Last summer, COVID-19 pushed more people outside and onto Northern Wisconsin’s lakes. For this month's Field Notes, Susan Knight tried to take the pulse of how residents felt about increased boat activity on our area lakes. I was incredibly lucky to be able to spend most of my 2020 summer workdays conducting aquatic plant surveys on area lakes. I was hardly the only one out there – by all accounts, the place to be last summer was on a Northwoods lake. As a member of the Vilas County Lakes and

Do you have a role to play in the management of Wisconsin’s elk? In this week’s Wildlife Matters, the Masked Biologist makes the argument that you do, and gives us a quick peek at the state’s elk management plan. I spent some time this new year’s holiday trying to decide what to write about; as sometimes happens, in this case, an idea came to me from the headlines. The Wisconsin DNR has released its draft ten-year elk management plan. I thought I would take this opportunity to encourage you to

The internet connection was working as expected at Coontail Market in Boulder Junction on Tuesday. The grocery, convenience, and outdoor sports store could accept credit cards and access its servers. But it’s not always like this. At least once a week, said owner Steve Coon, there is some sort of internet issue. “It happens way too frequently with DSL, which is the product, of course, that most rural areas have,” he said. Coon said internet service is not only slow, it’s unreliable. “Everything

In the nineteenth century, government rarely got involved in issues of health care. In the absence of government aid, the Catholic Church often stepped in to fill the gap. There were many people involved in bringing quality hospital care to the Northwoods, but for Rhinelander the life of one individual member of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother serves to tell the story. Rhinelander was founded as a lumbering town. Work in the logging camps was dangerous and injuries were frequent. During the

Earlier this month, Isaiah Miller and Ryan Van Dyke made their very last home solar installation until the spring, just in time to avoid the harshest cold and snow. They climbed a slanted, shingled roof in Rib Mountain to install a few more solar panels. “We are currently setting down the last seven modules for this system,” Miller said as he braced himself against the roof’s slope. The system will be able to generate 4.3 kilowatts of solar power, which could be enough to provide electricity to

In the past, many Northwoods communities held annual winter carnivals featuring competitions in ski jumping, cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, curling, snowshoe racing, and sled dog racing. Rhinelander was no exception and embraced what is today called “silent sports.” But in 1950, one young girl stole the show. As the new year of 1948 approached, Wisconsinites were anticipating the State’s Centennial Celebration. In preparation for this event, the state sports committee

On a clear late November afternoon two days before the start of the Wisconsin deer season in 1937, Royal Nettleton, 29, a Nicolet National Forest junior forester, climbed a tree. He was creating a map of the area and wanted to orient himself by looking for the tallest landmark in the area, the Jones Dam fire tower—the newest of 16 observation towers recently built on the Nicolet—when he heard two rifle shots in quick succession. The first was accompanied by the whine of a bullet; a second bullet

Ed Steigerwaldt’s last name means 'walk in the woods' in German. It’s an appropriate name for someone who grows trees for a living. Steigerwaldt started growing Christmas trees with his father when he was just a kid. “That’s what I grew up as,” he said. “As a little boy, I used to follow him and help him out in the woods. And I loved the work.” Now Steigerwaldt owns 15 tree farms in Northern Wisconsin. With rolling hills, his farms are home to rows and rows of fir and pine trees. The trees are

Christmas is a time when children and grandchildren return home to visit with elderly parents and celebrate the season. Traveling by airline or automobile over the holidays can be stressful, but modern highways and airline schedules make it relatively easy to accomplish. Stress has always been a part of holiday travel, but imagine a time when the pace was slower, and the journey was part of the celebration. William T. Evjue was born in 1882 and grew up in Merrill. He lived most of his adult life

Walking from my truck into work last week, I noticed a frail looking insect flitting along the surface of the snow on the trail in front of me. On closer inspection, it was a stonefly. Stoneflies are small insects that live most of their lives in streams and rivers, emerging only to complete their reproductive life cycle. Like stone flies, many aquatic insects, including many flies, mosquitos, dragon flies and damselflies have a life cycle that is partly in water and partly above water. But,