- This week on "Wisconsin Life":
Meet a commercial ice fisherman braving the elements,
a photojournalist with an international perspective,
a tree farmer in the holiday spirit year-round,
and a tavern owner with tunes on tap.
It's all ahead on "Wisconsin Life!"
* *
- Funding for "Wisconsin Life" is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
- Hello and welcome to "Wisconsin Life."
I'm your host, Angela Fitzgerald.
Today we're at the Roche-A-Cri State Park.
This beautiful, wooded park is located in Adams County.
The words "Roche-A-Cri" come from the French words
meaning "crevice in the rock."
And it's what 17th and 18th century French explorers
called this area.
If you visit the park, you'll find rock formations
containing carvings and pictorial symbols
created long ago by the First Nations.
You'll also discover beautiful hiking trails,
including a mountain climb of 303 stairs
all the way to the top of this geologic beauty.
That's right.
I'm taking you all the way to the top!
But before I go, let's head out.
Out onto the ice of Sister Bay
to meet a commercial fisherman
fighting the cold to net his catch.
[wind blowing]
- When winter sweeps across Door County
it arrives on a howling wind.
- Some days you're here before your truck warms up.
[truck engine]
- Fishing partners Will Henriksen and John Koessl
leave at sunrise from the shores of Sister Bay.
- All set John. Go for it.
[snowmobile engine]
- Get on the ice about 7 o'clock in the morning.
And then, it's a cold, bitter ride out there.
- Out there is a two mile trek onto ice
and into no man's land.
The road to work is cold and bumpy.
Tree limbs mark the route
and warn of danger.
- Probably the hardest part of my job
is dealing with the weather.
It changes quick and one minute it will be calm
and the next it's galing.
It gets dangerous on the water.
- This time of year, Will's office is a shanty on the ice
where he gets the wood stove going
and gets to work running his commercial ice fishing venture.
- Being on the water, day in and day out,
some of the most amazing picture-worthy
sunrises and sunsets I get to see every day.
I enjoy the winter season and ice fishing
because it's kind of my thing.
We'll usually lift about 6 to 8, maybe 10 nets a day.
We're hoping for 300, 400 pounds.
- Look at this.
- I mean we'll be happy just if we see fish.
- The catch of the day is whitefish.
- There's one.
[fish vibrates its sonic muscle to make a knocking sound] Well, hello to you too.
The easiest way to get them out is clearing their heads
and just kind of pushing them through.
Sometimes it's easier than it looks.
- Easy... until one of these ends up in your net.
- They're kind of like a bottom feeder.
But a lot of places want them and use them
for like Friday fish fries and what not.
This is called a Burbot.
- Burbot or eelpout; It goes by many names.
But on the menu of those fancy restaurants,
they're called "lawyers."
- We're able to supply almost 25 different businesses
with fish and I mean it's all local.
We process it and deliver it
and it's on your plate the same night.
- Will knows these waters well and got an early start.
- Growing up, my dad was a commercial fisherman.
As a kid, he used to take my car seat
and put it on the dash of the boat and take me with him.
So, I've been on a boat my entire life.
[snowmobile engine]
- For Will, this is a lifelong dream
and it's been a lifelong friendship with John.
- Went to high school and everything together.
Now we do this together.
Out here, like, it's just the two of us.
And we get along pretty well
so there's no real arguing or nothing.
So now we'll pull it back underneath
and get ready to lift the other one.
- One net down,
five more to go.
The nets are lowered 65-70 feet to the depths of Green Bay.
- They go right to the bottom.
- The nets stand 15 feet high and extend out 100 yards
in both directions from the shanty.
A guideline is tied to the net
so it can be hauled in and then fanned out again
as John pulls the rope back across the ice.
Once the nets are dropped...
- Ready?
[snowmobile engine revs]
- ... they drag the ice shanty to another hole
farther out on the ice
where they can retrieve two more nets.
It's proving to be a good day of fishing and work.
- To end up with a 100 out of the first two,
I mean that's good fishing for us.
Stories of the old guys,
they used to set 100 nets in a winter.
If they got a fish every net, they were happy.
- Just like the old guys before them,
all the work out here is done by hand.
- It's a tough lifestyle.
I mean you're working your butt off for every penny you make.
If it was easy, there'd be more people doing it too.
