Share Your Northwoods Story
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Remember summers at the family cabin? Did you learn to catch trout in a clear, cold forest stream? What does it feel like to ski silently under towering pines?
Wisconsin’s Northwoods mean something different to all of us, and every story from these woods is another reason they should be protected.
Please use the comments on this page to share your story of what the Northwoods mean to you. Your stories will help us protect Wisconsin’s threatened forests. You can contact us to share photos or other information.
Tags: Forest Preservation, Northwoods Preservation, Wisconsin
November 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
When my grandfather retired, he built a small cabin just outside of Glidden, near Clam Lake. It was a magical place for me as a child. Fishing for musky, swimming in the lake, exploring the woods. I’ll never forget the night a black bear ambled up to the window to check us out! Although my grandfather is no longer there, the memories remain, and the trees we planted together behind the cabin still grow.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
In 1925 my Great Grandfather bought a piece of land sight unseen between Eagle River and St Germain in Vilas County. He built a cottage that still stands to this day, and for four generations, aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends of the Peckarskys have flocked to the Northwoods, our home away from home. In a way, our cottage on little Lake Finley really feels more like home to many of us than the places we leave behind. It is where we gather in the summer months and around the holidays, to enjoy the many outdoors activities right out our front door. It is hard to pin down one particular thing that makes this part of the world so special to me and my family. On summer days, we relished the opportunity to swim and canoe in the clean, sandy-bottomed lake, fish for bass and pike and watch Bald Eagles soar or perch in the enormous white pines around the lakefront. In the winter, we would go out cross-country skiing in the woods during the day, then turn the outside lights on at night for my brother and I to play our nightly 1 on 1 hockey game in the makeshift rink we shoveled off on the lake or huddle around the TV for a Packer or Badger football game. Although my big brother dominated those hockey games, he lacked the patience for ice-fishing, so I always managed to bring home more perch. I truly hope that the Northwoods remains as special a gathering place for my children and my brother’s children as it was for us.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Even though I’m from Chicago, it’s safe to say that I grew up at a summer camp in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. While at Camp Nebagamon for 15 years as a boy, and then a man, I always took the time to enjoy the woods–be it via hiking, canoeing, or bicycling trips. There was nothing like the sound of the wind through the trees, or the occasional call of a bird I had never heard before. What a shame it would be to prevent kids in the future from experiencing such things!
December 4th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
“Up north” is a huge part of who I am! I grew up spending my summers barefoot on the shores (and in the waters) of Lake Finley in Vilas County. Its clear water and sandy-bottom are still pristine after all these years. I am so spoiled by this refreshing lake that I hardly enjoy swimming anywhere else. From my dad I learned an appreciation for the majesty of the bald eagles and the haunting sounds of the loons. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood times “up north” are fishing for small mouth bass with my grampa, fishing for blue gills and sunfish using velveeta cheese and salami that my mom gave us for bait, blueberry picking in the woods with my gramma, sailing the “Mighty Mo” with my family in the moonlight, paddling the “yellow canoe”, hiking way back in the woods with my dad learning how to use a compass to find a small bog lake, and shoveling the snow off the lake to create a labyrinth of skating “trails” with snow forts in between. In this place I learned to love the water, and to this day find comfort in being near water. I am now a professional freshwater ecologist who is (my definition) someone who never got tired of playing in the water after they grew up. :) Even though they grew up in upstate New York, my children share my love of this special place in the Northwoods. Maybe it’s genetic?
May 6th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Growing up we spent 2 weeks every summer at a resort on Eagle Lake in Eagle River Wisconsin. My children are the now 4th generation in my family to go up north every summer. I attribute those summer vacations in the Northwoods as the driving force behind my appreciation and concern for the environment. I am graduating this week with a degree in in Environmental Studies and I dont think that would ever have happened if it werent for the beautiful Northwoods as inspiration.