09157 - Chase Creek

Chase Creek drains 6,140 acres of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin, forming headwaters of the Elk River system. The area centers on Chase Creek and its tributary Hoffman Creek, which flow through a landscape shaped by glacial geology and sustained by groundwater seepage. These waterways originate in and drain through a mosaic of forest types that reflect the region's transition between boreal and temperate ecosystems, with water movement creating distinct wet and mesic conditions across the roadless area.

The dominant forest communities reflect moisture and elevation gradients. Northern Hardwood Forest occupies the drier upland positions, while Hemlock-Hardwood Forest dominates cooler, more sheltered slopes where eastern hemlock and northern hardwoods create a closed canopy. The wettest areas support Northern Wet-Mesic Forest and Loamy Floodplain communities, where tamarack (Larix laricina) and grey alder (Alnus incana) form the canopy structure. In these saturated soils, the understory transitions to species adapted to persistent moisture: interrupted fern (Osmunda claytoniana), nodding trillium (Trillium cernuum), bluebead lily (Clintonia borealis), and marsh calla (Calla palustris) occupy the forest floor. Drier upland understories support pink lady's slipper (Cypripedium acaule), while open wetland margins host marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), swamp laurel (Kalmia polifolia), and alderleaf buckthorn (Rhamnus alnifolia).

The area supports a diverse vertebrate community shaped by these forest types and aquatic systems. Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and walleye (Sander vitreus) inhabit Chase Creek and Hoffman Creek, forming the base of an aquatic food web. The federally endangered gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the federally threatened Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) hunt across the forest, with lynx preying on snowshoe hares in the dense understory and wolves taking larger ungulates. The federally endangered Northern Long-Eared Bat (Myotis septentrionalis) hunts insects above the canopy and roosts in dead trees within the forest. American black bears forage across all forest types, feeding on mast and vegetation. Wood turtles, endangered (IUCN), move between upland forests and stream corridors, while common snapping turtles and northern leopard frogs occupy the wetland margins and shallow pools. The Experimental Population, Non-Essential whooping crane (Grus americana) uses open wetland areas and floodplain margins. The salamander mussel (Simpsonaias ambigua), proposed for federal endangered status, inhabits the creek substrates, filtering organic material from the water column.

A visitor moving through Chase Creek encounters a landscape of distinct sensory transitions. Following Chase Creek upstream from lower elevations, the forest canopy shifts from mixed hardwood to the darker, cooler Hemlock-Hardwood Forest, where the understory opens and the sound of water becomes more prominent. Crossing into the floodplain, tamarack and alder replace hemlock, and the ground becomes spongy underfoot. The air cools near the water, and the smell of rich organic soil and decomposing wood intensifies. Moving away from the creek into drier upland forest, the canopy opens slightly, light reaches the forest floor, and the understory becomes more diverse—pink lady's slippers and trilliums emerge from the leaf litter. The contrast between the dark, wet cove forests and the brighter, drier upland hardwood communities defines the experience of moving through this roadless area.

Historically, this region was inhabited and used by several Indigenous nations. The Ojibwe (Chippewa) ceded this territory to the United States through the Treaty of St. Peters in 1837 and subsequent treaties in 1842 and 1854. The Potawatomi, part of the Council of Three Fires alongside the Ojibwe and Odawa, also occupied and continue to have deep ties to the broader forest region. The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin considers much of northern Wisconsin, including these lands, as part of their ancestral territory, which once spanned approximately 10 million acres. Ho-Chunk peoples historically used northern river systems and forests for hunting and trade. Indigenous peoples used these lands as a "storehouse" for traditional resources, including wild rice gathered from local waterways, medicinal plants, and materials such as birch bark for canoes and containers. They also harvested maple sugar from sugar bushes in the spring. The U.S. Forest Service recognizes that these lands contain culturally significant sites and places of spiritual importance to the tribes, which are protected under federal law and tribal memoranda of understanding. Under the treaties of 1837 and 1842, eleven federally recognized Ojibwe tribes retain usufructuary rights to hunt, fish, and gather on these ceded lands, which include the Chase Creek area.

From the 1870s through the early 1900s, the region was part of the vast northern Wisconsin pineries and was dominated by large lumber companies that established temporary logging camps, often moving once the local timber was exhausted. Nearby Lugerville, west of Phillips, was a prominent bustling logging village during the boom era. Fifield, founded in 1876 at a railroad crossing, served as a major logging hub until a catastrophic fire in 1893 destroyed its business district. Industrial logging in the area relied on splash dams to manage water levels for log drives. After the pine supply was depleted around 1910, logging operations shifted to hardwoods and hemlock to support local sawmills and tanneries. Following the timber boom, much of the land was sold to European immigrants for farming. However, poor soil and the Great Depression led to widespread tax delinquency and land abandonment.

The Weeks Act of 1911 provided federal authority to purchase lands for the purpose of protecting navigable streams. In 1925, the Wisconsin legislature passed an Enabling Act granting the federal government permission to acquire and manage lands in the state as National Forests. The federal government acquired these cutover, burned over, and farmed out lands in the early 1930s. On March 2, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation creating the Nicolet National Forest from several purchase units including Moquah, Flambeau, Oneida, Mondeaux, and Oconto. The Chequamegon National Forest was officially proclaimed in November 1933, formed from the Oneida, Flambeau, and Oconto Purchase Units. On December 31, 1936, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation that transferred the Mondeaux Division from the Nicolet National Forest to the Chequamegon National Forest.

