By
John M. Grimsrud © 2013
A boat trip down the Brule is an
experience never to be forgotten. One may start at Stone’s Landing, first going
upstream a short distance to see the Blue Spring, then down through Rainbow
Bend, Cedar Island, Wild Cat Rapids, Ashland Lake, Winneboujou, Bayfield
Bridge, Club House Falls and dozens of other scenic spots. One gets a thrill
out of shooting the rapids and dreams of the sturdy voyagers who traveled this
route back in the seventeenth century.
Leigh P Jerrard, the Brule River
of Wisconsin,
1956.[1]
The
Brule River is an extraordinarily pristine
spring-fed river in northwestern Wisconsin.[2]
The
Brule River has been used as a transportation
route over the millennium. First by the ancient mound builders and then by the countless
indigenous tribes that followed. The Brule River
connects Lake Superior via a portage to Upper
Lake St. Croix, the St. Croix River, and then
south down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
Daniel
Greysolon Du Lhut was the first white man to ascend the Brule and leave a
record of his passage. He was soon followed by others: fur traders, missionaries in quest for Indian
souls, pioneers, sportsmen, and adventurers.
I
have canoed on the Brule every month of the year except December.
Years
ago before the sound of screaming snowmobiles and roaring chain saws
slaughtered the silent winter sanctity, I found one of the most enchantingly
beautiful things to do was to slip a canoe off the untouched snow covered river
bank into the pure unspoiled water of the Brule at a place called Stone’s
Bridge Landing.
The
river is fed by icy cold spring waters originating up in high sand country.
These continually flowing springs are what make it possible to canoe in northern
Wisconsin in
the winter. It is part of the southern continental divide of Lake
Superior, and it is the only open river water in the area in the
winter season.
One
clear bright sunny March day back in the mid 1950’s when the noontime
temperature inched into the thirties and springtime felt tangible, an adventure
was launched.
My
five young and somewhat reckless companions on the escapade were Don Frye, his
two cousins Bud and Jerry Bunt, Dave Smith, and Dave Olson.
On
that day that felt like spring, we slipped three canoes into the icy river
waters at Stone’s Bridge Landing for the 23 mile down river trip to the town of
Brule. It was sunny
and bright in this land of sky blue waters and the sun felt like a long lost
friend that had come back to visit after a brutal northern Wisconsin winter.
In
the shade along the banks the drooping cedar trees that stand tall and
sprawling next to the sparkling clear river waters cast their shadows down on
places where the water runs slow. There a
sheet of ice speckled with sparkling snowflakes could still be found.
We
departed silently into a quiet world and glided along this enchanted waterway.
As
we effortlessly drifted downstream, the thin ice crackled as it fractured and
broke from the wake of the canoes. The winter silence was so enchantingly
striking it made us all want to whisper.
In
this polar deep-freeze, even with the friendly sun beating down upon us, we
noticed our canoe paddles thickening with each stroke. They caked with layered ice
similar to a candle being dipped in wax.
The
first sixteen miles of river is relatively calm with easy going waters.
Lofty
balsams, stately cedars and towering pines blanketed in deep drifted snow where
whitetail deer alerted by our presence stood statue still made this wilderness magical.
The
river pace picks up with a few rapids that shoot through rocky twisting narrows
in the last seven miles of the sixteen mile long upper portion of the river between
Stone’s Bridge Landing and the Winneboujou Bridge at Highway B. This part takes
about five leisurely hours to traverse.
The
last seven miles between the Winneboujou
Bridge and the town of Brule at Highway 2, the
pace picks up perceptibly. Navigation of the rapids requires undivided
attention and decisive split-second canoe handling abilities. This portion of the
river can easily be made in less than an hour due to the spirited speed of the
current as it tumbles through a rock strewn twisted corridor picking up
momentum on its way down to Lake Superior.
At
this time of year in these northern latitudes the sun is on the horizon and
headed down about four-thirty in the afternoon.
