20 NORTHERN LAKES. 



landlord vie with each other in pleasing the tourist who tarries there. 

 Beyond Devil's Lake the rail follows the course of the picturesque 

 Baraboo almost to its source. From thence to Eau Claire we tra- 

 verse a comparatively level district — apparently the bottom of an 

 ancient lake or sea, in which the present bluffs and castellated rocks 

 were islands. 



Forty miles northward from Eau Claire the tourist fairly enters 

 upon the *' Happy Hunting Grounds" of the red man. The Indian 

 is gone, or at least he has left only a poor shiftless representative to 

 guard his wide domain. 



Following up either of the various tributaries of the Chippewa 

 River, innumerable lakes present themselves at every turn, while 

 trout brooks are so plentiful that one might compare the land to a 

 human body in which the veins represent the streams. 



In the vicinity of CHETEK and RICE LAKE there is much 

 that will induce the sportsman to tarry, and if he should sigh for 

 *' more worlds to conquer" he would have but to *'paddle his canoe" 

 up stream and presto — one lake then another, and so on ad infin- 

 itum. Now that the red hunter has passed away, these almost prim- 

 itive hunting grounds have regained in a measure their former 

 abundance of life. 



One of the most beautiful lakes met with as the sportsman pro- 

 ceeds along the chain, is RED CEDAR. It is about four miles m 

 length, and contains several picturesque islands; on one of which 

 formerly grew a single red cedar. From this tree the lake received 

 its name, there being no other of that species known in the vicinity. 

 It is certainly one of the most charming woodland lakes to be found 

 in all the northern wilderness. 



LAC COURT OREILLES is also a most lovely lake belonging 

 to the same group as Red Cedar, but is more conveniently accessible 

 from Hayward, a new lumbering town 26 miles above Spooner, 

 where we stop for meals. Court Oreilles is one of the most mag • 

 nificent sheets of water in the Northwest. It is larger, more ro • 

 mantic and picturesque than the famous Minnetonka, and is almost 

 unknown to the world. The Indian reservation, which includes a 

 portion of the northern shore, has no doubt been in a measure 

 responsible for its primitiveness. People have generally supposed 

 that the entire lake belonged to the reservation, and were not anx- 

 ious to intrude. 



