Flambeau Trail – Turtle Portage
Iron County Heritage Area
For centuries Native Americans and voyagers using the Flambeau Trail carried their birch bark canoes and cargo across the wide “plain” where you are standing, between Echo Lake (called Big Turtle Lake) and Grand Portage Lake (Little Turtle Lake).
Sometimes they paused here to re-gum leaky canoes using native pine pitch in preparation for the paddle to Lac du Flambeau.
The Flambeau Trail, followed the waterways, from here through Little Turtle Lake, following a narrow channel into Mercer Lake (Sugar Camp Lake).
From there travellers were forced to endure one final portage – three grueling miles through tamarack swamps to reach the Manitowish River (then called the Chippewa River). Easier travel by canoe was possible for the last 24 miles to the Flambeau Trail’s end at the Indian village and fur trading post at Lac du Flambeau.
Marker is at the intersection of County Highway J and County Highway H, on the right when traveling east on County Highway J.
Courtesy hmdb.org
