Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The St. Croix National Scenic Riverway is one ofa dozen sodesignated in the federal Wild
and Scenic Riverway System. It was also the first, officially promulgated in 1968 by Con-
gress,containing252milesoftheUpperandLowerSt.CroixRiversandtheentireNamek-
agon River. Though not technically a part of the system, the Brule River was and is a de
facto link in the chain. With only a short portage between the Brule and St. Croix, this
was the most crucial waterway between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Though
brown for most of its length in the south (tannic acid leaches into the water from decaying
pine and tamarack needles), the riverway is one of the “healthiest” in the United States in
terms of biology and biodiversity.
TheSt.Croixisaschizophrenic river,split intoregionsatSt.CroixFalls. TheUpperSt.
Croix and Namekagon Rivers are the more challenging and isolated for canoeists, drifting
and paddling through an expansive river valley streaked with creeks and dotted with thou-
sands of glacial lakes and tracts of second-growth forest. The Lower St. Croix, by the time
it departs St. Croix Falls, has become an old man—somnolent and wide, full of sandbars
and backwater sloughs.
The best canoeing in northwestern Wisconsin is at St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.
