Oak Island Inferno, 1943

Part Three

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The situation was desperate. The fierce winds were now driving the fire with new intensity, and the men on the island were running out of food- incredibly, they’d been told to take along only one day’s provisions. Finally, the Booth Fish Company offered the use of their large boat, the Apostle Islands. On its return trip, it brought back most of the original crew—all but nine wanted nothing more to do with fighting fire on Oak Island.

Containment efforts continued all day Sunday and into Monday, using the tractor to cut a plow line. It was a losing battle, though- just before noon Monday, the fire jumped the line and took off again into an impassable ravine. That was enough: going against all instinct, the foresters agreed there was no choice but to withdraw and let the fire burn its way across Oak Island. There were several other fires now to fight in northern Wisconsin; they could do more good elsewhere.

No one seemed eager to blame Martin Kane for the conflagration. When Borkenhagen asked him about the cause of the fire, he speculated that it might have been sparks from his chimney, but then again, it might have been someone dropping a cigarette from a passing airplane. The ranger noted that possibility in his report without comment. Kane remained on Oak Island for several more years, finally leaving when his health failed in the winter of 1946-47. When he died the following September, friends chipped in and erected a gravestone for him in the Bayfield cemetery.

Today, the forest has grown back, but it’s easy to spot the ditches and berms marking the old logging camp near the National Park Service campsites at the island’s southwest tip. Not far from the trail leading up from the sandspit are the remains of an old cast iron stove. I often wonder if it’s the same one that Martin Kane stuffed with bark on a windy afternoon in the autumn of 1943.

Abandoned Stove, Oak Island