THE "BIG WOODS." 211 



the best. The first named is easily accessible from the vil- 

 lage of New Kichmond, which is on a branch of the West 

 Wisconsin Railroad that diverges from Hudson on the St. 

 Croix River. The Black River has many nameless tribu- 

 taries, all stocked with trout, which are reached by wagon 

 from Black River Falls, on the West Wisconsin Railroad. Of 

 the tributaries of the Chippewa I have fished very many, 

 starting from Prescott on the Mississippi, taking a wagon 

 road across an intervening prairie to the " Big Woods," and 

 then following the logging roads that traverse the wilderness 

 in all directions. Many others are more easily reached from 

 Menominee on the West Wisconsin Railroad. At present 

 this is the only railroad that crosses any part of this region. 

 The Eau Galle, Menominee, and Vermillion Rivers, afford 

 rare sport. The scenery of the former is very grand in some 

 parts. The river winds through deep gorges, whose precipi- 

 tous sides are one hundred feet high. On their tops tower a 

 forest of pines, whose roots are far>bove the tops of other 

 pines that grow from the crevices in the cliff beneath. Here 

 and there a blasted trunk, riven by lightning or thrown down 

 by the tempest, hangs by its shattered fibres, and threatens 

 to drop momentarily into the chasm below. Other splendid 

 trout streams are the Kinnikinnik, Willow Creek, Big River, 

 and Rush River, all situated in Pierce and St. Croix counties, 

 and emptying into the Mississippi in the vicinity of Lake 

 Pepin. 



Our camp on the Eau Galle is about sixty miles east of the 

 Mississippi, and our route hither runs for the first twenty-five 

 miles through a fertile undulating tract, dotted with thrifty 

 farms. Then it crosses some twenty miles of rolling prairie 

 brilliant with flowers of countless hues, dotted here and 

 there with little groves or perchance a single tree standing 

 alone in its solitude, threaded with sparkling streamlets 

 whose courses, however distant, are defined by the willows 

 and elders that fringe their borders, and diversified by an 

 occasional log-cabin surrounded by numerous barns and hay- 



