Three Days on the Flowage
We were lost within minutes of gearing up canoes and launching the fleet from a remote gravel landing. Shortly we were plowing through marsh grass, high reeds and swarms of mating dragonflies. A heavy bass splashed from under a lily pad and swiped at a pair of the winged lovers.
It took an hour of looking at the map, gauging the angle of the sun and relative wind direction not to mention good-natured bickering in our canoe. It started to sink in, like Bugs Bunny once said, that we “shoulda taken that left toin at Albukoykee.”
My navigator shouted out an opening ahead. It turned out to be a delusional mirage consisting of more weeds and sunken trees. No cell phone signal-I stowed the useless thing back in my waterproof pack. Heavy bushes scraped along the sides of the canoe hulls. Back up, look at the map-realize the mistake and turn around.
Navigating the channels of the Turtle-Flambeau.
Blossoming in every direction were 14,000 acres of water and 195 islands that popped from every angle; Islands ranging from tiny birch and pine outcroppings to mammoth stretches of forest near impossible to distinguish from the mainland.
We were searching for a campsite to spend the next three days, designated to meet up with others in the swirling islands and waters, including a scattering of Boy Scouts from Troop 840 in Grafton and an assortment of other venturesome explorers from the Ozaukee County area.
But while 18 people in nine different canoes left the landing with us, everyone intent on trying their own custom routes, now there were only two of us paddling through endless channels, and no sign of our companions.
We’d get there eventually-maybe. Time and miles of remote water lay before us. After enough miles, our backs might ache from paddling, but time had no real meaning here. The Turtle-Flambeau Flowage is like that.
Adam Schacht of Grafton pulls in a nice smallmouth bass
Spread across northern Wisconsin’s Iron County, the Turtle Flambeau Flowage is as close to traversing the waters of the Canadian Shield as you can get without waiting in line for a border check. Springing to life just south of the town of Mercer, it rolls out just as rugged and scenic. Around any given bend, the mind wanders to images of moose drinking along the shoreline and elk crashing off through the brush, barring the fact that the flowage didn’t even exist when moose and elk still roamed free across the northern realms of the state. Indeed, this piece of water was custom crafted by the modern hand of man.
In 1926, a dam was built below the forks of the Flambeau and Turtle Rivers to supply hydro-electric power for paper companies downstream in Park Falls. It backed up the river flow, flooding sixteen natural lakes and acres of lowland forest. And while I tend to think that messing with Mother Nature only leads to problems down the road, when the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage was created, it became a thing of beauty.
The DNR now manages the flowage, stretching over 35,500 with 114 miles of mainland shoreline. There are 66 remote campsites accessible only by water, 60 of which are available at no fee on a first come first serve basis. Six of the campsites accommodate larger groups and require advance registration.
Our canoe was slowly winding headed for a set of reserve campsites on Big Island at the western end of the Flowage. Eventually we happened across the rest of our party who were soaking in the sun and checking their own maps in a quiet bay, splashing in the shallows and filling up on water from the jugs we’d brought from home.
It should be noted that we had the bulk of the food in our canoe, while they had the water jugs. It was inevitable that we seek out the practicality of running with the pack. Besides, someone was carrying the water filters among the gear. With no available drinking supply in the heart of the flowage, when the packed-in water ran out, we would be forced to filter our own.
Seven hours after embarking, we finally navigated through to our camp and set up for three days on the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage. Sore bottoms and backs and blisters on our paddling hands were worth it, because what followed was a wilderness experience in a wild land of islands, bays and stretching water that is near impossible to put down through words and pictures. It was hard to believe we were still in Wisconsin.
Moonrise over the flowage.
Mornings and evenings were given to gliding shadowed bays for fish. The Turtle-Flambeau boasts healthy populations of walleye, bass, panfish and perch along with northern pike, musky and sturgeon. There were plenty for the fry pan. Coupled with crisp slab bacon over the coals of a fire, picking a fresh fillet apart with a knife and washing it down with a healthy draught of filtered flowage water was table fare fit for a king.
After the first day of wandering navigation, I never left camp without a map and compass. Thus fortified, I took solo excursions into a maze of islands and coves, exploring and wading the rocky points with a fly rod, catching smallmouth bass from remote places that may have never witnessed a deep running fly streamer. An occasional boat motored by in a deep channel. Otherwise there existed only the silence of the wind in the island pines and the soft waves breaking on the rocks.
Out of the flowage and into the frying pan.
Eagles watched from the crags of birch tress, curious at the intrusion, possibly looking for an undersized fish to be thrown back for their own dinner. Loons howled long into the night under a full moon that glimmered across the islands. One late afternoon, a solitary deer wandered from the bottoms and walked by unconcerned. I could have touched the doe with a paddle.
Bays of sunken trees rose up like ancient graveyards, whole forests submerged by the simple act of putting mortar and rock in the path of a mighty river junction. It was easily the most diverse watershed I have ever encountered in Wisconsin.
We left the Turtle-Flambeau in a swirling mist, heading out by a shorter route and to a different landing. The wind rolled up a head of steam from the vast southern waters of the flowage. Whitecaps shipped over the sides of the fully loaded canoes, until we finally hit relief in the shelter of an island set. No canoes went down, but the soaked gear that came out of the boats when we finally limped down the home stretch into the landing showed it was a close call.
It was as if the waters of the Turtle-Flambeau didn’t want to let us go, screaming through wind and waves to tell us we had only scratched the surface of the secrets it wanted to reveal.
Now, there’s really no way to know if the wind-swept ride out of the flowage portended anything at all. I expect the only way to be certain, points to getting lost again in the island channels of the Turtle-Flambeau.