welcome to a fine new GL web site/blog

I'm pleased to see the community has now expanded with what seems to be a first-rate site:

http://www.greatlakescountry.com/.

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[Eric Hjerstedt Sharp]

A great tour when you get up to northern Wisconsin

The northwoods beckons us. It’s cultural, geographic and biological history unique. Yet many residents and visitors see only what is obvious. Few of us have the background to really comprehend the idiosyncrasies that surround us in this complex environ.

David Thorson and Nancy Frank are out to change that, and are bringing their knowledge of forestry, archeology, cultural history and watershed ecology to both visitors and local alike with their new venture: Down To Earth Tours of Gordon, Wis.

Most of all they tell stories of the great northwoods.

Applying the elements of eco-tourism, they have devised three tours which leave behind the run-of-the mill tourist trap sights and head to the little-known, but more exciting locales which even nearby residents know little about, such as a copper mine near Barnes on the border of Bayfield and Douglas counties, the true origin of the legend of Hiawatha and the meaning of glacial history written in the eskers, moraines and kames throughout the region.

“People come up here to look at the scenery and to fish,” Thorson said. “But they don’t know the land.” Yet even locals can benefit from taking our tours.”

A forester in Idaho for more than two decades, Thorson was born and raised in Cumberland and now lives outside Barnes on more than 500 acres of relatively undisturbed forest his family purchased more than 50 years ago. Frank, on the other hand, has a wealth of experience in filming and producing outdoor adventures throughout the north. Together, they planned a sophisticated hands-on educational experience which is also highly enjoyable.

Last Friday, this writer was fortunate to tag along with about eight others on Down To Earth’s Headwater Tour. Other four-hour trips are the Portage Tour and the Big Lakes Tour. Having spent my youth and a good portion of my adulthood in the Wisconsin northwoods, I was surprised at how much I didn’t know about this area – and at the woodlore I didn’t even know I didn’t know.

Many of us have heard the story about Chief Namakagon’s perchance for paying for everything in silver, and the rumors of a lost silver mine somewhere in the southern part of Bayfield County. However, Thorson pointed out where the likelihood of the mine wouldn’t be and – with an educated guess – where silver could possibly be. (For more than 150 years, the lost silver mine has never been found, but that doesn’t mean there’s no lost mine, Thorson said.)

A trip to an abandoned copper mine, hidden among giant pines and down little-traveled dirt roads was one of the highlights of the trip. Near the Thorson residence, only the sign “Cooper Mine Road” gives any indication of the deep shaft up the hill.

It’s amazing how few locals in this immediate area know of the mine,” Thorson said. “But it was an important part of the country’s copper production decades ago.”

The Down To Earth Tour’s Dodge bus seats 15, and while driving is kept to a minimum, Thorson refers to the many maps and academic articles in the guidebook compiled especially for the tours. A stop in Seeley, just a couple hundred feet off the highway reveals a short quarter-mile walk through the one of the few ‘old growth’ stands in the area. Relying on his years of experience with the U.S. Forest Service, he explained the economy and ecology of estimating the worth of individual stands, and showed us how to measure the height of a white pine.

“This pine here was probably hit by lightning,” Thorson said, pointing to a crack that ran vertical almost to the top of the tree. “It wouldn’t be economical to take this tree down. It would cost more than it was worth, as only a few boards could be taken from the rest of the tree.”

Thorson sheds light on the importance of the explorations and writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who led an expedition searching for the headwaters of the Mississippi River: Itasca Lake. The popular poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, he said, got the entire story of Hiawatha through Schoolcraft’s writing. And Schoolcraft created the first map that outlined – with amazing accuracy – the routes and portages he and other early explorers and voyageurs used in reaching the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers.

“And he did it all from memory,” Thorson said. “They didn’t have the instruments and aerial surveys we use today, of course.”

Most of us are introduced to the study of glaciers and their importance to Wisconsin land formation in primary school, yet Thorson’s approach and explanation simplified for me this fascinating subject. He pointed out specific land formations from the bus that typify examples of glacial elements which are so much a part of the Badger State’s recent geological history.

Mt. Telemark, for example, Bayfield County’s highest point, is a excellent example of a glacial kame, with eskers and kettles in the area as well. Before branding the study of glaciers dry and academic, consider that last year’s discovery of the Silver Beach Elk in Middle Eau Claire Lake near Barnes and the stone spearhead found nearby could point to human habitation in what is now Bayfield County at a time when the glaciers were active.

Many other topics were explored in the four hours of Down To Earth’s “Northwoods Magical History Tour” Starting and ending at the Hayward Chamber of Commerce parking lot, the tours are designed specifically for each participant, and no one tour will ever be the same, Thorson said. Eventually, Thorson and Frank want to guide a tour six days a week, with Mondays off.

To reserve a tour, or for more information about Down To Earth Tours, phone 715-376-4260 or e-mail dthorson@centurytel.net. All tours leave at 9 a.m. and include lunch.