I
grew up in Cloverland, Wisconsin. I looked at it as the place settled by my grandparents
and their friends in the 1920s, but it was more than that. History was all
around me.
When
we walked behind my father’s stone-boat clearing the fields of sticks and
stones, we found arrowheads, logging saws, chains, railroad spikes, tree
roots…all left by those who came before us.
The arrowheads and knives were found on our farm in Cloverland, Wisconsin. Cloverland is located in the northeast corner of Douglas County.
The arrowheads and knives were found on our farm in Cloverland, Wisconsin. Cloverland is located in the northeast corner of Douglas County.
Cloverland,
Wisconsin, is the site of many centuries of human history. Whenever we visit
the Brule River, Lake Superior’s shore, hike in the Brule River State Forest,
or drive down Highway 13 from Superior, Wisconsin, to Port Wing or Bayfield, we
share the space once occupied by the ancient Indians, Sioux, and Ojibwe, fur traders, lumbermen, speculators, miners,
homesteaders, and immigrant farmers of the cut-over land.
The
Brule River[i]
that flows north through Cloverland was once an important water route
connecting 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.
