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This is my favorite place in Wisconsin - the
Turtle/Flambeau Flowage. This 18,900 acre body of water
near Park Falls, WI envelopes roughly 200 islands. A
number of the islands offer campsites, but it's "first
come, first served" and you are not permitted to camp
other than at designated sites. Roughly 20% of the
flowage is designated as a "voluntary no-wake area" to
encourage more of a boundary waters experience for
paddlers and the like.
The flowage is very
treacherous for motor boats as it is littered with
submerged rocks and stumps. Ever changing water levels make
it even more challenging to navigate. As such, it tends
to receive less traffic from recreational boaters than
many other large bodies of water in the state. I'm often
one of the last campers
of the season on the flowage. More than once I've left
in snow, breaking through ice to get back to the launch. I heard wolves a number of times in
'00 and
every time I camped in '01, which was cool beyond
description! I only camped there 3x in '02 and wasn't
fortunate enough to hear wolves that year. No wolves yet
in '03 but much of the season is yet to unfold....
This is the Chippewa Flowage near Hayward,
Wisconsin. This roughly 15,000 acre flowage used to be
my favorite place to camp, but I've had too many bad
experiences with obnoxious boaters in recent years to
justify continuing to spend meaningful periods of time there. The
Chip, unlike the Turtle/Flambeau, is relatively easy to
safely navigate in a motor boat. The net result is that
anybody with access to a twelve-pack and a boat or a
jet-ski can ruin your outing with little effort. The DNR
presence there is all but non-existent, which doesn't
help from a supervisory standpoint. There are several
very nice restaurants on the flowage and the scenery is
gorgeous, so it's still a great place to kill a day on
occasion.
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This is a hiking expedition at Crex Meadows
Wildlife Area near Grantsburg, WI. This 25,000 acre
refuge is interlaced with gravel roads among a series of
dikes and flowages. Great waterfowl viewing in the
spring and fall!
The DNR re-introduced Trumpeter Swans to the
state around 1987 and they are reproducing nicely at
Crex Meadows. This is an adult breeding pair with six
cygnets, or "young of the year". Man, do they get big
quick! I had one of the "young of the year" stand on the
road next to my car once, and its foot was practically
as big around as a dinner plate! WOW! Crex
organizes a number of group wildlife events annually,
including a spring "Prairie Chicken dance" viewing, and
periodic bird-banding events, etc.
The weather's not always nice on The Turtle but
we always have a great time! :D
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