Cana Island Lighthouse: Drive vs. Paddle vs. Walk (and Which to Do)
Cana Island Lighthouse is the postcard most visitors have already seen before they get to Door County. Eight-and-a-half-acre island, 89-foot tower, working light since 1869, connected to the mainland by a stone causeway you can sometimes walk and sometimes wade. The kind of place that shows up on every Wisconsin tourism brochure. What’s less obvious is how to actually visit it. There are three ways to do it, they are not the same experience, and the choice depends mostly on weather and what you’re already up to that day. Here’s what 23 years of pointing guests at this lighthouse has taught us. What Cana Island actually is Cana Island sits off the Lake Michigan side of the Door County peninsula, in the Bailey’s Harbor area. The island is small (8.7 acres), the lighthouse is the second-tallest on the Wisconsin Great…