Chapter 4

Trouting on the Brule: An 1875 Fishing Expedition to Northern Wisconsin and Michigan

To find a real wilderness hunting or fishing experience these days many Midwestern sports enthusiasts travel to the Rocky Mountains or to Alaska or Canada. In the 1870s, however, those with a thirst for big adventure in the wild needed only to go as far as northern Wisconsin or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Three lawyers and a businessman from Chicago found more than their share of rugged outdoor adventure when they mounted an expedition to the wild border lands of northeast Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1875. The attorneys, John Lyle King, James L. High, and Josiah H. Bissell, along with businessman Lorenzo Pratt, took to the northwoods “for an excursion, and on a vacation furlough” in August of that year.

Their destination was the Brule River, which for most of its forty-five-mile length serves as the Wisconsin-Michigan border in Forest and Florence counties, Wisconsin, and Iron County, Michigan.

Thankfully for all of us today who are fascinated with Wisconsin and Michigan sporting history, the members of the party had the forethought to keep detailed journals of their 1875 expedition and a second expedition in 1877, which in turn served as the basis for a book written by King: Trouting on the Brule River: Or Summer-Wayfaring in the Northern Wilderness, published in 1880.1

Early in the book King described the river of their desire: “This river of trout, the Brule or Boise Brule, is a small, clear, cold, rocky stream of sixty miles, issuing from Lake Brule, running south by east. Not far from its mouth it is joined by the Paint river, and their commingled waters flowing for another four or five miles, and then receiving another affluent, the Michigamic [Michigamme] river, as blended tributaries become thence the Menominee river.”

By providing an extremely detailed account of expeditions to the Brule or what he calls the “Boise [sic] Brule” (he probably has in mind here the Bois Brule in Douglas County), King inadvertently, or perhaps purposefully, preserved forever a vision of a northeastern Wisconsin that existed for only a short time—the period after the start of big pine logging but before its peak and plummeting decline. King and his group were able to witness the scarred cutover as well as the raw wilderness of the virgin forest.

Ironically it was the inroads the logging and mining industries were making in the north during this period that allowed the party access, through rail and haul roads, to the edge of a huge chunk of wild country where conventional travel gave way to the necessity of Indian guides and birch bark canoes but within a generation would transform the north into something much less wild and exciting.

King—with a lawyer's skill for written detail, a keen sense of humor, and a deep appreciation for what he was experiencing—was able to put on paper much more than just a routine account of the trip.

In the preface to Trouting, King alluded to the idea that although their goal may have been a fantastic trout fishing experience, there was more to it than that: “When the haunts of game in the woods and the lairs of fish in the streams incite the passion for sport to couple itself with the quest and yearning for rest and vitalization, the wayfarer's pathway in the wilderness becomes a pilgrimage through abounding scenes of diversion and into a realm of fascination.”

Planning and making arrangements for the expedition did not seem to be a terribly complicated affair. The trip to the Brule consisted of three main components—the train ride north, a horse-drawn wagon to haul gear overland, and birch bark canoes for the river.

King wrote: “The outfit and supplies were provided in Chicago, and sent by the Chicago & Northwestern railway to Section Eighteen, a station of that road eighteen miles beyond Marinette, Wisconsin. The other accessories-a team for the land route and the guides—were engaged in advance at Marinette, and met the party at Section Eighteen. The canoes were to be procured at Badwater, on the Menominee, where the water travel began.”

King gave his readers the impression that anyone with a desire to enjoy the sporting opportunities that the Wisconsin and Michigan northwoods had to offer could do so if they had sufficient time, funds, and the health and stamina for roughing it. King himself was fifty-two years of age during the first Brule River expedition—a relatively advanced age for the 1870s.

After what was about a sixteen-hour trip from Chicago on the Chicago & Northwestern rails, the party found themselves and their gear at Section Eighteen on August 10, 1875.

King wrote: “The eighteenness of the section was the most there was of it—that is, its being that distance in miles from Menominee. The rest—the odds and ends of it—was a small, rude, uncovered log platform, with a log cabin and a little wheezing steam sawmill in the background of a bit of a clearing in the woods.”

At this primitive whistle-stop they met George Evanson, the teamster they had hired to haul themselves and their outfit to the Menominee River at Badwater. Evanson was “a tough Norwegian, with a span of rugged, stout horses.”

Also waiting for the party at Section Eighteen were the two Menominee Indian guides, George Kaquotash and Mitchell Thebault.

“They were coated, trowsered and booted in backwoods attire,” observed King. “They were stalwart, and seemingly in superb order for our purposes.”

Leaving behind the comfort of railcar, the four sportsmen, their guides, and the teamster started off toward the Brule on a haul road that was “rough and up and down.” A steady rain soaked everyone, and the summer foliage was dripping.

“We had arranged our time-table to make Peemony farm for the night,” wrote King. “The showers, however, rather abated the ardor of advance.”

The group decided to spend the night at “The Relay House,” eight miles distant from the railroad, where a roaring stove quickly began to dry wet clothes.

The Relay House was only a half mile from the Menominee River, and after supper the party hiked there “for a glimpse of river scenery.”

