These 30 square miles of landlocked lakes are among the Upper Peninsula's gems. Sylvania was once the private fishing preserve of a few wealthy men. Now they are now a protected public wilderness area. The Sylvania Tract in the Ottawa National Forest is one of the very few expanses of old-growth northwoods forest to have escaped the logger's ax, the farmer's plow, and natural disturbances like forest fires and destructive windstorms. Several publications at the Ottawa Visitor Center tell its story.
Sylvania won its reprieve by virtue of its great natural beauty and good fishing. In 1895 Albert Johnston, a Wisconsin timber cruiser, bought 80 acres here at the south end of Clark Lake, intending to cut its large, old pines. He decided instead to save the trees and build his home among them. He called his simple, picturesque log cabin "Trossachs," from Tennyson's poem "Lady of the Lake."
 | | Mark Hobbs | | Every summer since a friend turned them on to Sylvania, the Hobbs family of suburban Milwaukee has looked forward to its annual vacation here, begun when thechildren were 4 and 5. “We love to canoe, hike, camp and fish, and just enjoy quality family time together without the distractions of normal daily life,” says dad. “Sylvania offers everything we like to do. I would not change a thing about it.” Here’s their camp at the Birch site on Clark Lake. | Three guests who worked for Ironwood's Oliver Mining Company (which soon became part of U.S. Steel) visited shortly after the house was finished. They liked the area so much that they asked Johnston to buy the entire township for them. In 1900 they built the first lodge on the club property. (Note: Bessemer's high school is named after A.D. Johnson, better known as "Bert." He became an Ironwood-area civic leader and Gogebic County clerk.)
Over the years resorts and cottages came to line the lakes just beyond the Sylvania Tract. Motorboats and water skis disrupted their solitude and wilderness quality. But Sylvania's generations of owners managed it as a fishing and hunting retreat with low levels of use and no logging. Thus Sylvania retained the pristine beauty and wildness that Johnston loved.
...continued below...
 | | Mark Hobbs | | Canoes and kayaks to explore Sylvania’s wilderness lakes can be conveniently launched from the ramp and parking area by the public beach and campground at the north tip of Clark Lake. The Sylvania Wilderness Area itself is motor-free. | Today, as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, most of the area is managed according to wilderness principles. Just over the north edge, near the main entrance contact station, are a drive-in campground, beach, and two boat launches.
On these crystal-clear lakes it's not uncommon to hear not just loons but also the bald eagles which nest here and circle above, looking for fish. In the dense shade beneath massive hemlocks, the forest floor is open and springy with centuries' accumulation of needles. Nesting loons and eagles need to be left alone to reproduce. They flourish here because motorized boats are prohibited and because wilderness management techniques have kept water quality high.
Sylvania is also home to the wolf. "The howl of a wolf is synonymous with wilderness and has a tremendous effect on anyone who hears it," writes Sylvania naturalist Bonnie Peacock in her excellent short book, Sylvania: Majestic Forests and Deep, Clear Waters, available at the Watersmeet Visitor Center. As the area wolf population increases and wolves extend their range across highways, people now are more often spotting the normally shy wolves.
Sylvania's magnificent trees & unusual plants
The flora here in Sylvania are also interesting. The trees of this climax forest are yellow birch, eastern hemlock, and sugar maple. They can live for hundreds of years here, protected from high winds. No damaging fire or storm seems to have occurred for many centuries. Undisturbed environments like these, with rotting logs and decaying leaf debris, suit mushrooms. The quantity of dead wood makes this ideal habitat for pileated woodpeckers, the largest of all woodpeckers.
Wildflowers, too, thrive at Sylvania, including lady's slippers that take years to reach blooming age. Many of the smaller of Sylvania's 36 lakes have bogs or encircling sphagnum mats with wildly varying plant associations, depending on the water's acidity level and the source of seeds that have become established there. These may include legally protected orchids and insect-eating pitcher plants as well as the leatherleaf common in acidic bogs. At the Visitor Center you can pick up free full-color brochures on wildflowers and ferns of the Ottawa National Forest.
Some water bodies have become entirely covered over by sphagnum mats, turning into muskegs. These mats are best seen from a canoe or kayak. A footstep on these thin and fragile mats can destroy years of growth. People can fall through them, too.
