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I’m standing on the top floor of the Cana Island lighthouse looking at a vast body of water, imagining what it would have been like 140 years ago when the lighthouse keeper would have had to take a boat or walk across a stone causeway from the mainland to this small island to help guide ships to safety.

It’s an archetypal maritime scene; the only thing that’s missing is the salty smell of the ocean. Cana Island isn’t off the banks of either the Atlantic or the Pacific — it’s in the middle of Lake Michigan, in an oft-overlooked county in Wisconsin.

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Most Canadians know a few things about Wisconsin — it’s relatively close to central Canada, the state is known for the quality and the quantity of its cheese, the ferocity of its football fans and the hominess of its local accent. But in the warmer months especially, the state offers the opportunity for an escape that feels slightly nostalgic.

Door County, which includes Cana Island, may not be as well known as Milwaukee or Madison, but it is a vacation favourite for mid-Westerners looking to slow down for a week or two. The county is a peninsula; look at a map and you’ll see a finger of land jutting between Lake Michigan and Green Bay (think of it as the thumb of a mitten), reaching towards Ontario. Because of the abundance of coastline, Door County has developed a community of seaside-style resorts and services, even if they’re not technically on the sea.