CHIPPEWA COUNTY r _> 7 



perfect for that purpose, the late John Clark made a large and pro- 

 ductive cranberry farm with modern appliances for flooding the land 

 and collecting the crop. There is also a smaller cranberry farm at 

 Whitefish Point owned by Mr. Frank House. 



The Region Wild and Nearly in Natural State 



The locality from Eckerman to Vermilion, and all that portion of the 

 count}-- north of the railway connecting Soo Junction with Brimley and 

 west to Luce County, is one of the wi'dest the writer lias ever visited. 

 If such a wild region is the proper place for biological work, this has been 

 well chosen, and is typical. It is the home of such wild animals as ha 

 been left in Michigan. Bear tracks were common, deer and tiny fawn 

 tracks, and their trails, were numerous. Porcupines were abundant, 

 five having been seen at one time in an abandoned shanty. Its northern 

 latitude was indicated on the night of June 13-14, 1914, by a killing fro 

 cutting down the common brake wherever exposed, and killing the 

 tender shoots of small black ash and other shrubs and trees. 



Peculiar Habitats 



Throughout the localitv there is much flat sandv land mostly in 

 streaks with a thin covering of vegetable mold and sphagnum giving it 

 a very swampy appearance. Growing on this were found white birch, 

 black ash, black spruce, balsam and red maple. Forest fires in dry 

 seasons have swept over most of such ground and the dead timber is 

 still standing. Back of Shelldrake was noticed a large area of flat sandy 

 land covered with sphagnum, in which were growing only small scatter- 

 ing jack pines and an occasional small bunch of. shrubs. 



Trees and Shrubs with Diverse Habitats 



As already intimated, black spruce mixed with tamarack is abundant 

 in swamps throughout the county. But black spruce is also common 

 over large tracts of flat, dry, sandy ground, especially so on the dry 

 banks of the Tahquamenon River. In this respect, however, the be- 

 havior of red maple is much more striking. General observation and 

 the record in botanical works indicate as a habitat for this species 

 "swamps and wet woods'', but in the whole region north and wesl 

 Eckerman it is very abundant on dry flat sandy land, Gxed sand ridg 

 and drifting sand dunes, although mostly reduced in size and scraggy in 

 this situation. So far as heretofore observed by the writer in Michigan 

 Ledum groenlandicum is a bog shrub, but here i( extends from bogs to 

 dry flat sandy land, and to sides and even crests of fixed sand ri< i ! 



drifting sand dunes. 



