Poking Around in Minocqua

Poking Around in Minocqua
by Craig Mains

After spending nine days in Rhinelander, Chain was scheduled to spend four days working at a different hospital in the same system near Minocqua. Minocqua is about 28 miles from Rhinelander. Both are in Oneida County. Although they both started out as saw mill towns, Rhinelander became a papermill town and Minocqua became a tourist/outdoor recreation town.

Minocqua calls itself the Island City. At one time that was true. However, they have filled in a shallow section of the lake so that now, what was once an island is now a peninsula. The central downtown area is mostly on the "island," but parts of the town are both north and south of it, splitting the town into three segments.

I can see why the area became a tourist attraction, especially for those with boats. Minocqua Lake is connected to at least four other lakes, which together are referred to as the Minocqua Chain. Anyone with a boat could fish and explore all of the lakes in the chain.

There is an incredible density of lakes in northern Wisconsin. The state has documented more than 15,000 lakes. Just in northern Wisconsin there are more than 2300 lakes that are larger than 25 acres. Many of the lakes have no outlets and are not connected to other water bodies (at least on the surface). That makes it a little confusing to delineate individual watersheds. The Minocqua Chain, however, is tributary to the Tomahawk River, which flows into the Wisconsin River.

Map Source: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Downtown Minocqua, for some reason, has a lot of mock Tudor facades, which I assume someone thought would appeal to tourists. Minocqua is said to double in population in the summer. I overhead people in two different stores saying they weren't ready for tourist season. I was glad we were there before it started.

Fishing season opened while we were in Minocqua, but there didn't seem to be that many people there to fish---perhaps because the lakes in the Minocqua chain were restricted to catch-and-release fishing because the state Department of Natural Resources had determined the walleye population had declined.

More tudor-esque shop fronts.

There was one whole block that had been recently renovated or rebuilt to look like old-timey buildings. Inside it looked like it was mostly all one interconnected mini-mall of gift shops.

I think you pretty much know it is a tourist town if there is a shop that sells nothing but fudge.

I did find this former Minocqua Community Building interesting, even though from far away it looked like a plain, boxy commercial building.

Closer up, I could see that the bricks all had a textured section in the middle and were just slightly different colors. I didn't see any of this type of brick on any other buildings.

This created a diagonal pattern you can see in the upper left. The Community Building signage is glazed terra cotta, made in seven separate sections. It was built in 1927. Minocqua has a new Community Center so the Community Building is now empty and for sale.

The best thing about staying in Minocqua was that the trailhead for the Bearskin State Trail was two blocks from the hotel. I liked that I could walk over for a hike without having to get in the car.The trail is the former bed of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, often referred to as the Milwaukee Road. The bed of the trail is a pinkcolored crushed granite.

Some typical scenery along the Bearskin Trail. The scenery was a combination of woodlands, lakes, bogs, and vernal pools. There was still some snow in places, but, the weather had warmed up compared to what it was like in Rhinelander.

The railroad was originally laid out to transport lumber to the urban areas in the south, but passenger service began in the 1880s. After all the trees had been cut, the railroad started promoting tourism to keep the rail line profitable. By 1919, they ran a "Fisherman's Special" that left Chicago in the early evening on Fridays, arrived in Minocqua for breakfast on Saturday, departed in mid-afternoon on Sunday, and returned to Chicago at 2:00 am on Monday. The Fisherman's Special operated from 1919 to 1948, except during World War II.

Passenger service from Chicago declined after World War II as highways were built and car ownership became common. The state acquired part of the railroad right-of-way in 1972 and by 1977 the trestles had been planked, the bed resurfaced, and it was opened for hiking, biking, and snowmobiling.

I could hear a chorus of frogs off in the distance at this location. Based on the recordings of frog songs, I think they were either Northern Leopard Frogs or Pickerel Frogs, most likely the former. At another location I could hear spring peepers and at a third location---Wood Frogs. It was something of a frog symphony. I think I lucked out with the timing.

I got out on the trail every day that we were in Minocqua. That meant it was an out-and-back walk each day. The benefit of taking the same walk was that I got a pretty good idea of where I was more likely to see some wildlife. Then I could be sure to walk more quietly when I approached those areas. That wasn't easy because the granite trail bed was kind of crunchy.

A view of part of Lake Kawaguesaga, as seen from the trail. Being in Rhinelander and Minocqua at the opening of fishing season exposed me to the latest chapter of the Walleye Wars. (I spent part of one particularly windy day in the Rhinelander Public Library and read about it in the local newspaper.)

The Chippewa tribes of northern Wisconsin ceded large chunks of land to the federal government in 1837 and 1842 in what would later become the state of Wisconsin. As part of the treaty, the six Chippewa tribes (also referred to as the Ojibwe) were granted the rights to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice, not just within the boundaries of their reservations but within the entire ceded territory.

When Wisconsin became a state in 1848, state politicians assumed that the rights of the state took priority over Indian treaty rights and tried to limit and regulate Chippewa hunting and fishing. The Chippewas sued and their treaty rights were confirmed---although not fully until 1983.

