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A Brief Natural History of the Upper Chippewa River Basin
The land within the Upper Chippewa River Basin (the white area in the map above) drains parts of the following counties: Ashland, Bayfield, Chippewa, Iron, Oneida, Price, Rusk, Taylor, Vilas, and Washburn. The Basin is 4,680 square miles in size (nearly the size of the state of Connecticut). Major rivers that drain portions of the Basin include the Chippewa, Flambeau, Jump, Thornapple, Manitowish, Couderay, and Elk. See the map of the sub watersheds below for more detail. The Basin is one of the least populated in the entire state. Its population includes roughly 60,000 people who live in 79 towns, 19 villages, and 5 cities.
Sub-watersheds of the Basin
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The Basin Landscape
The landscape of the Upper Chippewa Basin has been formed by repeated glacial movements, which have left glacial deposits on top of igneous, metamorphic, or volcanic bedrock. The glaciers left a general northeast-southwest pattern on portions of the landscape that can be found when looking at aerial photos or forest cover type maps. Major landforms include of glacial moraines, pitted out wash areas, and kettle depressions. Geologic points of interest include the Blue Hills in northwestern Rusk County and the Timm's Hill region of southern Price County. Water features within the Basin include low-gradient streams and rivers, wetlands, and numerous lakes (especially in western Vilas County and in Sawyer County). Several large man-made flowages (Lake Chippewa and the Turtle Flambeau Flowage) can also be found within the Basin. Typical soils include sandy loams, sand, and silt. Poorly drained, acidic, and rocky silt loams predominate.
Dominant vegetation within the Basin is forests. Northern hardwood forest dominated by hemlock, sugar maple, and yellow birch the most common forest cover types. Other major vegetative components include aspen-birch, pine (white and red), and forested and non-forested wetlands. Disturbances (both natural and man-made) are the driving forces behind the vegetation communities present on a landscape. Major disturbances within the Upper Chippewa Basin include small-scale blow-downs, fire, and infrequent large windstorm damage.
The Basin supports a variety of wildlife species, including large fauna (whitetail deer, bear, and wolves), smaller fauna (beaver, otter, raccoon, coyote, bobcat, fisher, and pine marten), and birds (hawks, eagles, peregrine falcons, loons, ducks, cranes, geese, grouse, and numerous songbirds). Fish species found within the basin include trout, sturgeon, walleye, northern pike, bass, muskellunge, and numerous pan fish species.
Ecological Classification
The Basin lies in what ecologists call the Northern Great Lakes Section of the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province (Section 212H). Scientists with the Wisconsin DNR refer to this area of Wisconsin as being part of the North Central Forest ecological landscape. What do these terms mean?
Basically, scientists classify landscapes into common types or units that have similar vegetation, geology, soils, fauna, climate, and disturbance regimes. These classifications help resource managers put local management activities into a broader (ecosystem or landscape) context. This broader context can be very important when considering large scale components like watersheds or wildlife habitat ranges.
For more information on what exactly an Eco-region is, visit the U.S. Forest Service's Introduction to Ecological Sub-regions of the United States webpage. Contact your local Wisconsin DNR office for more information about Wisconsin's ecological landscapes.