Superior, Wisconsin

 October is living up to its reputation as an optimum month for bicycle touring, not too hot and not too cold, with crisp, invigorating morning temperatures, warm afternoons and colorful foliage.  Even as far north as this trip has taken me, I’ve only once needed gloves in the morning and none of my emergency cold weather gear.  It’s a relief not to have to worry about wilting from the energy-sapping summer heat.    I’ve been fortunate to have had just a couple of day-time sprinkles, as many as during the night.   

The scavenging though, a vital feature of touring, has been somewhat lackluster. I’ve gathered six license plates, three Wisconsin and three Michigan, and my usual quota of five bungee cords, but only one neckerchief and a mere penny during the initial stretch through Wisconsin, other than clusters of coins outside the MacDonald’s drive-up windows.  But in the UP, where copper and iron mining once flourished, coins started turning up and of all denominations, highlighted by one stash of $2.63 strewn on the shoulder amongst other debris.  

The camping has been superlative.  I know my dinner will taste a little bit better, whatever it may be, when I push into the woods and come to a small clearing for my tent that brings a spontaneous “How lovely” to my lips.  It’s been happening with regularity lately. It is an instant serum of well-being, just as those spontaneous “Wows” of truly exemplary Carnegies.  

I could have had a double dose of those “Wows” in the small towns of Washburn and Bayfield out on Wisconsin’s northernmost peninsula jutting into Lake Superior if the last Carnegie in Ironwood hadn’t been similarly majestic.  They were just more of the same, though in dramatically smaller towns, adding to their luster. 

Bayfield, with a population of 470, is the smallest city in Wisconsin. It’s population peaked at 1,689 when it’s Carnegie was built in 1903.  It was incorporated as a city and remains so even though the present requirement for city status is 1,000 residents. It had once thrived on lumbering and fishing. It’s prime industry now is tourism with an abundance of bed and breakfasts, restaurants and boutiques. It is the prime ferry port to the twenty-one Apostle Islands.

It was hard not to express a “Wow” that such a small town would have such a grand library.  It would stand out as an architectural gem in a city of any size. The residents of this out-of-the-way town had to have been immensely grateful to a steel tycoon based in New York City for bequeathing them such a grand edifice.

And the same for the residents of Washburn, twelve miles down the coast.  It too had been a lumbering and fishing town on the banks of Lake Superior and had transitioned to tourism.  It’s population likewise was at its highest when it was granted its Carnegie, the same year as Bayfield.  It had had 3,800 residents and has dwindled to a little more than half that.  It’s Carnegie was in a residential neighborhood with four picnic tables surrounding it.  Above the entrance of the red-stoned building was “Free Public Library.” A “Meditation Center” was the next building over across the park.  There must be a demand for such activity in the region, as Ironwood had a “Serenity Center” near it’s Carnegie.

After the pair of coastline Carnegies I had a seventy-eight mile ride through nothing but forest broken by several small clusters of residents masquerading as a town before the large city of Superior across from Duluth on the other side of the large-mouthed St. Louis River.  My first hour of Sunday morning riding was car-free and included several miles of dirt.  

I was counting on Superior to have a cheap motel so I could have a shower, wash my clothes, watch the marque Sunday football game (the Chiefs and the Bills) and re-charge all my batteries.  Two of the last three days in the back, back country I’d been unable to take advantage of electricity for re-charging and the next day would be more of the same. My generator hub can’t quite keep up with my charging needs, so I needed to top off my five batteries.

There were a handful of motels, but none were a bargain, as rates were high due to an influx of workers still repairing a huge oil refinery explosion in 2018 that required a mass evacuation of residents within three miles of the explosion. When I asked the clerk at the Econ Lodge, which wanted one hundred dollars for a room, if there were a cheaper locally-owned motel she could recommend, she hesitated and slightly turned up her nose before suggesting the Budget Motel, as if I might regret staying there. 

Rather than heading there directly I first stopped at the two Carnegies in Superior. On my rounds I checked out a raggedy several story tall hotel in the city center and another chain motel, also with inflated rates, before ending up at the Budget Motel, just what I was looking for.  It had one available room, just vacated.  The Indian owner said he’d have it ready in half an hour, giving me time to make a dash to a supermarket a mile away.

Neither of Superior’s two Carnegies still served as libraries.  The Main Library in the city center was being converted to a museum.  It’s interior was in disarray, but it’s exterior remained as glamorous as when it was built.

The East Branch Carnegie, four miles away, had been converted into a community center and was fully decorated for Halloween.  The red-stoned building may have been in need of some sprucing up, but it still leant an air of prominence at its corner location.

The next Carnegie is seventy miles south in Hayward in a final stretch of little civilization and probably no WiFi or re-charging possibilities.  If I hadn’t been in a motel Sunday night it might not have been until Tuesday that I learned the Bears and their rookie QB beat the Raiders or that Kansas City fell to 2-3 losing to the Bills Sunday night, greatly putting into jeopardy their return to the Super Bowl for the third straight year. I didn’t watch the last quarter, as for the second time this year a game was delayed by lightning, this coming during halftime adding an hour to the length of the game.