Artist's Point is the rocky point between the harbor and East Bay, joined to town by a low bar of sand and cobbles. The trail out the breakwater to the lighthouse starts here. Two Forest Service signs stand side by side where that trail begins, southeast of the old Coast Guard station at the foot of Broadway Avenue, and most of what follows is from them.
Whose it is
The point is not a city park. It is 8.4 acres of the Superior National Forest, and has been federal land since 1942. The first owner in the state's records was Francis Rupain of the Lake Superior Chippewa, in 1866. Henry Mayhew took title in 1871.
The name
The Ojibwe name for this place, Gichi-Biitoobiig, describes the two bays, and the history guide explains it. No separate Ojibwe name for the point is recorded. Once the town was founded, maps called it Mayhew Point. "Artists' Point" dates only from the 1970s, and the point still has no official name.
How it formed
The rock is dark gray basalt, lava from the Midcontinent Rift about 1.1 billion years ago. In places it has cracked into six-sided columns. Where gas bubbles were trapped in the lava, the holes later filled with agate and thomsonite. Glaciers left grooves across the surface.
The point was once an island. Waves moving sand and cobbles along the shore built a bar out to it, and the bar is the low neck you cross from town. Geologists call a bar like this a tombolo.
What to look for
- The seawall. The concrete wall that joins the breakwater to the point was built in 1936. It is the walkway to the lighthouse.
- Tower footings. A Forest Service fire tower 85 feet tall stood on the west side from 1928 to 1943, and a Coast Guard watch tower stood at the east end. The concrete footings of both are still there.
- Names in the rock. Early visitors cut their names and dates into the basalt. Do not walk on the carvings, and do not add to them.
- The East Bay side. The schooner Stranger could not make the harbor on December 12, 1875, went onto the rocks here and was lost with three of her crew. A dock was built on the harbor side the next year.
The Coast Guard station and the lighthouse have their own sections in the history guide.
Plants and birds
Butterwort, a small plant that traps insects on its leaves, grows on the point. Long-tailed ducks and white-winged and surf scoters turn up offshore now and then, and warblers are seen here too. Stay on the worn paths and leave the plants where they are.
Getting there
From Harbor Park downtown, walk east through Boulder Park to the point. Before you go out on the breakwater, read what the Lake Superior guide says about it: the breakwater is a working structure with no shelter, and no place to be when the lake is up.
The area map shows where the point is.
