(fiddle music) - This is our great grandpa and grandma.

Francois.

That's "Francis" of course, but... Francois Evrard.

And her name was Florentine Patris.

- In 1853, the first of thousands of Belgian immigrants began to settle in southern Door, Brown, and Kewaunee counties.

- And they created an ethnic island, here in northeast Wisconsin.

- They were persuaded to settle in the area by Father Edward Daems, a Catholic priest who spoke the Belgian language of Walloon.

- The reason that they all came here was the language.

It was a cultural element that made it so appealing.

(speaking in Walloon) - Grandma only talked Walloon, so I still talked with her, and I'm glad I did.

And my mother and I talked Walloon.

The day she died, we still had a conversation in Walloon.

- The land had not been settled for good reason.

It was heavily forested, and it was just a very difficult place to make a living.

But they persevered.

(speaking in Walloon) - As the Belgians cleared their land, they also produced wooden shingles to bring in much-needed cash, and built a dock to transport goods.

- Years ago, there was a boat by the name of the Dennessen .

And they'd take their shingles and a cow, or anything they had, to haul it.

They'd take it down to Green Bay.

They'd put it on the boat, and then the people, some people want to come visit their relatives up here.

They'd take the boat and they'd go down over there, and then, vice versa.

(fire roaring) - In 1871, on the same night as the Chicago Fire, the Great Peshtigo Fire swept up both sides of Green Bay.

A dry forest and high winds whipped small fires into an inferno, that spread through the Belgian community.

(horse whinnying frantically) - Wind came up and ignited all of these small fires to become one big fire, and it just kept growing and growing, and it was like a tornado of fire.

(fire roaring) - My great grandfather and great grandmother grabbed woolen blankets, and they were going down into the well.

And the fire went over them and on the side of them.

And they came out of the well, and said they looked around, and all they could see was burned land.

There was nothing-- There was nothing left of what they had worked so hard to do.

- With many killed, and hundreds homeless, the Belgians slowly began to rebuild their farms on the rocky, burned over land, and made the most of the resources that were left.

- Now any forest fire: it will destroy the foliage, it will char the bark, but it won't consume the tree.

And so the Belgians spent winters rescuing timber.

And then, a building boom took place here.

Those are log houses.

They covered them with locally-made brick.

Now, we don't have to go to Quebec, or we don't have to go to Europe to see classic examples of folk architecture.

It's right here in northeast Wisconsin.

♪ ♪ - There are small little chapels dotted along the Belgian countryside here.

It is a practice that was brought from the old country.

- The chapels, in their interior, have some characteristics.

A alter at the end of the very small room, and then a number of artifacts on the alter.

Tremendous symmetry.

They were an important part of the religious fabric of the area.

The Belgians are very religious.

A lot of the life then and a lot of life today revolves around the local parishes.

- I lived right next door, so I'd have to come to church... ...a lot.

They'd send me: "Oh, you'd better go to church today."

"It's a good day for you to go to church, or..." - We were all Catholic.

The Lutheran-- You didn't-- You didn't marry a Luth-- outside your religion.

I know when I was in high school, my mother didn't even want me to have a friend that was not Catholic.

As Wisconsinites, we know that we have a plethora of ethnic islands here.

But most of them have eroded, and lost their identity.

The Belgians have not.

- I guess the thing of the people staying together, working together, because they always worked.

The thrashing crew was made up of all your neighbors, everybody came to help.

No matter what, you always had people to help, they helped one other.

- We had a bunch of men come over with big poles, and they put up the barn.

And that night, the rafters are up, and a big storm came, and blew it down.

And all the neighbors came over the following day.

They all pitched in, took all the boards apart, took the nails out of the boards, and two days after, the barn was back up.

All the neighbors came and helped.

- They worked hard, they played hard.

Good times, dances, and maybe when there were weddings or funerals-- Funerals were big things, really big things.

Everyone just seemed to be happy around here.

You could visit with people, and... - The ethnic island that they defined within the area of northeast Wisconsin still exists.

They have retained their ties with each other on this land for that many years.

And that's just remarkable.