opular it is even canned. In Finland, 
ampreys are smoked. Portugal, too, is a 
enter of lamprey fishing. England once 
Jalso favored the lamprey, but by 1850, 
jinterest in it had largely died out. Given 
Ithe arduous and slightly macabre proce- 
dure (scalding, bleeding, and behead- 
jing) required to prepare the lamprey, it 
is not hard to see why it might scare off 
home cooks. Still, it could be easily 
cooked in a professional or factory set- 
ting, and it seems a shame that this 
vaunted delicacy was not actively pro- 
moted as a food source in this country 
when it suddenly became so plentiful. 
Instead, it was attacked as a useless 
vermin. 
By the mid-fifties, sea lampreys had 
nearly destroyed the whitefish popula- 
tion of Lake Michigan (as well as that of 
the lake trout). The commercial catch 
fell below 100,000 pounds. Then a solu- 
tion was found: a poison, called TFM, 
that kills lampreys selectively in the 
streams where they spawn. Since 1962, 
a joint United States-Canadian control 
program has effectively suppressed lam- 
preys and largely protected other fish. 
The proof of this has been a dramatic 
rebound in the whitefish population. 
Commercial production from Lake 
Michigan rose to a recent peak of one 
million pounds. 
Fish, however, are never simple. Last 
year, the Lake Michigan harvest sank to 
800,000 pounds. Ron PofT, a fish expert 
with the Wisconsin Department of Nat- 
ural Resources, blames the decline on 
“overexploitation of the whitefish popu- 
lation.” The whitefish have responded to 
the pressure by maturing faster, he says, 
but they can only take so much. 
Poflf represents only one of the many 
groups that care intensely about white- 
fish in Lake Michigan. The state of 
Michigan bears an equal legal responsi- 
bility for the lake. It differs officially 
with Wisconsin over the respective con- 
servational merits of gill netting versus 
trap netting. Commercial fishermen 
have their points of view. Tribal Indians 
fish the same waters under a separate 
set of rules and privileges. Meanwhile, 
the ordinary consumer, given half a 
At a Wisconsin fish boil, left, 
Russ Ostrand adds potatoes to a 
caldron of boiling water. Meanwhile, 
guests at the White Gull Inn, right, 
wait for the thick whitefish steaks 
to be added and the meal to begin. 
chance, will eat fresh whitefish again and 
again with insatiable zest. And as long 
as there is whitefish to catch in Lake 
Michigan, people will throng to Door 
County, Wisconsin, to feast on whitefish 
at a traditional Wisconsin fish boil. 
There are plenty of other reasons to 
visit Door County in the summer. The 
end of a big peninsula stretching out into 
Lake Michigan, it is a rural paradise of 
Holstein cows and cornfields and cherry 
orchards with a water view, all only an 
hour’s drive from gritty Green Bay. On 
my way through the county last sum- 
mer, I stopped to pick a bucket of tart 
pie cherries at one of the commercial 
orchards that invite amateurs in to pick 
what they need for a modest price. Spe- 
cial folding wooden ladders planted in 
the sandy soil permit the picker to reach 
whatever point in the tree he wants. 
Large families were contentedly filling 
long strings of buckets. 
In Sturgeon Bay, I bought smoked 
whitefish for $2.75 a pound at a market 
that does its own smoking out back over 
maple, imparting a mild flavor to the 
fish’s flesh, which is more delicate than 
the smoking done for shipping to New 
York deli counters. 
In the resort village of Fish Creek, I 
headed for Jan and Andy Coulson’s 
White Gull Inn, a white clapboard 
building dating back to 1896, which has 
landmark status in Wisconsin. There I 
sat down on the patio in back to watch 
Russ Ostrand preside over the best- 
known fish boil in the county. 
Russ is a big, warm fellow who works 
in a shipyard in Sturgeon Bay and liter- 
ally moonlights as a chef and strolling 
accordionist at outdoor banquets. In the 
winter, he runs coon feeds and venison 
feeds for hunters and civic groups. But 
in the summer, on Wednesdays and 
weekend nights, he concentrates on fish 
boils and gives hundreds of tourists a 
taste of what life was like in the old 
Wisconsin lumber camps where fish 
boils began. 
The method is simple, quick, and 
requires nothing more than an ample 
95 
