attended
by 56 people. A fine chicken supper was served by the Ladies Aid
Society.”
The remains of that schoolhouse are easy to find, but no one
celebrates Christmas on Sand Island anymore; the last year-round
residents moved in the 1940s. The farms of Basswood Island are fading
into forest, and even the restored fishing camp on Manitou Island,
where hard-working men once passed lonely winters, has been shuttered
by the National Park Service. Yet, on the beaches and trails of the
Apostle Islands, and deep in the woods where a child’s sled has slowly
become one with the forest, the ghosts of Christmas past remain.
This issue’s Journal writer:
Historian-writer Bob Mackreth lives in northern Wisconsin with his wife
and four Newfoundland dogs. With more than 30 years as a park ranger,
he takes special interest in National Park Service issues and history
of the Great Lakes.
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