The Chippewa by Richard D. Cornell

Author:Richard D. Cornell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Published: 2017-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Wild Chippewa

The Flambeau River to Jim Falls

I say there, chum, have you ever run

that stretch where the rapids roar?

And then come out with a curse and a shout,

And you’re wet but you grin for more?

—THOMAS F. WATERS, “THE CALL OF THE RIVER TRAIL”

We resumed our trip at the blue bridge below Flater’s Resort, at the beginning of the legendary wild Chippewa. After visiting with Harold Flater, I knew that the placid water we would paddle through had once been beautiful rapids.

Before the dams started regulating the water flow from Holcombe to Chippewa Falls, the river fell more than two hundred feet in forty-three miles, a treacherous stretch of falls, chutes, and rapids.1 Without knowledge of this river history you wouldn’t know that the peaceful pools you see along Highway 178 between Jim Falls and Cornell conceal a legacy of wildness and death. According to local lore, ghosts still lurk in the forests along the river, crying out to be saved from the tragedy that took eleven lives below Little Falls dam in July of 1905.

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