[groans]
- Handling the nets can be brutal
in bone-chilling, ice cold water.
- The worst part's just the dampness from the water.
Get 'em a little bit damp
and all of a sudden the cold sinks right in.
- Cold hands but a warm heart out here on the ice.
[door creaks]
This is life in rural Door County.
- It's peaceful, you know.
Everyone knows everyone.
And everyone has each other's back.
It's... my home.
It's my source of employment.
It's...
I mean, it's where I love to be.
[snowmobile engine]
- Welcome back.
I'm about to tackle this mountain of stairs
to get to the top of a 300-foot-high rock outcropping
here at the Roche-A-Cri State Park.
I'm told the views at the top are spectacular.
I hope I can make it.
So wish me luck and I'll see you at the top.
* *
Whew! We made it.
Look at this spectacular view.
Some might even call it breathtaking, literally.
From this spot, we can see over 10 counties.
I'm going hang back here and enjoy this beautiful vista.
While our team heads to Madison to meet a photojournalist
capturing the world around her one click at a time.
- If you capture a portrait of someone,
their expression,
it just tells you a lot about them,
who they are.
Their eyes just kind of speak to you.
My name is Saiyna Bashir.
I'm a staff photographer at Capital Times.
* *
I grew up in smaller towns in Pakistan.
* *
My father was in the military so we moved around a lot.
He was, you know, well-educated
and very liberal-minded for his generation.
And that's how he raised his children.
I always was told
that I can study whatever I want.
I can pick whatever field I would like.
My dad's sister had a camera
and she used to be really into photography
at one point in her life.
So I took that camera and I just started playing with it.
Initially it was just a hobby.
I was just taking pictures of whatever I felt like.
I just posted those photos on Facebook.
There was a--
there was an editor at the time for The News.
The News is a local newspaper in Pakistan.
And so she saw those photos and contacted me and said,
"Can we print a photo essay with your photos?"
And I said, "Of course!"
Like, yeah, that was really exciting.
That's when I realized that this is what I want to do.
* *
When I was in Chicago and I was in graduate school,
a group of them were going to Ferguson
to cover the protests in November.
I decided to go with them.
It was dangerous, but at the same time,
it was a big story.
I do remember people that I was taking pictures of
and just generally, the environment was very hostile.
I heard protesters saying,
"This has been happening to us all our lives.
This is not the first time."
And these were women who were there with kids and children.
I could hear gun shots in parking lots.
People were torching trash cans.
I took this photo
of the head of a mannequin lying on the street.
And that photo really struck to me
because it was just a way of, like,
showing how people were protesting.
Sometimes when I look at the Ferguson photos,
I am quite surprised.
I was just like, this is--
this looks crazy.
Like I was just in the zone at that moment
that I didn't realize how insane it was until later on.
* *
I had to find a journalism-related job.
So I was just applying everywhere
and then the Cap Times got back to me.
And they were very excited
to have me on the staff.
I did a series of portraits on Muslims in Madison.
And I took portraits of Muslims
and talked to them about what their feelings are today.
How do they feel about the way they're being portrayed?
And so they talked to me and I took portraits of them.
I chatted with them
and I talked to them, interviewed them.
And they just basically told me
that they feel like they're being treated very unfairly.
Those portraits I really enjoyed taking.
* *
I'm very passionate about this work
because I feel like I have a great deal of responsibility
to tell stories of people
who are either in misery
or something unjust is happening to them,
but they are unable to tell their story themselves.
And I just feel like it is my responsibility
as a photojournalist to tell their story.
And let as many people as possible to see that
and to know their story.
It is a big part of my life and it's just--
it is very satisfying in a way
that I am able to tell someone else's story
the way they are not able to tell.
It's just really great
that you can be this neutral person who--
who is hearing all of this
and who understands what is going on
but at the same time,
you want to show both sides of the story.
And in my case, I do it with my lens.
- Whew.
I've managed to make my way back down the trail
to the petroglyphs and pictographs
found here at the Roche-A-Cri State Park.
You can just vaguely see the painted figures here.
And it's estimated that in 50 years,
they'll no longer be visible.
It's literally now or never to see this living history,
which dates back more than 500 years ago.
Right next to the pictographs are various carvings.
They're so old, it's kind of a mystery what they represent.
