Golf carts provide the best way to navigate the Lake Erie Islands.
Colorful signs point the way to various island venues and city destinations.
Weekends mean wall-to-wall golf carts.
Travel to the islands means a comfortable trip on a ferry.
areas. Restaurants and shops line the park’s adjacent street, with parked golf carts bumper-to-bumper along curbsides. Cannonballs in the park mark the original gravesites of six officers—three American and three British—from the pivotal 1813 Battle of Lake Erie. Those graves were later transferred to the island’s most spectacular site, the Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial. Topped by an 11-ton bronze urn, the imposing granite Doric column soars 352 feet high and dominates the view along flat South Bass Island. The monument commemorates the Battle of Lake Erie, a key victory for the Americans in the War of 1812 against the British, British Canada, and their Indian allies. Views from the top stretch across South Bass to Middle and North Bass islands and beyond. A Visitor Center diorama showcases how the Americans captured an entire British fleet, despite Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry’s flagship USS Lawrence taking a beating. That’s when Perry signaled “Don’t give up the ship” and transferred the battle flag to the USS Niagara to continue the fight. When the two largest British ships collided, the Niagara broke through the British line leading to victory. “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” Perry later wrote. “The magnitude of being a hero was
unequaled—other than George Washington in his time,” says Huston. The U.S. Brig Niagara is a replica and sits berthed along Put-in-Bay’s shoreline, where visitors can walk its sturdy wooden decks amidst its replica cannons, curled sails and stringed rope ladders. SouthBass Island is alsohome toCrystal Cavewithquartz- like Celestine crystals—the largest Celestine geode in the world. On the grounds of Heineman Winery, the cave opened to the public in 1900. “My great-grandfather was digging a well for the winery and accidently broke into the Crystal Cave,” says owner Edward Heineman. Some weigh 200-300 pounds, he says, adding that some crystals from the cave are on display at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. My next stop is Kelleys Island, just a short ferry ride away toward the mainland. “We always tell people, if you want to be entertained, go to Put-in Bay. But if you want to entertain yourself and get back in touch with nature and family values, come to Kelleys Island,” says Jeni Hammond, office manager for Portside Marina and Missy Magoo’s, an old-fashioned candy shop that still sells bubble gum cigarettes that I haven’t seen since childhood. Golf carts are again the way to travel Kelleys Island’s
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COAST TO COAST SPRING MAGAZINE 2019
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