The Chippewas have the right not just to hunt, fish, and gather within the ceded territories. They also are able to determine how many deer or fish they want to harvest in a given year independently of the Wisconsin DNR, which is where the conflict arises, especially, it seems, when it comes to walleyes. The Chippewas annually make a declaration of how many walleyes and muskies they plan to harvest from each lake they plan to fish in. Some non-Indians have protested that the Chippewas, who set themselves an annual limit, rather than a daily limit, are taking too many fish. There have been episodes of harrassment of Chippewa fishermen at public boat ramps. The Chippewas, who usually use spears or gillnets to fish, respond that they are just as concerned about maintaining sustainable fishing as the Wisconsin DNR is. The tribes jointly operate their own fish hatcheries and stock significantly more fish each year than they harvest.

This map shows the outline of the Ceded Territory in northern Wisconsin. It covers all or parts of 30 Wisconsin counties. (It also laps over into several counties in both eastern Minnesota and the western part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.) In Wisconsin, the Ceded Territory, covering about 22,000 square miles, is roughly one third of the entire area of the state.

There was something of a rekindled controversy when we were in Minocqua because the nearby Lac du Flambeau tribe of Chippewas had declared their intentions to harvest 1288 walleyes from the Minocqua chain of lakes even though the Wisconsin DNR had restricted the lakes to catch-and-release fishing for the last several years because of their assessment that the fishery was declining.

While we were staying in Minocqua we were usually up early so Chain could get to work but we took advantage of the free hotel breakfast. There was usually one other person there while we were eating and one day I noticed he was wearing a T-shirt that read "Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission." I asked him about the conflict and he said that his group, which was funded jointly by the six Chippewa tribes, was conducting its own assessment of the Minocqua chain and the results of their electroshocking showed the lakes were doing better than what the Wisconsin DNR claimed. He said they have concern when the walleye population gets down between two to four walleyes per acre but they were finding about 11 per acre. He thought the fishery had recovered enough to support some harvesting. The 1288 walleyes declared by the Lac du Flambeau tribe for the Minocqua chain work out to a little more than 0.2 of a walleye per acre.

I asked him what he thought about the claims that Indians were hogging fish. He said, although the Indians aren't required to, they document every single fish they catch---recording weight, length, sex, and where it was caught, and they voluntarily share the information with the Wisconsin DNR. He told me that the total number of fish caught each year is unknown because non-Indians aren't required to document their catch. Although the total number of fish caught by Indians might sound like a lot because the declarations are often in the thousands, he said, the tribes never actually harvest as many as they declare. He thought the amount of fish harvested by the tribes was a small fraction of that taken by non-Indian sportsmen.

Map Source: Wisconsin Bureau of Facilities and Lands

There were numerous ephemeral, vernal ponds like this one, which was down over the bank from the trail. The frog chorus at this one was especially loud. I decided I wanted to get closer, but of course they all immediately went silent. There was no way to sneak up on them walking through dry leaves. I found a log by the edge and just sat motionless and waited. After about fifteen minutes (it seemed longer than that) they came back out, a few at a time, and started chorusing again.

Based on their appearance and their song I'm pretty sure they were Wood Frogs---they sounded similar to ducks quacking. Wood frogs, unlike most other frogs, sing while they are swimming around. After they came back out, I could clearly see them singing as they swam.

Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) are known for their exceptional tolerance of cold temperatures. Unlike other frogs, which mostly hibernate on the bottoms of ponds where the temperature stays around the freezing point, Wood Frogs hibernate on land under a shallow layer of leaf litter where the temperatures can go well below zero [1]. Wood frogs have evolved unique physical properties that keep their vital organs from being damaged through multiple cycles of freezing and thawing, even when their blood is frozen solid.

They are considered one of the more common frogs in Wisconsin and their conservation status is of "least concern." However, some wildlife biologists feel that could change quickly because they have more complicated habitat requirements than other frogs. They require vernal pools for breeding but may travel up to a 1000 meters from their birth place to summer in moist ravines, woodlands, or in freshwater swamps. Their winter hibernacula are then usually in a totally different area. So, they are at some risk due to forest fragmentation from residential and commercial development. The tadpoles are sensitive to road salt runoff.

The pond was full of frog eggs.The female Wood Frogs tend to lay their eggs in the same areas. I believe the two masses of smaller, black eggs on the left and the right are the Wood Frog eggs. I don't know what kind the larger, lighter colored eggs in the middle are.

I saw beavers every day but usually just about the time I got ready to take a snap shot they would dive under. This was the best I could do.

I spotted many of these guys, which I believe are Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta). They are the most common turtle in Wisconsin. Painted turtles are quite sociable---I never saw them that they weren't basking in groups, sometimes several in a group.

There are two subspecies of Painted Turtles in Wisconsin---the Midland Painted Turtle and the Western Painted Turtle. It is hard to say for sure, but it almost looks like both are present in this photo. The Western Painted Turtle usually has an orange to reddish-colored plastron (the underside part of the shell) with a darker "oakleaf" pattern on it. You can't see much of the plastron of the turtle in front but what you can see looks like a Western Painted Turtle. The one in the middle looks more like a Midland Painted Turtle, which has a pale yellow plastron with a fainter pattern on it. The two subspecies can interbreed with offspring having characteristics of both parents, so it is possible that these two might show intermediate characteristics if they were more closely examined.

May 2023

Footnotes

Sources

The Bearskin Trail

Ceded Territory - Wisconsin DNR

Frogs and Toads of Wisconsin

Herps of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources

Ojibwe Treaty Rights

Painted Turtle - Wikipedia

Wood Frog - Wikipedia

 

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