Archaeologists can only speculate their meaning.
And seen at the very top are words and dates
carved by early settlers.
This is fascinating stuff.
There's more to explore here after our next story.
We check out why a farmer travels each winter
from his Door County farm to the city of Milwaukee
to share the fruits of his year-round labor.
- We're gonna go with this one.
- You like that guy?
- Yeah. - Ok.
[chainsaw cutting]
- Uh-oh, look there.
Could you grab the top and support it a little bit?
- You're looking for a tree?
- Yeah, between six and seven foot tall.
- Picking the right Christmas tree
can be the biggest choice of the season.
- We specialize in more unique, big trees.
- Ken Ottman tries to make it easy.
- And it won't be hard. [laughs]
- We try to make it so
people can walk up and down the aisles
and find a tree.
- For those whose eyes are bigger than their ceiling,
he offers a measuring stick.
- If they got an eight foot ceiling,
they can find a tree that's not 10 feet.
- You're good? - Yeah. - Ok.
All right. Well, that's good.
Yeah, it's a very nice tree.
- You learn a lot of tricks of the trade
when your family has been in the Christmas tree business
for more than 70 years.
- My dad started the business in 1946
and we've been selling trees continuously
in the Milwaukee area.
- Ken's customers have made getting one of his trees
part of their Christmas tradition.
- We have grandchildren of my father's original customers
that are coming and bringing their little kids.
So after 70 years,
we've got generational loyalty.
And that's just real rewarding.
- This is the one. - This is a good one? - All right.
- While they head home to hang lights,
Ken heads back to the trailer
to help his daughter make more wreaths.
But don't feel sorry for him.
- This is the fun part of the year.
The growing of trees is nothing but hard work.
- The real work in Christmas tree farming comes in July.
- People don't have any idea.
- We're going to start in this section right here,
every other row.
- That's when Ken, his brother Steve,
his sister Leslie and their families
all gather in Door County to shear the trees.
Shearing is what makes a proper Christmas tree.
- This'll make an eight to nine foot tall tree this year.
- Ken needs to cut the leader and all the shaggy new growth
or else the tree would grow too fast
and leave space between the branches.
- That's not what the consumer wants these days.
They want a tighter, more full tree.
- Each species of pine tree
has a narrow window to be sheared.
- She's done. That's it.
- So Ken's family is sweating in the sun,
swinging sharp knives and wearing a catcher's leg guard,
just in case.
- That's all marks from missing. [laughs]
- This land has been in Ken's family since the late 1800s.
- My great grandfather initially bought the land here.
- It wasn't always trees.
His grandparents grew cherries here.
Ken's mother grew up in Door County,
but married a painter named Herbert from Milwaukee.
- Before Christmas, nobody wanted their house painted
because the odor was so bad
that my dad was basically without work in December.
- So Herbert started selling Christmas trees,
and eventually bought the Door County farm.
- They began planting trees here
in hopes that they would be able
to supply trees for his retail sales.
- At one point Ken says there were 15,000 trees here.
And Herbert sheared them all by hand, on his own.
- My dad was the one who had the fire
for growing Christmas trees.
My mom was a... a supportive participant.
[laughs]
- Ken and his siblings grew up in the Christmas tree business.
- From the day I could use a jackknife
and open up a Christmas tree,
I worked in the Christmas tree business.
- It led to his decision to become a forester
and buy two more tree farms.
His brother also owns two farms,
and his sister runs the Door County family farm
as a "choose and cut."
- It is fun.
It's the same people come year after year after year.
You get new people every year but you have your regulars.
- They worked hard at it.
This is their legacy.
That's why we keep it going.
- I don't know if it's a life's passion or a curse,
[chuckles]
but it's what we do.
- No matter how hot it gets in July,
the chill of December is just a few months away.
- They'll have to drag me
out of a Christmas tree lot by my heels.
- And Ken can't imagine
not being a part of his customers' merry Christmas.
- Merry Christmas.
I love this. I love it.
- There are beautiful views here
at the Roche-a-Cri State Park.
I'm here with Paul Zajackowski, District Supervisor
of the Department of Natural Resources.
Hi, Paul. - Hi, how are you today?
- I'm doing well. How are you doing?
- I'm very good, thank you. - Good.
So tell us, what makes this location so unique?
