Wisconsin North Woods - The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips - page 559

2. Northern Highland-American Legion State
Forest
PushingnortheastonRte.17,thedriveapproachesthetownofEagleRiver.Onceyouenter
the city limits, stop off at Carl's Wood Art Museum, which features life-size figures of
people and animals (including an enormous grizzly bear) carved with a chain saw. Natural
wood oddities, such as tree burls, are also on view at the museum.
Here the drive turns west on Rte. 70, easing through the second-growth pines, red
maples, and balsam firs of Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest. The gentle
terrain gives no clue that mountains taller than the Rockies stood here countless ages
ago—granite peaks that were gradually worn away by the elements, especially by ice. In
fact, every bit of this landscape was crafted by the great glaciers that long ago entombed
all of northern Wisconsin. When the ice finally retreated, it left the land dotted with hun-
dreds of depressions large and small that we now know as everything from tiny ponds to
the Great Lakes.
At Woodruff the drive turns south on Rte. 51 to Minocqua, the gateway to the region's
extraordinaryconcentrationoffreshwaterlakes.Thesepristinepoolsdrawfamilyvacation-
ers and fishermen in search of muskellunge (muskie), northern pike, walleye, and panfish.
Inwinter,whenthelakesarelockedinice,recreationshiftstocross-countryskisandsnow-
mobiles; fishing moves into snug ice shacks, some outfitted with heaters and (yes) even
television sets.
3. Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation
Some200yearsagoavisitortoLacduFlambeaumighthaveseenbirchbarkcanoesgliding
through the shallows as the Chippewas harvested wild rice, the silence broken only by the
occasional honks of geese flying overhead.
The name Lac du Flambeau was used by 16th-century French fur traders and refers
to the local Indians' practice of fishing the lake by torchlight. Today the descendants of
these Indians display avariety ofartifacts at the GeorgeW.Brown Jr.Ojibwe Museum and
Cultural Center.The exhibits and demonstrations there highlight beadwork, decoy carving,
basketry, and moccasin making.