Aldo Leopold called it "a wilderness on its last legs." Now the North Woods of Wisconsin is a comeback site for bears, fishers, and wolves.  

By John Hildebrand

Stars spilled into a notch where the trail cut into the forest and gleamed all the brighter because there was no moon. A line of flickering candles set in plastic cups in the snow marked the trail as it curved away, then disappeared. Otherwise, everything was dark. I was cross-country skiing, more or less by feel, on what seemed an extension of the Big Dipper.

Skiing at night is like flying by instruments. You lose the horizon so that the landscape reveals itself in terms of gravity: the steady pull of climbing, the sudden rush of air and stomach-lightening sensation of hurtling downward. On the cusp of a hill, I planted my skis in the ruts and went into a tuck, straining as I careened through the darkness to hear if anyone ahead of me had tumbled. Only the first loop of the Flambeau Hills Ski Trail was illuminated for the annual Candlelight Ski in February; it's the easiest trail, but in the dark it seemed long and complicated. Near the loop's end, the pines were backlit with a strange, diffuse glow that grew brighter until I coasted out of the woods and into a parking lot ablaze with bonfires, where huddled skiers watched sparks sail up into the star-tracked sky.

The Flambeau River State Forest in north-central Wisconsin encompasses 90,000 acres of mixed pine and hardwood forest along the north and south forks of the Flambeau River. For years I'd confined myself to the river, canoeing staircases of rapids on either fork, hardly stepping ashore except to dry off between spills. But the canoeing season is short at best, while cross-country skiing opens up more territory, as well as four or five more months of possibilities. Besides, snow is just water in another form.

A month after the Candlelight Ski, I carried my skis across Highway 70  from the Oxbow Trail, stepped into the toe bindings, and pushed off on the hard-packed snow. A logging truck whooshed past. Then I was in the woods, getting into a skating rhythm, as the trail slowly climbed. Until the Candlelight Ski, I'd never encountered more than a handful of skiers on the trail, which is hardly surprising given its location in one of the most sparsely settled regions of Wisconsin. The nearest town, population 383, is named Winter.

Highway 70 marks the juncture between two trails that parallel the Flambeau's north fork. From a ridge, I could see the spar tops of white pines over a bare canopy of sugar maples and red oaks, and beyond lay a line of blue hills. Then it was a quick, curving descent through yellow birch and aspen to the river. The temperature was in the upper 20s, and a lead of black water opened in the ice. The only sound was the distant drumming of a downy woodpecker.

As I skied, I watched the ground to see what had passed this way before me. Within a few miles I'd crossed the fleur-de-lis tracks of ruffed grouse as well as those of coyote, fisher, white-tailed deer, snowshoe hare, raccoon, and the slogging footprints of a young black bear evidently awakened by the warm weather. Tracks in the snow form a two-dimensional map of animal ranges, chance encounters, and extraterritorial movements. They reveal that a forest is not a fixed residence but a neighborhood in constant flux. The five-toed tracks of the fisher, a member of the weasel family trapped out of the state in 1932 and reintroduced 30 years later, foretell a local scarcity of porcupine, the fisher's main prey. The pine marten, another member of the weasel family, has also taken up residence in the area after a long absence. And an occasional moose drifts down from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to spend the summer wading in the tamarack swamps.

The sheer diversity of tracks is largely due to the unique mixture of hardwoods and conifers, and to conser-
vative logging practices within the forest. At least 20 percent of the Flambeau River State Forest is managed as "no-cut," including a quarter-mile buffer on either side of the river. The rest is selectively logged for hardwoods rather than clear-cut for pulpwood, so even places that have been logged still resemble forests instead of vacant lots. The state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has even tried to mimic old-growth forests in some areas by leaving snags, poor-quality trees, and woody debris on the ground for mammals like fishers and bears that den in and under trees, as well as for forest-dwelling birds, such as the pileated woodpecker.

All this is in sharp contrast to the rather elegiac chapter Aldo Leopold wrote on the Flambeau in A Sand County Almanac. His father had told him it was the premier river of the North Woods. "When I finally launched my canoe on this legendary stream," Leopold wrote, "I found it up to expectations as a river, but as a wilderness it was on its last legs." At the time the Flambeau River State Forest was created in 1930, most of the virgin white pine and hemlock had already been cut, so it was a remnant forest Leopold drifted past a decade later. All that tied the Flambeau to the wilderness of Leopold's expectations was the "remnant of wildlife," including the rumor that a "wolf or two still roams the upper Flambeau." In 1954 a 93-pound timber wolf was trapped along Price Creek, not far from here, though a few years later, when the state removed the bounty on wolves to protect the species, it was already too late. Wisconsin's wolves were gone.
In my knapsack I carried a map on which Adrien Wydeven, a DNR biologist and wolf specialist, had drawn four large circles to indicate wolf-pack territories within the Flambeau River State Forest. The ski trail divides the Price Creek pack from the Thornapple River pack, which makes sense, Wydeven, had told me, since wolves often use topographical features such as rivers as territorial boundaries. Canoeing on the Thornapple one summer, I found an abandoned wolf den in the cellar of an old homestead. The wolves had left signs of their occupation: a thick mat of deer hair, cracked marrow bones, and plenty of sun-bleached scat.

