Thursday 14 September 2023

Lake Chippewa,

also known as Chippewa Flowage, is an artificial lake in northwestern Wisconsin, USA


photograph John Buvala, living there seems an idyllic place, but if you happen to be a boat owner every so often your services might be called on, Wisconsin’s Lake Chippewa is home to a number of floating islands that sometimes moves around blocking a critically important bridge, the island, sometimes one or more, has to be moved by local boat owners working in unison, 

apparently the lake was created in 1923, by flooding a large swamp, all was well until peat bogs came to the surface, windborne seeds soon took hold and made floating islands, which unfortunately move in the wind, the biggest of them called “Forty Acre Bog” on the west side of the lake featuring mature trees, is the most troublesome, almost every year, dozens of local boat owners team up to push it away from a bridge connecting the East and West sides of the lake, “It’s one of the first things you look for when you come in here in the morning: Where’s the bog?” local man Denny Reyes said, what a great example of a community uniting in a team sprit to help each other.


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