Alternate Routes

Typically the He-Man canoe trip follows the circular route that starts and ends at Trout Lake. But that has not always been the case.

High Lake Put-In	FishTrap Put-In, Nixon/Partridge Creek
FishTrap Put-In, Johnson Creek	Pike Lake Take-Out

High Lake Put-In (1984, 1994)

As mentioned in the trip background, the first He-Man canoe trip was started at High Lake. The first night was at Fish Trap Dam. The second night was on Island Lake.

On the 10th He-Man trip the original route was re-traced. In addition to the original route, the first day had lunch at Nixon Lake.

FishTrap Put-In, Nixon/Partridge Creek (1995)

The second and fourth He-Man put in at Fish Trap dam. Camp was set up right away near the dam, and a day trip was done up Nixon Creek to Nixon Lake. After lunch at Nixon Lake, we canoed as far as possible up Partridge creek. Partridge creek for a number of years had a very large beaver dam which made this trip interesting. A photo of this dam is on the the nature page.

One of the biggest memories of this route is the time that Allen Wenzel got dumped by Dave Slawgowski. Dave was in the front of the canoe, and needed to got the the bathroom very bad. Allen and Dave reached a steep bank. Dave jumps out and pulls the canoe quite a ways up the steep bank. This is a big canoeing no-no, because there is very limited surface area of the canoe in the water when pulling it up at an angle. This made the canoe unstable and Allen fell in.
Dave S, Boyd, Ship, and Allen (1985)
Of course just after this happens, the sunny day turns cloudy, the temperature starts to drop an drop, and we are forced to canoe into a head wind. By the time we get back to camp, Allen was starting to show some signs of hypothermia. (I can't remember why some of us didn't give up some of out clothes to Allen after he got wet). Anyhow he immediately changed clothes and we built a large fire. While the rest of us were standing quite close to the fire because it was cold out, Allen was standing quite a distance away. When asked why he was standing so far away, he responded by "It just doesn't matter". He finally crawled into his sleeping bag and was fine by next morning.

FishTrap Put-In, Johnson Creek (1996)

On the third year we went did the same route plan as the previous year, except the first day trip route was different. We went up Johnson Creek to Johnson Lake. Johnson Lake is surrounded by floating bog, so we had lunch on the floating bog.

Although we only visited this Johnson Lake once, there are a number of memories. There was Mike LeCaptain mooning all of us and Rich Shipway falling out of the canoe trying to get on the bog. Rich was riding with Ron Roloff, and Ron Roloff's home-made first aid kit got soaked. It was pretty funny seeing all the water that Ron dumped out of the first aid kit.

Pike Lake Take-Out (1999-2003, 2005, 2007)

On the 1998 He-Man, we discovered that much of Stevenson Creek was not canoeable as a result of no active beaver dams. Also in both 1999 and 2000 the water levels in Northern Wisconsin were unusually low. We therefore did a longer route starting at Trout Lake, down the Trout River, camp just down from the Manitowish Waters dam, down the Manitowish River, camp on the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage, canoe up the Turtle River, and take out of Pike Lake, just North of Mercer, WI.

This trip is easier in that there is not much up-stream, but it is longer (approximately 55 miles). Also the possibility of large waves on the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage can make the trip more difficult.

From Murray's boat landing we typically take the Northern route around the long island in the Eastern part of the flowage. For something different, in 2003 Dave decided to take the Southern route through a non-navigable channel. See Turtle Flambeau pictures for what Non-Navigable means.