The Algoma Sport Fishing Mural

Some murals tell a story from the town’s past. This one is the town introducing itself. In big showcard lettering it reads “Algoma welcomes you to… the Sportfishing Capital of the Great Lakes,” over a leaping salmon and a medallion of the red lighthouse, with a tagline running along the bottom: sun, waves, trout & salmon.

The claim on the wall

The claim is Algoma’s own, and the town has spent decades earning it. The charter fleet working out of the harbor made Algoma a Lake Michigan trout and salmon destination, and sport fishing is still the anchor of the visitor economy. Fittingly, this is the one wall in the 2007 set sponsored by the Algoma Area Chamber of Commerce, the organization whose whole job is saying welcome.

The Walldog Wave’s murals honor Algoma history and businesses from before 1960, and most of the set looks backward. This one is the exception that proves the rule: it paints the town’s present-day identity in the same period hand-lettered style as its history, so the welcome sign and the ghost signs read as one family.

Who painted it

The project leading artist was Andy Goretski of Tomahawk, Wisconsin, one of the Walldog crew leads at the June 2007 meet. The Main Street Program’s walking-tour brochure lists the wall as entry A in the lettered mural key, credited to Goretski and sponsored by the Chamber.

Stewardship

In September 2021, Yonder put a fresh coat on this wall, the first of the Walldog set to be restored. The money came the most Algoma way possible: an unofficial “Friends of” effort spearheaded by Kevin Naze, the local outdoor guide and nature photographer and journalist, who drummed up the funding from the fishermen themselves, along with local businesses and individuals. Ahnapee Construction lent the scaffolding, Mike Lardinois helped set it up, and David Carpenter painted alongside us. A welcome sign for a fishing town, kept bright by the people it welcomes.

The Walldog Wave

Over three days in June 2007, more than one hundred Walldogs, the international guild of mural and sign painters who keep the old hand-lettering craft alive, painted ten murals on historic downtown Algoma buildings. The event was conceived through the Algoma Main Street Program’s preservation work and coordinated by local Walldog Dave Petri. This register documents every wall in the set.

If you painted here in 2007, or have photographs from that week, we would genuinely like to hear from you.

Sources

• Historic Algoma Walking Tour, Volume II (Algoma Main Street Program brochure; ed. Leon Raether)
• Door County Pulse: A Community’s Vision, the Murals of Algoma (2018)
• The Walldogs, past events: Walldog Wave, Algoma 2007 (via Internet Archive)
• Algoma Area Chamber of Commerce, Mural Trail Map (July 2025)