This
is a 2023 reprint of Canoeing the Brule in Winter that
contains numerous updates plus some facts that richly enhance this
curious adventure story.
First,
the geographical location: Lake Superior is 604 feet above sea level
nearly centered in North America. It is largest of the five fresh
water Great Lakes with a depth of more than 1300 feet. Its depth
reaches to 700 feet below sea level.
It
is truly a significant body of water and noticeably affects the
surrounding weather.
I
still remember the weatherman commenting at the end of his weather
forecasts “cooler near the lake.”
Near
Lake Superior it was so much cooler that we jokingly said “We hope
that summer would come on Sunday.”
The
following 2013 story by John M. Grimsrud has been updated to reflect the latest subject
matter.
“A boat trip down
the Brule is an experience never to be forgotten. One may start at
Stone’s Landing, first going upstream a short distance to see the
Blue Spring, then down through Rainbow Bend, Cedar Island, Wild Cat
Rapids, Ashland Lake, Winneboujou, Bayfield Bridge, Club House Falls
and dozens of other scenic spots. One gets a thrill out of shooting
the rapids and dreams of the sturdy voyagers who traveled this route
back in the seventeenth century.”
Leigh P Jerrard, The
Brule River of Wisconsin, 1956.
The Brule River is
an extraordinarily pristine spring-fed river in northwestern
Wisconsin. It empties into Lake Superior.
The Brule River has
been used as a transportation link dating back into antiquity. First
by the ancient mound builders, and then by countless indigenous
tribes that followed.
The
first verifiable commercial use of the Brule River: Amazingly
the Indigenous left a distinct confirmable trail from the rich
copper deposits of Upper Michigan, then
up the Brule River that connects Lake Superior via a portage
at the continental divide to Upper Lake St. Croix, the St. Croix
River that then flows southward to the Mississippi River to the Gulf
of Mexico. There they found an eager buyer for the copper. The
Chontal Maya of Mexico had built an extensive trading network selling
sea salt from Yucatan across the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea,
and from South America to North America.
These Chontal Maya,
descendants of the Olmec who had numerous discoveries that included
Indian corn and the ingenious processing procedure known as
nixtamalization that made corn digestible for humans, chocolate,
potatoes, squash, and beans along with a multitude of drugs in use to
this day.
That distinctive
copper from Upper Michigan has been identified in museums of ancient
artifacts.
Now to present times
and the Brule River:
Daniel Greysolon Du
Lhut was the first white man to ascend the Brule and leave a record
of his passage. He was soon followed by others: fur traders,
missionaries in quest for Indian souls, pioneers, sportsmen,
immigrants and
adventurers.
Until the lumbermen
came, beginning in the 1850s, to clear cut the virgin pine forests
not leaving a tree for a bird to sit in, the land, forests, rivers
and ecology remained pristine. Beaver and buffalo were happy, healthy
and abundant.
One thing that
helped save the Brule was the fact the Brule River valley was deemed
to difficult to log. Luckily a man named Pierce bought it, built a
fish hatchery, small lumber mill and lodge, leaving the rest in
wilderness. When he passed on, the Ordway family continued the
ecological conservation to this day forestalling the destruction of
this unique ecosystem.
President FDR with
his Civilian conservation Corp (CCC) put in stacked stone wing dams
to maintain sufficient water depth for canoeing the Brule even in
drought years. The area water table had declined as northern Wisconsin
was denuded of its virgin pine forests.
I have canoed on the
Brule every month of the year except December.
Years ago before the
sound of screaming snowmobiles and roaring chain saws slaughtered the
silent winter sanctity, I found one of the most enchantingly
beautiful things to do was to slip a canoe off the untouched snow
covered river bank into the pure unspoiled water of the Brule at a
place called Stone’s Bridge Landing.
The river is fed by
icy cold spring waters originating up in high sand country. These
continually flowing springs are what make it possible to canoe in
northern Wisconsin in the winter. It is part of the southern
continental divide of Lake Superior, and it is the only open river
water in the area in the winter season.
One clear bright
sunny March day back in the mid 1950’s when the noontime
temperature inched into the thirties and springtime felt tangible, an
adventure was launched.
My five young and
somewhat reckless companions on the escapade were Don Frye, his two
cousins Bud and Jerry Bunt, Dave Smith, and Dave Olson.
On that day that
felt like spring, we slipped three canoes into the icy river waters
at Stone’s Bridge Landing for the 23 mile down river trip to the
town of Brule. It was sunny and bright in this land of sky blue
waters, and the sun felt like a long lost friend that had come back
to visit after a brutal northern Wisconsin winter.
In the shade along
the banks the drooping cedar trees that stand tall and sprawling next
to the sparkling clear river waters cast their shadows down on places
where the water runs slow. There a sheet of ice speckled with
sparkling snowflakes could still be found.
We departed silently
into a quiet world and glided along this enchanted waterway.
