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Rolling through the winter wonderland of Wisconsin’s Northwoods are scattered reminders that what looks like a beautiful snow globe scene today was once a cutover wasteland of unwanted slash. Remnants of the Civilian Conservation Corps camp buildings like this frosty stone and concrete former dynamite shack in Seeley give witness to man’s destructive and restorative Jeckyll and Hyde nature.
Wisconsin’s first sawmill was built in 1809. It only took about 100 years before logging had laid waste to the nearly million acres of Hemlocks, White Cedar, and Tamarack from Green Bay to Superior that the indigenous human, fauna and floral populations had lived in harmony with and called for more than 10,000 years. Thankfully for us today, the cutover lands that were left were partially replanted by young men put back to work by the New Deal era CCC program.
If you know where to look, you can pull over on a ride down many forest roads and explore the old camps. The Civilian Conservation Corps, the National forests, Wisconsin State forests and Wisconsin’s unique county forest system are all success stories of sustainability. While maybe not as perfectly balanced as the original old growth forests, they are a reasonable example of how we can balance human wants with what nature needs to flourish. — Seeley Dave
Got your own Wallpaper Worthy Photo?
We’d like to feature fat-bikes from around the world!
If you’ve got a nice fat-bike related image that you feel is “Wallpaper Worthy”, slap it in an email with what, where, date the photo was taken, any other info and a photographer’s credit to [email protected] and you may see your creative work here! Must include a horizontal (16:9 ideal) quality screen resolution main image to preserve image quality! Feel free to include a supporting image or two for the story body.