Wisconsin Smoked Lake Trout

Driving through the small town of Eagle River, part of the Land O' Lakes region of northern Wisconsin, I saw a business selling smoked lake trout and whitefish and turned in to look at it. The fish was in a small refrigerator and the proprietor pulled out a box of smoked lake trout and let me look in. Chunks of trout lined the bottom. I pointed to the chunk I wanted, which was plump and moist, and he went into a back room and came out with it in a sealed bag with a Bearcats Fish House label on it. 

Bearcats Fish House is located in Algoma, WI, on the east side of the Door Peninsula in Lake Michigan, the peninsula which creates Green Bay and separates it from the rest of Lake Michigan. It is a fair distance from Eagle River, but I assume the proprietor must have the fish shipped in. 

Several hours later that day, after hiking to the top of Timm's Hill, the high point in Wisconsin, I pulled out the smoked lake trout and opened it up. I believe it is not only the best smoked trout I've had, but perhaps also the best smoked fish I've ever had. It was oily, very moist, had a smoked flavor, but was not overwhelmed by it, and it had no dryness at all. 

Just looking at this you can tell it is very moist.

I made short order of it and now I am contemplating ordering some and having it shipped home. 

The Old Fashioned - Madison, WI

One of my goals while I was in Wisconsin and Michigan was to eat some walleye. Walleye is a freshwater fish native to Canada and the northern U.S. I didn't know much about it, and still don't, but I knew that walleye was available in the Great Lakes region I was going to be in. Earlier in my trip, while in northern Michigan and northern Wisconsin, I'd been asking regularly for a place I could find walleye on the menu, without success. Many places served it at their "Friday Fish Fry," but I was not there at the right time. 

Drawing of a walleye from here.

After Judy and I visited the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, we visited the State Historical Museum across the street on the southwest side and happened to ask one of the clerks in the gift shop if she knew of a restaurant that served walleye. She thought The Old Fashioned did, just a block away on the northeast side of the capitol. She called and confirmed that they did and we immediately set out for it. 

A picture of the capitol as viewed from the University of Wisconsin campus near the law school. 

A closer view of the capitol from the night before where they had a concert on the capitol grounds.

I didn't know it at the time, but The Old Fashioned is the no. 2 rated restaurant in Madison on Trip Advisor (out of 735) and we would have one of my favorite meals of our trip there. The Old Fashioned focuses on serving Wisconsin style food, meats, cheeses, produce and Wisconsin specialties. It is a tavern and a restaurant, something we found commonplace there, and it was packed and slow, but worth the wait. 

True to its vision of Wisconsin specialties, we noticed they had hand-made beer-battered Wisconsin cheese curds. I'd had some wonderful Muenster cheese curds earlier and having the curds be breaded and fried sounded like a great variation. They offered several types of dip and we opted for smoked paprika and tiger, which has a little bit of a kick to it. The cheese curds came out hot and mushy and melted in the mouth. They were WONDERFUL. As they cooled down they lost some of their allure. When still real warm and mushy, they were something to dream about. 

I ordered the beer-battered walleye sandwich with shredded cabbage, shaved radish, and lemon caper tartar sauce on toasted bread. I chose haystack onion rings dipped in buttermilk batter as my side. The onion rings were salty, slightly crunch but still very moist and had incredible flavor. The walleye was moist, a mild white fish, and worked very well with the tartar sauce. The bread was a little crunchy from the baked butter coating the outside and served as a nice bit of slight crunch in comparison to the moist walleye.

Judy got a grilled vegetable sandwich with eggplant, portabello mushroom, roasted red pepper and zucchini, with goat milk chevre, and black olive tapenade, on toasted bread. The sandwich was thick with vegetables and very moist, unusual for a veggie sandwich. She also got rosemary potato salad as her side which was the only item we got that I thought was average. 

Amy's Gourmet Apples - Cedarburg, WI

About 20 miles north of Milwaukee is a town with an historic district known as Cedarburg. We spent some time going up and down the main street and discovered Amy's Candy Kitchen which offers incredible caramel apples in many variations. An assembly line of people was making the caramel apples just behind the counter, so we knew they were made there, then we each selected one from a display case in the front window. 

Four people assemble caramel apples behind the counter. A sign touts various news organizations and magazines that have recognized them. 

A counter display case with chocolate items other than caramel apples.

Judy and I each got a variation of the same kind, Belgian chocolate with cashews, hers was dark and mine was milk. 

They came encased in a special carton made specifically for them with a hole in the top for the stick. They tout the fact that the Wall Street Journal recognized their caramel apple as the best and their website gives a link to the Wall Street Journal article. We had them slice the caramel apples and we started to eat them on benches right outside and finished them the next day. Large Granny Smith apples are the base, then thick layers of caramel, chocolate and nuts are added. In the photo with a piece removed, note how thick the layers on the outside of the apple are. What's more, the coating stuck to the apple and did not fall off as it was being consumed. As I finished mine for breakfast the next morning, the apple was still crisp, tart and delicious. The slicing of the apple enabled me to pull off pieces in chunks and eat it a chunk at a time, with a nice combination of apple and layering in each bite. 

Information on the outside of the packaging.

Look at how thick the coating is. The cashews are embedded in the coating throughout which helps keep it intact.

I've never thought of caramel apples as something to ooh and awe over - until now. 