It
was late in the day and we were racing to the end of our trip. I was in the
lead canoe with Dave Olson when we entered a particularly treacherous stretch
of river, the Long Nebagamon Rapids.[3]
These
rapids cascade continuously for almost a mile and at one point in the torrents the
river makes an abrupt ninety-degree turn to the left with a straight up and
down wall on both sides. The canoe must be turned well in advance of the corner
or a disastrous collision with the wall will be inevitable.
This
time the situation was made even more treacherous by the fact that over the
course of the winter the river had frozen. Then next the water level dropped
and left a shelf of ice protruding out from the wall a foot and a half above
the water level. A canoe could easily slip under.
The
first two canoes just made it. In the
last canoe Don Frye and Bud Bunt rounded the corner. Bud, seated in the bow,
reached out to fend off a collision with the ice shelf, but the powerful force
of the water carried them under and they capsized.
There
was no escape from this raging caldron of icy river water in those churning
rapids until a half-mile downstream. At
the bottom of these rapids, a calm-water pond converged with Nebagamon Creek.
As
soon as Don and Bud could escape the river, they did. Scurrying up and over the huge snow drifted
bank they began their life or death run through the twilight woods…if they
stopped or had attempted the other river bank they surely would have frozen to
death.
While
they frantically ran with all the youthful strength that they could muster
through the snow-covered heavily wooded forest, their clothing was rapidly freezing
stiffer and stiffer with every labored step they took. Freezing to death was
almost certain under these circumstances.
Their
time was not meant to come this day.
Amazingly, the path they ran led them to a small cabin with lights in
the windows. They were mercifully taken in to thaw and given warm dry clothing
by strangers…two young girls that were home alone.
Carl
Pearson and his family lived in the cabin.
When Carl returned home, he found all six of us huddled by the fire and
pondering what to do next. With Carl’s
help we rounded up our cars and canoes.
Little
did I know at that time, but one of those merciful girls turned out to be a
cousin to the women that I married some years later.
My
wife Jane’s uncle, Carl Pearson, was at the time the caretaker for Swiftwater
Farm, Elizabeth Congdon’s place on the Brule River.
This photo is of
the cabin at Swiftwater Farm where desperate frozen strangers found refuge on
that cold snowy winter’s night back in the mid-1950s. The woman in the photo, Louise Pearson
Luthens, was one of the little girls that opened the door to life to the
freezing youth.
Swiftwater Farm
on the famous Brule
River in September 2008,
the place where the winter canoe adventure ended.
Carl
Pearson was a guide on the Brule
River. He knew the river
well. He marveled that we had all
survived our folly.
John LaRock and
Carl Pearson, c. 1950s. John La Rock (1897-1960) was a Metis Brule
River fishing guide. He guided President Calvin Coolidge when
President Coolidge summered at Cedar Island Lodge on the Brule River
in 1928. John La Rock was the son-in-law
of Antoine Dennis (1852-1945), another well-know Metis river fishing guide.
John La Rock and
President Calvin Coolidge on the Brule
River, 1928. Wisconsin Historical Society photo.
My wife Jane is
pictured in 2008 with part of the famous somewhat reckless soul’s canoe team
years later at the Sundown in Maple, Wisconsin. Crew members and lifelong friends; John
(Bing) Grimsrud, Dave Smith, and Dave Olson.
My
wife Jane Pearson Grimsrud, is a published author with three Brule area books
to her credit. Her family roots are tied to the Brule River
dating to her pioneering grandparents who relied on the river’s water when they
first settled along the Brule in Cloverland.
The
Brule River has been a large part of Jane’s
life from childhood.
The
following books are available in paperback and digital editions worldwide: Lookingfor a New Frontier, the Story of the Edwin Pearson Family, 2010, and Brule River Forest and Lake Superior: Cloverland Anecdotes, 2013.
