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Fish Creek, Wisconsin, is one of Door County’s best-kept secrets. With plenty of dockage and family activities, it won’t stay that way much longer.
By Cynthia Barnes — Spring
2004
Culinary mayhem is unfolding in the back of the historic White Gull Inn in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Master boiler Marc Paulson is putting on the show, adding salt and 40 pounds of whitefish steaks to an enormous black cauldron. (The potatoes went in earlier.) “Think of it as a boiled stir-fry,” he explains. “It could be an old Viking tradition. Or maybe the lumberjacks started it. And if you’ve got a problem with melted butter…
get over it tonight!”
The crowd is rapt as Paulson goes through his spiel, checking the potatoes with a three-foot fork. There’s a healthy line at the bar, which serves beer and wine. Then an accordionist starts playing “The Chicken Dance.” The bar line suddenly grows longer. A few tortured souls begin to clap and wiggle.
Mercifully, Paulson throws a coffee can of kerosene toward the pot, causing an eyebrow-singeing ball of flame that makes me understand why he calls his job “a pyromaniac’s delight.” The kerosene causes a “boil-over,” supposedly to rid the fish of excess oils. I suspect it has something to do with making the accordion stop. Regardless, it’s supper time.
It’s a good thing, too—our 54-nautical-mile cruise from Green Bay aboard the Carver 46 Voyager Carisma took less than three hours, but our early evening tie-up at Municipal Dock came just about the time my belly began to rumble. I’d learned a few weeks earlier that a fish boil is an absolute must-do during any cruise through Door County, Wisconsin, which boasts more miles of shoreline (over 300), state parks (five), and lighthouses (ten) than any other county in the United States. Within this “Cape Cod of the Midwest,” Fish Creek is an up-and-coming destination of choice for Chicagoans seeking a long weekend escape. It’s a village of only about a thousand year-round residents, one of those spots where boutiques and restaurants are genuinely quaint. Yes, there are T-shirts for sale, but they’re not all the same as every other T-shirt you’ve seen in stores the rest of the world over. If you walk around the town, you’ll also find kites, jewelry, and other unique souvenirs.
Fish Creek is charming even before you step ashore, with rows of boats bobbing gently in a harbor lined with neat wooden buildings. Fish Creek Bluff rises in the background, thickly forested with conifers and hardwood trees. The entire village is bursting with flowers, and all the buildings look freshly painted. (I don’t know what kind of paint these people use to withstand Wisconsin’s extreme temperatures, but whatever it is, I need to get some. I didn’t find a peeling board anywhere all weekend and, believe me, I looked.)
>> Next page >> Part 2: If you tie off your lines at Municipal’s wall, as we did, you too can stroll up the hill past Gibraltar Town Hall, built around 1880. Page
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