The recent return of the timber wolf has been the most dramatic homecoming in the state. Twenty years ago, when I first wrote about the timber wolf's comeback in Wisconsin, the population of about 25 was concentrated mainly in the northwestern corner of the state, near the border with Minnesota, the area from which they had dispersed. But instead of growing, the wolf population plummeted by half in the mid-1980s because of Canine parvovirus, a disease particularly lethal to pups. In the past decade, however, the number of wolves in the state has climbed steadily, to nearly 200, distributed in 54 groups across northern and central Wisconsin-so many that the species may be down-listed in the state, from endangered to threatened. 

Skiing that trail between pack territories, I looked for wolf tracks. Earlier I had found coyote tracks but no sign of wolves. Finally, on Pinery Grade, an old railroad grade, I spotted wolf tracks crossing and recrossing the trail. Was this animal patrolling its pack's territory or intruding into another's? While some wildlife biologists occasionally track on foot, most fieldwork is now done from airplanes, tracking signals from radio-collared animals. One wolf Wydeven has kept tabs on, a female he has nicknamed Atrayu, started out nearly 100 miles to the west in Minnesota, then dropped down to within 20 miles of St. Paul, before moving east with her mate to Wisconsin to form the current Price Creek pack.

Wolves are elusive creatures, so I'm content with mere evidence of their presence: tracks in the snow, scat, and scattered bones. And wolves are likely to stay as long as there remain large tracts of forest. Using data gathered from radio-collared wolves, Wydeven and his colleagues have analyzed potential wolf habitat in Wisconsin to determine the areas most likely to be inhabited by wolves. Not surprisingly, the most favorable conditions are in public-forest areas of mixed hardwoods and conifers-the exact areas wolves have colonized. Because the Flambeau River State Forest lies within a matrix of nearly a million acres of publicly owned forestland, it will likely be designated one of the Wolf Core Areas-places wolves will be protected even if they're no longer considered an endangered species.

Trees by themselves, however, don't make a forest wild. When Leopold canoed the Flambeau, he complained of rounding a bend only to spy another summer cottage with its "composition roof, 'Bide-A-Wee' signboard, and rustic pergola." I know just what he's describing because I bought a cabin of that vintage, not on the Flambeau but on the nearby Elk River. So it's with some guilt that I say development is the greatest threat to Wisconsin's North Woods and to wide-ranging species like the wolf. The cottages and hunting camps that bedeviled Leopold have given way to towering second homes and retirement villas. The suburbanization of the woods is already clear in northeastern Wisconsin, where there is similar forest cover but more residential development and, consequently, few wolves.

I skied over a footbridge across Mason Creek, then stopped at a shelter, building a campfire to roast venison sausage for lunch. Refreshed, I started up a steep hill as the snow softened in the sunlight. The reward was the de-
scent through a stand of sweet-smelling pine, passing in and out of shadow. Soon I was on the final loop, the one I skied a month ago in darkness. All I needed to recall that sensation, as I set my skis in the tandem tracks and plunged downhill, was to very briefly close my eyes. 
 

John Hildebrand is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. His most recent book is Mapping the Farm: The Chronicle of a Family.
 

The Flambeau River State Forest covers about 90,000 acres of mixed conifers and northern hardwoods in north-central Wisconsin. It's bordered by county forests, the Kimberly Clark State Wildlife Area, and the Chequamegon National Forest.

Getting There: The forest is roughly 200 miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Take  Highway 8 east from St. Croix Falls and turn north on County Road M. Or you can drive east on Route 70 from Grantsburg to Winter, and then take County Road W. 

Cross-Country Skiing: Hayward, Wisconsin, about 30 minutes from Winter, hosts the world-famous Birkebeiner Race each February. If you're not a racer, try the David D. Klug Flambeau Hills Memorial Ski Trail, which runs for about 14 miles from County Road W to Highway 70. Six loops range from "easiest" at Short Swing to "most difficult" at the heart-grabbing Ridge Run. The Oxbow Ski Trail runs north of Highway 70 within an oxbow on the north fork of the Flambeau. The 8.5-mile trail begins on fairly level ground, then becomes more challenging. Get a trail pass ($3 a day, $10 a year) at the trailhead or the Flambeau River State Forest office (715-332-5271) on County Road W. The office also hosts an annual candlelight ski each February.

Things to See: Little Falls, on the south fork of the Flambeau, is a good spot for a picnic. Here the river roars through a series of rapids before plunging over a bouldery falls. The Big White Pine, a short drive on Price Creek Road off County Road M, is a survivor of the 19th-century logging era. The 300-year-old tree stands 130 feet high and has a girth of 13 feet. 

Winter Camping: Backcountry winter camping is free, although a permit must be picked up at the Flambeau River State Forest office. Lake of the Pines Campground on County Road W is open for car camping ($7 a day for residents, $9 for nonresidents), and a state parks sticker is required ($5 a day, $18 a year). Call first (715-332-5271) to make sure the campground is plowed.

Where to Stay: The Flambeau Forest Inn (715-332-5405), located on County Road W between Connors Lake and Lake of the Pines, has singles for $32 a night; it also serves meals. Big Bear Lodge (715-332-5510) on County Road W has cabins for $45-$70 a night (two-night minimum). Hidden Valley Inn and Resort (715-339-2757) in Phillips has rooms decorated with antiques for $49-$64 a night. -J. H.