- May 6
- 3 min read
For the first time ever I released a Magiford book that is based in a real life city/town! Midwest small towns have their own special personality and I've visited Algoma in the past so I want to tell you a little about it so you can get a better idea of the worldbuilding in my new book and some of the details I wasn't able to include!
Algoma is in the Northern part of the State and is located on the piece of Wisconsin that sticks out into Lake Michigan.
As a quick side note, Wisconsin is divided into counties, and most of that piece that sticks into Lake Michigan is Door County and is a huge tourist area in the summer and fall. Algoma is a little south of Door County and isn't as popular but it still has a huge seasonal tourist boom every summer/fall.
Lucky for us, Algoma has worked really hard in recent years to become super visitor friendly and they have lots of interesting information about their town available for you to look at online!
Algoma Visitor Guide
The town has published a very detailed visitor guide which you can download to learn more about the town and look at fun photos!
Places of Interest:
Algoma Visitor Center/Chamber of Commerce
Ahnapee Brewery
Caffe Tlazo
von Stiehl Winery
Crescent Beach Boardwalk
North Water Bakery and Deli
Harbor and Lighthouse
(You probably already guessed this but Beckett's mansion and lake house aren't based on real places. This area of the State doesn't really have many historic mansions because it was so rugged and hard to get to but there are plenty of them in the Milwaukee area!)
Algoma Webcam
If you want to get an idea of what the beach is like in Algoma the best thing to do is use their public webcam to get a live view! They even let you pick from different views so you can look at the beach, marina, lighthouse, etc.
(Managing the Vampire's Mansion takes place during the early summer so depending on what time of year you are checking the webcams the view may be very different from what the book describes!)
Lake Michigan
Since Algoma is located right on the shores of Lake Michigan many of the activities are centered around this huge body of water. Their main beach is called Crescent Beach and it has a beautiful boardwalk along the lakeshore.
But be warned! Lake Michigan is huge and the waves are no joke! Plus it also takes a long time to heat up every summer so the water is usually freezing until July or even August. Because of this I would not recommend planning to swim when visiting!
Fishing is very popular in Algoma and boat charters are a big part of tourism. Many of the women I met when I was checking out the town years ago were hanging out while their husbands were out fishing.
Cruise Ships on the Great Lakes
Did you know that smaller cruise ships spend the summer doing tours of the Great Lakes and stop at some of the towns?
I mention a cruise ship in the new book but I wanted to point out that it is true that Algoma is one of the main stops for some of these cruise ships! (This has only started happening in the last few years and when it was announced it created quite a storm of small town gossip in Northern Wisconsin!)
Random other Factoids:
The Algoma Chamber of Commerce visitor center is the direct inspiration for the Timber Ridge Visitor Center where Pip works in the Pack of Dawn and Destiny series.
The high school mascot is the Algoma wolves (see their logo below). Sadly, I didn't know this when I was writing the book so the fact that I featured a new wolf pack in Managing the Vampire's Mansion is a coincidence.
