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Donate using Google Checkout Online donations to help us preserve and celebrate the upper St. Croix River and its watershed can be made using your credit card (click the Donate button). We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and all donations are tax deductible.
Join us at our "St. Croix Riverfest" Celebration on June 13-14, 2008
Local conservation, arts, hiking, and historical society groups are hosting a two-day celebration of our watershed on June 13-14, 2008.
The St. Croix Riverfest theme is Meet the waters, Meet the People, Celebrate our Nature.
The celebration includes a watershed conference, Patagonia Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, Festival of the Arts, and a watershed-wide community-events celebration including water trail paddle, canoe rides, underwater video program, pontoon classroom, youth events, local tours, and much more.
Watch for our ad in the May/June edition of Wisconsin Trails magazine (inside back cover).
Friday, June 13, 2008 7:00 to 10:00 pm Solon Springs Community Center
Hosted by Friends of the St. Croix Headwaters $5 tickets at door.
Saturday, June, 14, 2008
Inaugural Paddle
St. Croix Water Trail
9:30am put-in at Solon Springs
FOTSCH Receives Approval for Two-year DNR Watershed Grant
We have received funding approval for a DNR Lake (Watershed) Protection grant submitted in partnership with the Upper St. Croix Watershed Alliance. FOTSCH will manage this project.
FOTSCH Honored With 2007 River Champion Award
At the River Alliance 2007 Spring Confluence get-together in Madison on March 10th, the Friends of the St. Croix Headwaters received the River Champion award for excellence in river stewardship.
St. Croix Headwaters This website celebrates the history and natural beauty of the St. Croix headwaters area, which is located in Solon Springs and Gordon townships in southeastern Douglas County, Wisconsin. Upper St. Croix Lake is the source of the St. Croix River. An 8-mile segment of the St. Croix River (which flows to the south) connects this lake with the St. Croix Flowage at Gordon (Gordon Flowage). This 8-mile reach is ranked 5th among 1,494 stream segments in 20 northern Wisconsin counties by the DNR's Northern Rivers Initiative. Tributaries flowing into this segment are Lower Ox Creek and the Eau Claire River. The outlet dam of the 1,900 acre St. Croix Flowage at Gordon is the origin point of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. While the river upstream from the Gordon dam is not part of the national scenic riverway, it is classified as "ORW" (Outstanding Resource Waters) by the Wisconsin DNR. The ORW protective classification includes Upper St. Croix Lake, the St. Croix Flowage at Gordon, and the 8-mile St. Croix River headwater segment connecting these two water bodies. Maps Click for download (requires Acrobat Reader)
A Short Story From History
Introduction Second Lieutenant James Allen was ordered by the U.S. Army to
provide a military escort for the Schoolcraft expedition, and to keep a
detailed journal and construct maps of his route. Historically
speaking, the detail and accuracy of his maps of Minnesota and Wisconsin
were very significant in adding to the geographical knowledge of the
area. August 4, 1832. Passed a long
expansion of the river [Whitefish Lake], grown over with wild rice, on
the east side of which is an Indian village, of seven or eight lodges,
with gardens of potatoes, squashes, and corn, adjacent. This is Keppemeppas permanent village; but all the Indians were now absent,
hunting or fishing. Twelve or fifteen miles above this village, we came
to another expansion, or narrow rice lake, five or six miles long, the
upper end of which receives the Ox river; the St. Croix coming in below
the Ox river, on the west side. From my ignorance of the route, I was
near getting lost at this place, by following up the wrong river. A
broad, plain channel, with a current all the way, leads up, through the
rice, to the mouth of Ox river; but the St. Croix, which is here the
smaller of the two rivers, comes in, as it were, on one side of the rice
pond, and has its mouth, in a measure, concealed by the grass growing in
it. Each canoe passed in succession to the mouth of the former river,
without noticing the latter; but I had remarked, as I passed, an opening
in the woods, as though a stream came in; and after entering the mouth
of the wrong river, I went back, to be satisfied as to this appearance,
and found the stream; but, from its being smaller than the other, I was
still in doubt which to take, till I had followed it up a short
distance, to a rapid, where I observed, on a rock in the bottom, a
little red spot, which, on examination, proved to be red lead paint
rubbed from Mr. S.’s canoe, which had touched the rock. This little
circumstance determined this to be the proper route, and save me from
the error of taking the other; which, if I had done, might have led to
further error, and been attended with serious consequences: for, if I
had been lost for many days in this poor country, till my provisions
were exhausted, starvation would have been almost inevitable.
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