From a rich men's retreat to a public treasure
The original three co-owners and four additional U.S. Steel executives formed the Sylvania Club for fishing and hunting. They owned and managed the land in common, built two lodges, guard cabins, and caretakers' buildings. The club bought Albert Johnston's property from his widow after his Model T overturned and killed him in 1922. Some shares were sold to W. B. Thompson of Colorado, who had grown rich from copper investments.
Like many retreats in and near Wisconsin's north woods, during Prohibition Sylvania became less of a fishing camp and more of a place to drink, gamble, and party outside the law's reach. Thompson, an expansive host, was building a huge but quite plain lodge of hand-hewn western red cedar when he died in 1930. The lodge was completed by his daughter and her husband, Anthony Drexel Biddle, Jr., then an ambassador in the Hoover administration. But they spent little time there and eventually sold their shares to Detroit's Fisher brothers of "Body by Fisher" fame. They had pioneered the enclosed auto body and made millions selling to General Motors.
Lawrence Fisher, the affable playboy who headed Cadillac Motors in the 1920s, owned three-fourths of Sylvania's shares through the 1940s and 1950s. A fishing enthusiast, he had caretakers create protected underwater habitats to produce trophy fish. Lake trout were introduced to Clark Lake. Smallmouth bass, native to these lakes, were (and are) the big attractions because they give such a good fight. The celebrities Fisher entertained are still the stuff of local lore: President Eisenhower fishing and golfing at the nearby Gateway Golf Course, Bing Crosby singing one Sunday at the Catholic church, Lawrence Welk regularly helping with dishes in the kitchen.
In the early 1960s, both Sylvania owners died. It was a rare opportunity for the government to buy a large tract of old-growth timber and pristine lakes and let the public enjoy what had been an exclusive fishing club. In 1966 the U.S. Forest Service purchased it for $5,740,000 - the first major purchase of the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. The money came from selling Golden Eagle entrance passes to national recreation areas. The lodges were dismantled and otherwise removed, so today the area feels more like it did in 1895, rather than a resort. Old roads are now hiking trails.
Using the Sylvania Wilderness Area
Sylvania is a place for peaceful contemplation and fishing in the solitude of nature. It does not present the physical challenges that today's adventure-seekers have come to associate with the word "wilderness." Sylvania's hills at their steepest are like those in glacial lake belts near Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. The lakes are placid except on windy days.
What makes Sylvania a wilderness area is the way it has been managed. The undisturbed character of the land and water has been preserved for the most part. Because the spring-fed lakes are landlocked, there's very little water exchange. (Crooked Lake, the headwater for the Ontonagon River's Middle Branch, is an exception.) "Anything put into these lakes will remain there a very long time," writes Bonnie Peacock. Rigorous management has kept water quality high. Motors of all kinds are prohibited, except on Crooked Lake. The lack of wakes and shoreline scouring is a great help for nesting birds, especially loons and eagles, which require quiet to nest successfully.
(On Crooked Lake two resort owners successfully sued the Forest Service, which had tried to ban all motors from Crooked Lake, too. Their guests can use gasoline motors. If these resorts would promote their unusual wilderness location, some local observers believe, they could make lots more money than by fighting the Forest Service.)
The area is wonderfully quiet, except for the sounds of nature. Wilderness management is designed not only to protect natural resources, but to provide a wilderness experience for those people whose enjoyment of the natural world is ruined by the sounds of vehicles and by amenities common to most managed nature areas - things like railings, interpretive signs, and even simple directional markers. Here at Sylvania visitors are allowed to make their own discoveries - and mistakes! Choose Sylvania only if you are prepared to challenge yourself with primitive conditions and the elements you may encounter. Group size is limited to 10 people while hiking or canoeing, and to five people per campsite to reduce the impact on other campers. (For more on camping at Sylvania, see our "Watersmeet Area Camping.") Non-motorized sailboats, bicycles, and portage wheels are all considered mechanical devices and prohibited as a result.
Canoes and kayaks are the ideal means for exploring these lakes, which are very different in character. Some of the lakes lie low, surrounded by marshes or bogs. Others are rimmed by steep hills. Clark and Loon lakes have lots of long sand beaches, making them great for peaceful swimming undisturbed by power boats. Winds across open waters can challenge paddlers, depending on which direction the wind is coming from. Whitefish Lake offers the most remote camping. It has only three campsites and no connecting portage trails to other lakes. Portage distances between lakes are included in Paddling Michigan by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. Canoe and kayak rentals are conveniently available from Sylvania Outfitters.