It was along the river where they discovered a large, abandoned cabin with a “ghostly inmate” inside. A Catholic priest and companion had holed up in the cabin to escape the rain. The pair was traveling upriver for deer hunting. “It was evident that the consecrated sportsman loved to handle a weapon that was not spiritual, as well as to twiddle a rosary,” King wrote.

The rain continued through the night and into the next day, but the sportsmen accepted the bad weather with good spirits.

“We tried to tickle ourselves with mirth, and to weather it, or volatilize the exceeding moisture and ourselves with dry jokes. We jested at the rain while it was pelting us,” wrote King.

As the rain continued the road “worsened greatly.”

King wrote: “The roughness of the road added greatly to the mishaps of the rain. There was nowhere a level more than a few rods. By way of variety of misery, some or all of us got out and walked, and soon, as we trod along, our boots or shoes were soaked like sponges, and squshed [sic] the water up our shins and knees.”

After a day of traveling “over corduroy, and pitching into holes and ruts” the group arrived at their destination for the day, a logging camp known as Stephenson's.

“It was a large, double, low, pine log and logmen's cabin of the most primitive frontier order of architecture,” wrote King. “Interiorly, it was fitted up roughly but comfortably, for the needs of the hardy choppers, whose axes make annual havoc in the neighboring forests of pine.”

Because it was summer, there were only two or three people at the camp, one of them the camp cook.

“Of all the Stephensonian denizens, the cook was the most important personage to us,” wrote King. “He was a shiny faced, stumpy young French Canadian, with a patois of Quebec and Boston.”

The sportsmen from Chicago were then treated to a regular logging camp supper of pork, biscuits, potatoes, and coffee. “The spread gratifyingly surprised and satisfied us,” wrote King.

While the rain continued outside, the party contented themselves with tending to their gear, smoking pipes, and reading novels in the warmth of the cabin.

“The situation, for one of weather-bound confinement, was not, by any means, intolerable.”

The next day brought improved weather, and the party “bid adieu” to Stephenson's camp and made their way through miles of dense forest eventually passing by the clearing of another camp, Sturgeon Farm (also known as New York Farm).

Some miles later the expedition encountered an abandoned logging camp, and King succinctly described the view of the cutover: “We plodded on till we reached a hill range overlooking the river. There was an open space from which the timber had been cleanly stripped, and a deserted cabin then in decay, was the sole vestige of a former busy logging camp. The ground was worthless for culture, but had a great apparent capacity for brambles and weeds. And when its original wealth of pines had been exhausted, the place was abandoned and relapsed into a dismal waste.”

The third night since setting out from Section Eighteen was spent at a frontier trading station known as “Dickey's.”

“It [Dickey's] serves as a domicile, as a store in a rudimentary form, and as a hostelry or inn, in a legal sense, as a place where the traveler is furnished with everything he wants, provided the traveler has occasion for very little,” observed King.

One item of interest to the party that Dickey's did have on hand was a birch bark canoe, although they had arranged for canoes to be available at Badwater.

“It occurring to us that as a bird in the hand is worth more than the possible or uncertain bird or dozen birds in the bush, a canoe we could secure was more valuable and to our purpose than supposed or conjectural canoes up the river, we advised ourselves to invest in the present vessel,” explained King.

They purchased the canoe for twenty dollars and christened it The Dickey.

The ten miles of road from Dickey's to Badwater were the most primitive of the trip, degenerating into a rough trail, and progress was slow due to swamps and bogs and numerous fallen trees blocking the path that had to be chopped out of the way.

“Towards the close of the day and the end of the route, difficulties provokingly multiplied. The timber across the trail appeared to be larger and plentier, and the chopping more laborious.”

Darkness overtook them while they were still battling the trail, and an impromptu campsite had to be found by candlelight. The generally high spirits of the sportsmen were severely tested that night by swarms of mosquitoes.

“We could well have resigned ourselves to the situation, were it not that the same camp-fire which brightened us was a signal for the mosquitoes to swarm upon us for an eager reception.”

However, a well-received camp supper prepared by one of the guides was pronounced a “happy success.”

The next morning the party reached the Indian settlement of Badwater and was unloaded near the banks of the Menominee River. Evanson turned his team around and headed home with an empty wagon.

King described what he observed: “Small meadows on either side [of the river], with five or six rude Indian cabins scattered over them, all but one on the Michigan shore, were the vista before us, called Badwater.”

The Badwater Indian village was located on a bend in the Menominee River in the Spread Eagle chain of lakes. The small Wisconsin town of Spread Eagle lies in the vicinity of where Badwater once existed.

At Badwater the party engaged the services of Tom King, a well-known Ojibwa, as a third guide. They also bought a birch bark canoe from King for fifteen dollars, christened the Tom King.

The four Chicago sportsmen and their three Indian guides traveled by canoe up the Menominee to the mouth of the Michigamme River. At this point excitement coursed through the party as they were nearly to the Brule after four days and three nights of rugged travel.

“By overland, the distance is three miles to Brule Falls, while by river it is seven miles,” King wrote. The group decided to send their gear via water on the Dickey, their largest canoe, with guides Thebault and Kaquotash. They would accompany Tom King as he portaged the smaller canoe overland. “We were eager to reach the river of trout sooner than we could by the water ascent,” wrote King.

