Local Features

Records of water levels on many Northwoods lakes often only go back a few decades, if they exist at all. But one researcher has figured out a way to see the story of lakes going back hundreds of years. That history, and a clue about the future, is as simple as tree rings themselves. “We’re proposing using these trees as an Excel spreadsheet, as a way to get at [the history of] these lake levels,” said Dom Ciruzzi, a UW-Madison graduate student working at Trout Lake Station in Boulder Junction.

Many notable people have lived in the Northwoods at one time or another in their lives. Sometimes some very accomplished people that listeners may not have known about started out right here in the Northwoods. Dale Wasserman was one such person.

Do hummingbirds ride the backs of geese to escape our winter weather or is that another old wives’ tale? The Masked Biologist has the answer in this week’s Wildlife Matters.

Simple parts of life make Mary Watkins happy. She kayaks on her lake, hosts football parties, and enjoys time with her yellow lab, Ruby. “I have a dog. I like to walk my dog. I would be afraid to go out there. You came down that road. It’s narrow. I think it would disrupt the quiet. It would disrupt the whole reason everybody’s here,” Watkins said. Watkins is talking about a company’s proposal to send three tanker semis daily down the one-lane road to her home on Carlin Lake near Presque Isle in

In the early morning gloom, it is easy to imagine what might the thing be that goes bump in the night. Sometimes the thing that is really there turns out to be so unusual that it is hard to believe. Such an event happened at Rhinelander’s Paper Mill in 1935. In 1932, during the waning hours of the night shift at the Rhinelander Paper Mill, two employees were gazing out at the night shadows and started to ruminate about life and death issues. In the early morning mist, the first man turned to the

This week’s Wildlife Matters was inspired by a Curious North question, which piqued the interest of the Masked Biologist who shares several interesting facts about otters with all of us.

Alyssa Ullrich and her husband love life on the water. “We have the two docks. Our ski boat goes on this lift, and then we’ve got a fishing boat that goes over on that lift,” she said, standing on her dock on a channel of the Manitowish Chain in Vilas County. Her nine-month-old boy, Baxter, squirmed in her arms. For weeks, Ullrich has watched the water level on the ten-lake Manitowish Chain, including her channel between Rest and Stone lakes, go down. It does every year to protect permanent

Vigilantes are part of the lore of the Old West, but they were also in the Northwoods. During the worst years of the Great Depression many Northwoods residents started to take the law into their own hands.

To rake or not to rake, that is the question. The Masked Biologist touts the merits of mulching your leaves in this week’s Wildlife Matters.

When Gov. Tony Evers took office in January, he could have put his priorities in a lot of different places. But he chose to put a large amount of political muscle into improving drinking water in Wisconsin. Just 15 days after he was inaugurated in January, he proclaimed 2019 the "Year of Clean Drinking Water” for the state. Nine months after that promise, his administration has made progress on regulating perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), addressing nitrates, and tackling