Twenty-five miles of hiking and portage trails let hikers see 12 lakes, including all the larger ones. High Lake is 18 feet higher than neighboring Crooked Lake. Portage trails but not hiking trails give access to three more lakes. Lakes range in length from about 200 feet to 3/4 of a mile. (Most Sylvania portages are 1,600 feet or under.) Twenty-one smaller lakes are reached by foot without trails.
Special fishing regulations are required for Sylvania because these mostly landlocked lakes have so few nutrients. (That's why they are so clear.) Rules change a little each year. Look for the Sylvania section on the official Michigan fishing regulations that come with your license.
Finding your way without signs or manmade landmarks
If you go off trail, be sure to have a compass or GPS. It's a good idea to get a USGS map to steer you away from wetlands and help you figure out where you are on the unmarked trail system. USGS maps are sold at the contact station on CR 535 near the Clark Lake campground, at the Ottawa Visitor Center, and at Sylvania Outfitters. Though the distances are short in these areas of glacial lakes, wetlands, and ridges, it's surprisingly easy to get turned around or to venture into an area where you're almost encircled by impassable wetlands.
The challenge of canoeing in Sylvania is mostly in getting to your destination without helpful signs and markers showing you how to get to that portage across the lake. Once you're near a portage, the beaten-down path is easy to see. But most of these lakes have lots of inlets and peninsulas. If you don't keep track of where you are on your small but accurate Sylvania map (available for a nominal price from the Ottawa Visitor Center or Sylvania Outfitters), you could become easily confused and turned around. A compass or GPS is advised for paddlers and hikers alike. It's a good idea to leave word of your plans and whereabouts with someone.
Seasons at Sylvania and vicinity
Adapted from Sylvania: Majestic Forests and Deep, Clear Waters by Bonnie Peacock, available at the Ottawa Visitor Center. These descriptions also apply to other inland lakes in Michigan's western Upper Peninsula.
Spring is announced by loons returning from the open water of the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. By May the woods are full of birdsong which establishes territory for nesting birds. Woodland wildflowers are at their peak in late spring, usually the end of May, before the leaf canopy shades the forest floor. Be prepared for the insects, also out in force. (Look under "useful information" on left margin.) Later, into June, the woods bloom with fewer but showier flowers like the coralroot orchid and showy lady's slipper.
Summer means the songbirds sing less, and all birds are busy gathering food for their growing young. This means that eagles and other birds of prey are out over the water, looking for fish. Watch out for active bear cubs and the protective mama bears near them. A splendid time to visit is in the last 10 days of August and early September, when weather is usually warm and family campers have gone home.
Fall is an intense time, neglected by campers. Everything is getting ready for winter. Leaves shut down chlorophyll production, changing colors. Bears bulk up for the long winter. Squirrels store away vast food supplies. Loons head south usually at the end of September.
Winter offers ice fishing, winter camping, and cross-country skiing. 20 miles of groomed ski trails start at Sylvania Outfitters. Snowshoes can be rented there too. They are an ideal way to explore Sylvania in winter. Deer, which can't move around in deep snow, make trails and yard up in the sheltering stands of hemlock in and around Sylvania. They feed on sugar maple saplings and cedar branches sticking up above the snow.
See map for parking access points to Sylvania. Day-use registration is required year-round. A self-registration pipe is at every entrance. Day-use fees ($5/day/vehicle, or $20/year in 2006) are collected for use of improved parking areas by Crooked Lake and Clark Lake. Those parking areas are off County Road 535, which intersects with U.S. 2 about 3 miles west of Watersmeet. Call about handicap-accessibility. Camping: see below.
FOR MORE INFO: The contact station by the main entrance on County Road 535 is staffed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (to 6 on Fri) Central Time between May 15 and September 30. (906) 358-4404.
The Ottawa National Forest Visitor Center is open daily 9-5 Central Time from mid-May through mid-October. From Oct 15 to May 15 open Wed-Sat 9-5 Central Standard Time. (906) 358-4724. The National Forest Watersmeet Ranger Station on the north side of Old U.S. 2 just east of U.S. 45 in Watersmeet is open weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. year-round: (906) 358-4551. www.fs.fed.us/r9/ottawa/
Return to Watersmeet
|
