Region 5:
But Sylvania is one of the few sizable northwoods forests that escaped the axe. The woods here have had hundreds of years to mature, creating a "climax forest" of yellow birch, eastern hemlock, and sugar maple. One sees an area much the way it looked before Europeans arrived. Abundant rotting logs and leaf debris are ideal environments for mushrooms and woodpeckers. Rare wildflowers like lady's slippers have survived the years it takes to blossom. Orchids and insect-eating pitcher plants are not uncommon. Paddlers and hikers can explore Sylvania as a wilderness area, without signs to guide them.
Sylvania and the modest Upper Peninsula village of Watersmeet lie at the northern edge of the vast Wisconsin lake country, just across the state line from the larger town of Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin. The area economy has long been dominated by fishing resorts, outdoor recreation, and summer people and retirees (largely from Chicago), as well as by logging and sawmills. During Prohibition, Sylvania and many other retreats in and near Wisconsin's north woods focused less on fishing and more on drinking, gambling, and partying outside the law's reach.
Recently there's been an intense wave of vacation homebuilding. Watersmeet is known for the Lac Vieux Desert tribe's attractive casino-resort north of town, and for its Watersmeet Nimrods high school basketball team, made famous by ESPN commercials. Land O'Lakes caters to retirees and resorters with its excellent library and historical society, convenient everyday shopping, and shops and studios featuring cottage décor.
In the 1890s timber and iron-mining magnates who wanted a superb fishing camp saved the Sylvania Tract's old-growth forests and clear lakes from the logging taking place all around it, and damage to fisheries that resulted from logging's sediments and clearcuts. Today all but Sylvania's northern edge is managed by the vast Ottawa National Forest as the Sylvania Wilderness Area, a machine-free wilderness. The national forest includes most of the Watersmeet area and western Gogebic County, and most of neighboring west Iron County, too.
Sylvania and the Watersmeet area's three national forest campgrounds appeal to families, anglers, canoeists, and kayakers. The Watersmeet/Land O'Lakes area is also popular with snowmobilers because it's relatively close to large downstate cities in Wisconsin and Illinois. But places closer to Lake Superior have more snow because of the lake effect. From a snow-oriented recreational viewpoint, there's "only two months of usable winter" around Watersmeet, says a local business owner.
Adjacent to Sylvania, the Cisco chain of 15 lakes and many bays, largely under private ownership, is geared to fishing in motorboats. Its size makes it relatively quiet, too. Cottages, year-round second homes, and a dwindling number of small resorts are on its 270 miles of shoreline. For photos, a weekly fishing report, and a good fishing map of the Cisco Chain, see the web site of fishing guide Tom Schwanke. Tom Schwanke, www.wildernessbayresort.com Or stop by his bait and tackle shop on Thousand Lake Road/CR 535.
Former Wisconsin DNR naturalist John Bates has written two leisurely, informative appreciations of the area's seasons, A Northwoods Companion: Fall and Winter and A Northwoods Companion: Spring and Summer
The Lac Vieux Desert Casino and Resort north of Watersmeet opened in 1996. (It's pronounced "LAHK view duh SERR.") The "$17.5 million casino complex" was the biggest deal in these parts since Land O'Lakes' big sawmill in the 1970s. It includes a 132-room hotel, bingo hall, Country Kitchen restaurant, beautiful 9-hole golf course tucked into the woods, and now an oval for motocross and snowmobile races. The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Ojibwa takes its name from the productive lake where they had lived and fished since at least 1796. Lac Vieux Desert is known for its sport fishery and fighting tiger muskies. The big lake's outlet forms the headwaters of the mighty Wisconsin River. The lake straddles the Michigan-Wisconsin border, so fishing licenses from both states are valid.
The name "Watersmeet" comes from the area's Ojibwa name. It refers to the fact, quite important to Indians, that the waters of this rolling highlands drain in three directions: north into Lake Superior via the Ontonagon, south into Lake Michigan via the Brule and Menominee rivers, and southwest into the Mississippi system and Gulf of Mexico via the Wisconsin. The Ontonagon River's Middle Branch offers beautiful canoeing and kayaking with a bit of exciting whitewater. On it are two dramatic, complex waterfalls, Bond Falls and Agate Falls., both tourist magnets.
The Watersmeet area is wonderfully undiscovered and undeveloped compared with the busy concentration of tourist shops and lodgings just 30 miles south at Eagle River, Wisconsin. Entering Michigan from Land O'Lakes, there's far less visible development and bigger trees. Even along U.S. 2, the main east-west route across the Upper Peninsula, there's a feeling of remoteness and wild beauty from Iron River to Watersmeet and on to Wakefield. Motorists see nothing but trees for miles and miles. Maples and other hardwoods make for good fall color. Wolves prefer this kind of inland area because it has less snow than places close to Lake Superior. Gogebic County now has around 90 wolves in 11 packs. Sometimes they can be seen on the shoulders of U.S. 2 east of Watersmeet, looking for road kill. (They aren't interested in humans.)
