Together with the Door Peninsula, Washington Island forms a treacherous strait that connects Green Bay to the rest of Lake Michigan.

[5] The earliest records and maps of the French, with whom written history of the region begins, do not name the individual islands, but refer to them all as a group.

The names chosen depended on which group of Native Americans they found on the islands at the time.

This shortened form also appears as "Pous" and is at times erroneously confused with Puans, which refers to the Winnebago.

[7] Jonathan Carver, who traveled the area in the late 18th century, called them, simply, the Islands of the Grand Traverse.

Other members of the party included Maj. Talbot Chambers, John O'Fallon, and Joseph Kean.

[3] Because of a loophole exploited during Prohibition by the owner of Nelsen's Hall (one of the few bars on the island at the time), taking shots of Angostura Bitters is a local tradition.

[14][15] From 1896 to 1926, the economist Thorstein Veblen spent summers at his study cabin on Washington Island.

[18] In 1914, Washington Island was the setting for a juvenile fiction novel by Harry Lincoln Sayler under the pen name "Gordon Stuart".

[19] Washington Island hosts the Midwest region's largest lavender farm,[20] accompanied by a biennial festival held in summer.

[27] Washington Island has a humid continental climate[28] influenced to some degree by its offshore position in Lake Michigan.

This results in summer temperatures being moderated, seasonal lag being prevalent and winters being less cold than in western Wisconsin on the same latitude.