Timm's Hill - Wisconsin High Point

Timm's Hill, the highest point in Wisconsin, is located in Timm's Hill County Park, between Ogema and Spirit, just below Hwy 86. in north-central Wisconsin, a little more than 200 miles north of Madison. It is sandwiched between Bass Lake to the southeast and Timms Lake to the north. From Hwy 86 take Ring Road south and west and it skirts just south of Bass Lake. Eventually you turn right onto a one way road that bisects the park to the northeast and leads you just past the trailhead to Timm's Hill. Near the trailhead is a covered pavilion with tables and a functioning pump that provides fresh water. To the north is Ring School Road which goes just north of Timms Lake and provides nice views of the summit towers. 

Timms Lake, just north of Timm's Hill, from Ring School Road. The summit tower is visible sticking up in the center of the picture.

Another view of the tower from Timms Lake, this time a little more to the east. 

A telephoto view of the tower.

This sign marks the one-way road that leads to the trailhead.

The one way road is narrow, but goes through some lush green forest with a fair amount of water.

Trailhead information.

A trail from the parking lot goes up about a quarter mile and two lookout towers cover the summit. The older steel tower, is about 22 meters high and covers the actual survey marker which is mounted on a cement post at the base. It can be climbed, but it has a small metal ladder and is somewhat exposed, so I left it alone. A newer wood tower is 15 meters high and has a circular wood stairway that is safe and easy to climb. From the top you get decent views of the surrounding countryside. The top of the hill itself has an elevation of 1,951 feet, 28 feet shorter than the high point of Michigan to the north. 

Huge green trees shade the summit trail.

A large mushroom covers this downed log.

The summit towers are now just barely visible through the trees.

The view grows less obstructed.

The geographic marker.

The high point summit register.

The steel tower from the wood tower.

A view of Bass Lake from the wood tower. 

There is nothing particularly challenging about the summit, other than finding the time to actually drive there. It is in a very rural area. I visited on a relatively warm day and the mosquitoes were in full force. 

Mt. Arvon - Michigan High Point

I had a continuing education seminar in Madison, Wisconsin in late June and flew into Milwaukee a few days early in order to spend some time in Northern Michigan and Northern Wisconsin. I arrived in Milwaukee about 6:45 a.m. and set out in a rental car on I-43 north along the shores of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, then Hwy 141 north through Wisconsin into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the town of L'Anse at the base of Keweenaw Bay and the Keweenaw Peninsula on Lake Superior, over 300 miles and 5 hours later. Mount Arvon is in the Huron Mountains, 12 miles east of L'Anse.

A picture taken later in the day from the west side of Keweenaw Bay, looking at L'Anse on the other side and Mount Arvon further east. 

I was listening to NPR much of the drive and had several of the jarring emergency alert system warnings interrupt the programming forecasting powerful storms in the Upper Peninsula with the potential for 70 mile an hour hurricane force winds and hail the size of silver dollars that could blow the roofs off houses and damage vehicles. The announcements were giving place names that had no meaning to me, but I knew they were within a local radius. Before the day was over I heard over 10 of these alerts, with varying winds speed estimates and hail sizes. The first alerts occurred while I had sunny skies, but as I left L'Anse and took the circuitous 24 mile drive to Mount Arvon, much of it down dirt logging roads, the sky got very dark and rain as hard as any I can remember began to pound down. I did have a few second thoughts about proceeding, but pushed on.

A school in Arvon Township viewed through my car window. School was not in session, but it was so dark that the automatic lights were on. 

The road from L'Anse pushed north to the Skanee Road bordering Huron Bay, a fjord separated from Keweenaw Bay by the Abbaye Peninsula, then east and then south into the interior of the Huron Mountains which frankly don't seem much like mountains. There were only a few sections of the road that had any kind of a significant grade to them and only for short distances. Fortunately, the road was well marked and the brunt of the storm in the area I was in occurred during my drive.

My windshield wipers were on the fastest setting and still struggled to give me a clear view. Fortunately, I did not experience any of the severe winds or hail.

As I neared Mt. Arvon the rain began to subside.

As I arrived at the parking lot for the Mt. Arvon summit, and I use the word "summit" rather sheepishly, the rain was only a trickle. After I walked about 100 yards to the summit, bypassing puddles and mud, I found a flat area with a high point sign, a mailbox with a high point register, a picnic table and a bench. A couple that had waited out the storm in their vehicle was in the vicinity. The elevation of Mt. Arvon is 1,979 feet. 

A sign pointed in the direction of the summit.

A muddy trail led up through the trees.

The summit.

I watched the couple take a trail down to the side and eventually followed them and found another bench with a lookout through the canopy revealing Lake Superior about 8 miles to the north.

The bench and some blue from Lake Superior shows through the trees.

It was nice to be able to see through the green canopy.

Huron Bay, followed by the Abbaye Peninsula, then the water of Keweenaw Bay

I decided to see if I could drive north and catch a closer look at Lake Superior. I eventually got a glimpse of Huron Bay and the Abbaye Peninsula through some trees on private property and found some beautiful flowers along the way.

On the drive back out, without rain, I got a better view of the lush green. 

At lower elevations lush ferns blocked the view into the forest.

Beautiful flowers

Finally, I got a glimpse out on to Huron Bay.

As I have found on other high point journeys, the fact that the high point is an easy walk does not mean that there is not an element of adventure in reaching them. The heavy rains and severe storm warning forecasts were more adventure than I wanted on this day. I felt fortunate to find Mt. Arvon and do it safely.