This Superior Place

Book excerpt: Picturesque little Bayfield on Lake Superior is Wisconsin’s smallest city by population but one of its most popular visitor destinations. This book captures those unique qualities that keep tourists coming back year after year and offers a historically reliable look at the community as it is today and how it came to be. Abundantly illustrated with both historical and contemporary images, This Superior Place showcases, as author Dennis McCann writes, “a community where the past was layered with good times and down times, where natural beauty was the one resource that could not be exhausted by the hand of man, and where history is ever present.” Because Bayfield serves as “the gateway to the Apostle Islands,” the book also includes chapters on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Madeline Island, and the nearby Red Cliff Ojibwe community. It also covers the significant eras in the city’s history: lumbering, quarrying, commercial fishing, and the advent of the orchards visitors see today. It is not a guidebook as such but more of a visual and written tour of the city and the major elements that came together to make it what it is. Colorful stories from the past, written in Dennis McCann’s casual, humorous style, give a sense of the unique characters and events that have shaped this charming city on the lake.