“Bissell was ambitious to catch the first glimpse of the stream which was the longed-for scene of our sport, and with this aspiration as an accelerating impulse, kept the extreme front of the line of march. When at length, he vociferously shouted ‘Brule! Brule!’ we huzzaed him back an uproarious answer, ‘The Brule! The Brule!’”

After many days of hard travel the expedition members finally arrived at their destination, the Brule River, and were eager to begin catching trout.

“The fishermen were ready for a trial of the rod at the very first. Eagerness became enthusiasm, and the party, excepting myself, at once sought places in which to throw their flies,” wrote King.

King, who was actually an avid bass fisherman and had never gone trout fishing prior to the Brule expedition, surveyed the area and came across a tent camp with three men playing cards. The two groups quickly acquainted themselves with each other. King's party learned that the men had been camped on the Brule for a week, having ventured only about six or seven miles upstream with limited success.

King wrote: “Our care was, then, to pack up and pack off. Our mission of sport would be not really begun until we were on the bosom of the Brule.” The group decided to make camp with their new friends that night and head upstream the next day.

Heading upstream after breakfast in the morning, the party fished as they traveled, with few results. “But, after lunch, and an hour further on, the luring fly began to strike the responsive fish,” wrote King.

King, sporting a stiff eighteen-ounce bass fishing rod, tried his hand at trouting for the first time. “I stepped out on the rock, and cast a fresh fly. In a twinkling it was snatched at, and to my surprise, I had really struck a trout of dimensions, as was plain from the lively struggle it made,” wrote King. “But I brought him in. It was about a fourteen-ouncer. It was the first trout I ever caught. The achievement brought down the house, and the whole party huzzaed with a will.”

The second night on the Brule the group camped “on a high, steep grassy bank. At a bend, and with a space, under immense trees, already cleared for prior camps.”

“We had made a fair start in trouting,” wrote King with his usual flair. “The record of the day, not so much for its count—fifty-five—but as a promise of better yet to come, a catching that was but a cheering prologue to the more lavish performance that was to follow, was eminently satisfactory.”

Continual rain and oppressive mosquitoes plagued the group at their nightly camps. “The mosquitoes burdened the air with their songs, but the oil and tar with which we copiously anointed ourselves served to repel them to respectful distance, until, at least, the malodorous unguent lost its effect, and then the slicking was repeated,” King explained.

However, despite hardships of travel, location, and weather, the group remained in awe of the wilderness they found themselves in, such a difference from the hustle of city life. King wrote: “If we had needed more than the oppressive stillness, the deep shadows and heavy foliage which overspread us, to remind us that we were in the wilds of nature, the howl of a wolf which we heard in the distance would have been assurance enough.”

On Monday, the group's fourth day on the Brule, they broke camp and headed upstream, this time with clear skies and the promise of good weather, the first of the trip. Their destination was a place called “Windfall,” fifteen miles upstream from the Brule's mouth and so named because “a tornado had leveled the forest at some not remote period.”

Again, the men fished as they traveled upstream, with results improving with each mile gained. “The baskets were plentifully replenished, and with choicer spoils, on the average, than those of previous sport,” wrote King.

While the fishing improved, the promise of good weather did not hold as clouds began to form and rain once again soaked the expedition.

The return of wet conditions was offset by great fishing success. “Spite of the day's adverse conditions, though, we could compute sensations of pleasure to an aggregate of one hundred and forty-five, for the party, those being the figures of joint capture,” wrote King happily.

King, the bass fisherman, found that pieces of a passenger pigeon killed earlier by Pratt worked wonders on Brule River trout but raised the ire of High, one of the true trout fishermen in the group.

“This sort of fishing was an abomination, and utterly immitigable, to High,” explained King. “It was bait-fishing, and baiting for trout, whether the bait were worm, flesh, fowl, fish or natural insect, or whatever else, was simply a gross and vulgar folly.” With meals of trout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seemingly assured, while camped at Windfall the party learned a lesson about food security in the north. King wrote: “While we slept, the enemy came and despoiled us of the breakfast mess. The pick of the day's trout had been dressed, and laid out over night in beautiful array, on the provision box, right close to the nostrils of George, where he must have been frightfully snoring, as was his wont, under the canoe. The minks stole a march on the sleeping sentinel at his post, and made a foray on the fish, and portaged the entire lot to their holes.”

While the group's stay at Windfall camp provided exceptional trout fishing, along with improved weather, food staples such as pork, potatoes, and lard began to run low. “To retrace our course was, therefore, a necessity,” wrote King, “but a much regretted one.”

Now on the long journey back to Chicago, the men, as was tradition at the time, carved their names and information about their fishing success into the bark of trees at each of their previous campsites. Forsaking their original wagon route and the misery of traveling over the rough roads, they finally reached Menominee, Michigan, by canoe.

“We reached Menominee at noon,” wrote King. “The vacation ramble ended there; canoeing on the streams and tenting in the forests, our open air life, were to be, thence, only memories; but with us, memories always golden and abiding.”