Found object

'Triune' stone

For 45 years (approx) I have carried this million year old (approx) stone above, an object that was mysteriously found at my wading feet on the expanse of beach directly south of the Norport ferry dock in Door County.

I was walking along the beach looking at the surf and the stones that had been washing in there for unknown time. Timeless time. All the stones in that particular locus looked the same, uniformly beige and not eye-catching at all.

This stone, colored like all the others around it, would have escaped my notice but for the way it washed in through the water of Death's Door, aka Passe de Morte. It has an exposed crystalline face, and within, in gold, a triangle. If it had not been turned face upward in the water, its wet surface catching the sun like a jewel, it would have gone unnoticed. Maybe it would have washed back down the sand surf and been lost for another thousand or so years, who knows?

I've always believed that stone was meant for me. I sometimes carry it in a beaded Indian pouch around my neck, for luck or blessings. It is only an inch wide.

Last week I listened to a program on Wisconsin Public Radio about the ferry line operating between Northport and Washington Island. Richard Purinton is the long-time ferry captain and now president of the transport company that plies the treacherous waters between the tip of the thumb of Wisconsin and Washington Island, a passage known historically as Death's Door. More fragile craft (canoes, etc.) have met their fate making that dangerous crossing, with its conflicting currents and sudden high waves.

Mr. Purinton has just completed a journal of some of his ferry trips, and that was partly the subject of the WPR program, hosted by the well-modulated Jim Packard. When Purinton mentioned the mounted Web-cams that take hourly pictures of the dock at Northport and the dock at the island I made note of it and found it, at http://www.wisferry.com/webcam.html

Now, I can check the weather up there by simply clicking on the website saved in My Favorites. And when I do, the first picture of the three is of the Northport dock. If you go left and beyond the edge of the image some 300 yards, + or -, that's where the stone pictured above was found.

We should also make mention that the SRN has ordered the book Purinton wrote, Words On Water: A Ferryman's Journal. Mr Purinton also writes a blog we find highly interesting, connecting us with a beloved part of Door County we haven't visited for... too long.

http://ferrycabinnews.blogspot.com/