Displayed here are just a few of the items from the Latsch Island Boathouse community archives that were collected by John Rupkey over the course of four decades, including handmade maps, calendars and weather records, personal journals, and some of the documentation of the struggles with bureaucracy.
BOATHOUSES, AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
For the nearly two decades preceding the Winona Boathouse Association becoming incorporated in 1996, the residents of the Latsch Island boathouse community had to organize to fight various bureaucracy that threatened their way of life. Pictured are some of the documents that demonstrated the different ways the grassroots collective came together to lobby for their lifestyle, by way of hosting events, meetings, letter campaigning, and mapping out the history of their island community.
JOHN RUPKEY’S PERSONAL ARCHIVE
Along with maintaining his extensive archive of the Latsch Island boathouse documents, John Rupkey also documented his personal journey, one that paralleled the development of the island community that he transitioned into when he came out as gay in 1979.
LIFE ON LATSCH ISLAND
As the boathousers came up with unconventional ways to live off the grid, the small community began to develop their own subculture on the island.