Watersmeet area
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| Sylvania Wilderness Area looking north from Wisconsin |
THE JEWEL of these lake-filled highlands is the Sylvania Wilderness Area in the Ottawa National Forest. Its 30 square miles include dark old-growth forest and 34 exceptionally clear lakes famous for fishing. Most U.P. forests have rejuvenated since the clear-cut logging of a century ago, and motorists see impressive hardwoods and hemlocks throughout the Watersmeet area, which mostly lies within National Forest boundaries.
Sylvania and the modest Upper Peninsula village of Watersmeet lie at the northern edge of the vast Wisconsin lake country, just across the state line from the larger town of Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin. The area economy has long been dominated by fishing resorts, outdoor recreation, and summer people and retirees (largely from Chicago), as well as by logging and sawmills. During Prohibition, Sylvania and many other retreats in and near Wisconsin's north woods focused less on fishing and more on drinking, gambling, and partying outside the law's reach.
Recently there's been an intense wave of vacation homebuilding. Watersmeet is known for the Lac Vieux Desert tribe's attractive casino-resort north of town, and for its Watersmeet Nimrods high school basketball team, made famous by ESPN commercials. Land O'Lakes caters to retirees and resorters with its excellent library and historical society, convenient everyday shopping, and shops and studios featuring cottage décor.
In the 1890s timber and iron-mining magnates who wanted a superb fishing camp saved the Sylvania Tract's old-growth forests and clear lakes from the logging taking place all around it, and damage to fisheries that resulted from logging's sediments and clearcuts. Today all but Sylvania's northern edge is managed by the vast Ottawa National Forest as the Sylvania Wilderness Area, a machine-free wilderness. The national forest includes most of the Watersmeet area and western Gogebic County, and most of neighboring west Iron County, too.
Sylvania and the Watersmeet area's three national forest campgrounds appeal to families, anglers, canoeists, and kayakers. The Watersmeet/Land O'Lakes area is also popular with snowmobilers because it's relatively close to large downstate cities in Wisconsin and Illinois. But places closer to Lake Superior have more snow because of the lake effect. From a snow-oriented recreational viewpoint, there's "only two months of usable winter" around Watersmeet, says a local business owner.
Adjacent to Sylvania, the Cisco chain of 15 lakes and many bays, largely under private ownership, is geared to fishing in motorboats. Its size makes it relatively quiet, too. Cottages, year-round second homes, and a dwindling number of small resorts are on its 270 miles of shoreline. For photos, a weekly fishing report, and a good fishing map of the Cisco Chain, see the web site of fishing guide Tom Schwanke. Tom Schwanke, www.wildernessbayresort.com Or stop by his bait and tackle shop on Thousand Lake Road/CR 535.
Former Wisconsin DNR naturalist John Bates has written two leisurely, informative appreciations of the area's seasons, A Northwoods Companion: Fall and Winter and A Northwoods Companion: Spring and Summer
The Lac Vieux Desert Casino and Resort north of Watersmeet opened in 1996. (It's pronounced "LAHK view duh SERR.") The "$17.5 million casino complex" was the biggest deal in these parts since Land O'Lakes' big sawmill in the 1970s. It includes a 132-room hotel, bingo hall, Country Kitchen restaurant, beautiful 9-hole golf course tucked into the woods, and now an oval for motocross and snowmobile races. The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Ojibwa takes its name from the productive lake where they had lived and fished since at least 1796. Lac Vieux Desert is known for its sport fishery and fighting tiger muskies. The big lake's outlet forms the headwaters of the mighty Wisconsin River. The lake straddles the Michigan-Wisconsin border, so fishing licenses from both states are valid.
The name "Watersmeet" comes from the area's Ojibwa name. It refers to the fact, quite important to Indians, that the waters of this rolling highlands drain in three directions: north into Lake Superior via the Ontonagon, south into Lake Michigan via the Brule and Menominee rivers, and southwest into the Mississippi system and Gulf of Mexico via the Wisconsin. The Ontonagon River's Middle Branch offers beautiful canoeing and kayaking with a bit of exciting whitewater. On it are two dramatic, complex waterfalls, Bond Falls and Agate Falls., both tourist magnets.
The Watersmeet area is wonderfully undiscovered and undeveloped compared with the busy concentration of tourist shops and lodgings just 30 miles south at Eagle River, Wisconsin. Entering Michigan from Land O'Lakes, there's far less visible development and bigger trees. Even along U.S. 2, the main east-west route across the Upper Peninsula, there's a feeling of remoteness and wild beauty from Iron River to Watersmeet and on to Wakefield. Motorists see nothing but trees for miles and miles. Maples and other hardwoods make for good fall color. Wolves prefer this kind of inland area because it has less snow than places close to Lake Superior. Gogebic County now has around 90 wolves in 11 packs. Sometimes they can be seen on the shoulders of U.S. 2 east of Watersmeet, looking for road kill. (They aren't interested in humans.)
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