As we effortlessly
drifted downstream, the thin ice crackled as it fractured and broke
from the wake of the canoes. The winter silence was so enchantingly
striking it made us all want to whisper.
In this polar
deep-freeze, even with the friendly sun beating down upon us, we
noticed our canoe paddles thickening with each stroke. They caked
with layered ice similar to a candle being dipped in wax.
The first sixteen
miles of river is relatively calm with easy going waters.
Lofty balsams,
stately cedars, and towering pines blanketed in deep drifted snow
where whitetail deer alerted by our presence stood statue still made
this wilderness magical.
The river pace picks
up with a few rapids that shoot through rocky twisting narrows in the
last seven miles of the sixteen mile long upper portion of the river
between Stone’s Bridge Landing and the Winneboujou Bridge at
Highway B. This part takes about five leisurely hours to traverse.
In the last seven
miles between the Winneboujou Bridge and the town of Brule at Highway
2, the pace picks up perceptibly. Navigation of the rapids requires
undivided attention and decisive split-second canoe handling
abilities. This portion of the river can easily be made in less than
an hour due to the spirited speed of the current as it tumbles
through a rock strewn twisted corridor picking up momentum on its way
down to Lake Superior.
At this time of year
in these northern latitudes the sun is on the horizon and headed down
about four-thirty in the afternoon.
It was late in the
day, and we were racing to the end of our trip. I was in the lead
canoe with Dave Olson when we entered a particularly treacherous
stretch of river, the Long Nebagamon Rapids.
These rapids cascade
continuously for almost a mile and at one point in the torrents the
river makes an abrupt ninety-degree turn to the left with a straight
up and down wall on both sides. The canoe must be turned well in
advance of the corner or a disastrous collision with the wall will be
inevitable.
This time the
situation was made even more treacherous by the fact that over the
course of the winter the river had frozen. Then next the water level
dropped and left a shelf of ice protruding out from the wall a foot
and a half above the water level. A canoe could easily slip under.
The first two canoes
just made it. In the last canoe Don Frye and Bud Bunt rounded the
corner. Bud, seated in the bow, reached out to fend off a collision
with the ice shelf, but the powerful force of the water carried them
under, and they capsized.
There was no escape
from this raging cauldron of icy river water in those churning rapids
until a half-mile downstream. At the bottom of these rapids, a
calm-water pond converged with Nebagamon Creek.
As soon as Don and
Bud could escape the river, they did. Scurrying up and over the huge
snow drifted bank they began their life or death run through the
twilight woods…if they stopped or had attempted the other river
bank they surely would have frozen to death.
While they
frantically ran with all the youthful strength that they could muster
through the snow-covered heavily wooded forest, their clothing was
rapidly freezing stiffer and stiffer with every labored step they
took. Freezing to death was almost certain under these circumstances.
Their time was not
meant to come this day. Amazingly, the path they ran led them to a
small cabin with lights in the windows. They were mercifully taken in
to thaw and given warm dry clothing by strangers…two young girls
that were home alone.
Carl Pearson and his
family lived in the cabin. When Carl returned home, he found all six
of us huddled by the fire and pondering what to do next. With Carl’s
help we rounded up our cars and canoes.
Little did I know at
that time, but one of those merciful girls turned out to be a cousin
to the woman that I married some years later.
My wife Jane’s
uncle, Carl Pearson, was at the time the caretaker for Swiftwater
Farm, Elizabeth Congdon’s place on the Brule River. Carl Pearson
was a guide on the Brule River. He knew the river well. He marveled
that we had all survived our folly.
Swiftwater Farm on the famous Brule River in September 2008, the
place where the winter canoe adventure ended.
John La Rock and Carl Pearson, c. 1950s. John La Rock (1897-1960) was
a Metis Brule River fishing guide. He guided President Calvin
Coolidge when President Coolidge summered at Cedar Island Lodge on
the Brule River in 1928. John La Rock was the son-in-law of Antoine
Dennis (1852-1945), another well-know Metis river fishing guide.
John La Rock and President Calvin Coolidge on the Brule River, 1928.
Wisconsin Historical Society photo.
My wife Jane is pictured in 2008 with part of the famous somewhat
reckless canoe team years later at the Sundown Restaurant in
Maple, Wisconsin. Crew members and lifelong friends; John (Bing)
Grimsrud, Dave Smith, and Dave Olson.
My wife Jane Pearson Grimsrud, is a published author with three Brule
area books to her credit. Her family roots are tied to the Brule
River dating to her pioneering grandparents who relied on the river’s
water when they first settled near the Brule in Cloverland,
Wisconsin.
The Brule River has
been a large part of Jane’s life from childhood.
The following books
are available in paperback and digital editions worldwide: Lookingfor
a New Frontier, the Story of the Edwin Pearson Family, 2010, and
Brule
River Forest and Lake Superior: Cloverland Anecdotes, 2013.
My author's page on Amazon
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