- Well, one of the-- probably the main feature of this park
that really makes this park unique
and that is the mound
which is known as Roche-A-Cri.
So, basically, approximately 15,000 years ago
when much of central Wisconsin was covered
with what we know as glacial Lake Wisconsin,
that rock outcropping that we see today
was basically just an island within that large lake.
And as the glacial lake subsided or disappeared,
the rock, or that island,
which is composed mainly of Cambrian sandstone,
remained and it was transformed
from this rocky, small island
into this 300-foot rock outcropping
that we have here today at Roche-A-Cri State Park.
So that is really a main attraction to the park itself.
It also offers in the summertime 42 camp sites.
We've got about six miles of hiking trails within the park.
Some beautiful timbered areas,
including some large white pines that you see today
and are distributing the pollen for us today to enjoy.
So it's really a unique property just for that mound itself
and it offers that stairway up to the top of the mound
so you can get that panoramic view of the area
and other rock outcroppings within an area.
- Wow. Interesting.
Have you climbed the mound yourself?
- I have.
It's been a number of years since I've climbed it
but I'm hoping today to get out to do it again.
- Awesome. Thanks you for your time, Paul.
- You're welcome.
- And that takes us to your next story.
We head to Jump River to meet a bar owner
who serves up the suds with a song,
just not one you might expect.
- It's Thursday night
and the town of Jump River is jumping.
- Hi, PBS.
- Piotrowski's Bar is the place to be.
There's a big crowd,
[slam]
cold beverages,
and the hottest act in town.
- It's a 1, 2, 3...
- Some bars have of a jukebox full of 45s.
[yodeling]
- This one plays the greatest hits...
* *
of 1945.
[yodeling]
- Ninety-three-year-old Cindy Piotrowski owns this bar.
[laughs]
She was raised in a family of musicians.
- When something came up
or I watched somebody else do something,
I was going to try it. [chuckles]
- That includes learning how to yodel.
[yodeling]
- We got home, I said to mom,
"Just what do you do to yodel?"
Well, she said, "You take a note...
and you throw it."
Yeah, how far?
- Cindy figured it out and taught her sister Helen.
They join up with a friend
to form a country and western group.
- Happy Harmonizers.
- In the 1940s, the Happy Harmonizers
played dances and banquets across the state.
The names and faces changed, but the music didn't.
- We enjoyed the music, yeah.
Played at a drop of a hat.
[chuckles]
- The group dissolved.
And Cindy's music career was put on hold.
Her big comeback came in the 1960s
when Cindy and her husband, Jim, bought this bar
in Taylor County.
- 1966 I got here.
- Cindy didn't know much about running a bar,
but she knew how to be an entertainer.
- Oh yeah, I could cut the rug.
[harmonica music]
- She'd cut her teeth learning the 6-sided harmonica.
* *
A rare, early 20th-century instrument.
- This plays like a concertina does.
When you blow, you get one note.
When you draw, you get a different note altogether.
- Her harmonica playing made the bar a big draw.
* *
- I think I got the wrong key. [laugher]
When I got the harmonica, then everybody comes in.
"I want to hear that harmonica and I want to see it."
Okay.
* *
- Five decades later, they're still coming in.
On this night friends and family gathered for a celebration
of Jump River's premier performer.
* *
For Cindy, it's been the time of her life.
[applause]
- The music and meeting the people,
there's so many different kinds of people that come in
and they go away laughing.
[laughing]
-Sure, New York has Billy Joel.
And Las Vegas has Wayne Newton.
But Jump River is the only place to see Cindy Piotrowski,
the 93-year-old yodeling bar owner.
[yodeling]
- "Will you yodel for us?" Oh, sure.
[chuckles]
Just let me get back to the piano.
* *
- I'm glad you were able to join us here today
at the Roche-a-cri State Park.
It's truly a hidden gem in our state.
For more information about the stories you've seen here today
or on the park, visit our website at WisconsinLife.org.
And as always, we'd love to hear from you.
What's your "Wisconsin Life?"
Tell us by sending an email to WisconsinLife@wpt.org.
We hope to see you next time.
In the meantime,
we'll leave you with some more of this beautiful state park.
I'm your host, Angela Fitzgerald,
and this is our "Wisconsin Life."
Bye!
* *
- Funding for "Wisconsin Life" is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.