During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps was active in the district, planting millions of trees and building fire towers and fire lanes to restore the landscape. The current forest cover is largely the result of these massive replanting efforts by the CCC in the 1930s. Most of the trees in the area are even-aged second-growth forest resulting from this era.

In July 1952, President Harry S. Truman enlarged both the Nicolet and Chequamegon National Forests by adding lands acquired under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act and the Weeks Act. The forest land base grew from approximately 409,000 acres in 1929 to more than 1.5 million acres over time through ongoing land acquisitions and exchanges. In February 1998, the two forests were officially combined into the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest to be managed as a single unit. The Chase Creek area is now designated as a 6,140-acre Inventoried Roadless Area, protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

Headwater Cold-Water Fishery and Spawning Habitat

Chase Creek and its tributaries originate within this roadless area as headwater streams essential for native cold-water fish populations. The intact forest canopy maintains cool water temperatures critical for spawning and rearing of wild trout and other native species adapted to northern Wisconsin's aquatic systems. Road construction would remove streamside forest cover, allowing solar radiation to warm the water and degrade the precise thermal conditions these species require to reproduce successfully.

Interior Hardwood Forest Habitat for Endangered Carnivores

The 6,140-acre tract of contiguous Northern Hardwood and Hemlock-Hardwood Forest provides the large, unfragmented interior habitat required by the federally endangered gray wolf (Canis lupus) and federally threatened Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). Both species depend on extensive unbroken forest blocks to establish territories and move safely across the landscape; fragmentation from road networks creates barriers to movement and increases vulnerability to vehicle strikes and human persecution at forest edges. The roadless condition preserves the spatial connectivity these wide-ranging predators need to maintain viable populations in Wisconsin.

Northern Long-Eared Bat Maternity and Foraging Habitat

The mature forest structure within Chase Creek supports the federally endangered Northern Long-Eared Bat (Myotis septentrionalis), which roosts in tree cavities and crevices within older hardwood stands and hunts insects over intact forest canopy. Road construction and associated timber harvesting would remove the large trees required for roosting and fragment the continuous canopy this species uses as aerial highways for foraging, directly reducing survival and reproductive success of this already-imperiled bat population.

Aquatic Connectivity for Freshwater Mussels

The roadless condition preserves hydrological integrity across the Chase Creek drainage, maintaining the unobstructed flow and sediment dynamics that the proposed-endangered Salamander mussel (Simpsonaias ambigua) requires for its complex life cycle, which depends on specific host fish species and clean spawning substrates. Road construction would introduce chronic sedimentation from cut slopes and fill, smothering the mussel's habitat and disrupting the water chemistry and flow patterns essential to its survival.

Threats from Road Construction

Stream Sedimentation and Loss of Spawning Substrate

Road construction in forested headwater areas generates sediment from exposed cut slopes and compacted fill that erodes into nearby streams during rainfall and snowmelt. This sediment blankets the gravel and cobble spawning beds that native trout and other cold-water fish require to lay eggs, suffocating embryos and preventing successful reproduction. The loamy floodplain soils in this drainage are particularly susceptible to erosion, meaning even modest road networks would deliver substantial sediment loads to Chase Creek and its tributaries, degrading spawning habitat for years or decades after construction ceases.

Canopy Removal and Stream Temperature Increase

Road construction requires clearing forest vegetation along the road corridor and at stream crossings, removing the shade that maintains cold-water conditions in Chase Creek and its headwater tributaries. Without the insulating effect of an intact canopy, water temperatures rise—even by a few degrees—enough to exceed the thermal tolerance of cold-water specialists like native trout and the federally endangered Northern Long-Eared Bat's insect prey base. This temperature increase would persist indefinitely unless the forest is allowed to regrow, a process requiring decades in northern Wisconsin's slow-growing hardwood forests.

Habitat Fragmentation and Movement Barriers for Wide-Ranging Predators

Road construction fragments the continuous interior forest that the federally endangered gray wolf and federally threatened Canada lynx depend on for territory establishment and safe movement across the landscape. Roads create hard edges where forest transitions abruptly to open corridor, increasing predator exposure to human activity and vehicle strikes while reducing the spatial connectivity required for these species to find mates, establish new territories, and maintain genetic diversity across Wisconsin's wolf and lynx populations. Once fragmented, the forest's function as contiguous habitat cannot be restored—the ecological damage is permanent even if roads are later abandoned.

Invasive Species Establishment Along Road Corridors

Road construction creates disturbed soil and edge habitat that invasive plants exploit to establish and spread into the surrounding forest interior. The documented invasive species threat to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest would accelerate dramatically along new road corridors, as vehicles transport seeds and the exposed soil provides ideal conditions for non-native plants to outcompete native understory species. This invasion would degrade habitat quality for the wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta, endangered per IUCN status) and other native species dependent on intact forest understory composition, with invasive species persisting long after road use ceases.

The Chase Creek Roadless Area encompasses 6,140 acres of northern hardwood and hemlock forest in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Two designated hunter walking trails provide foot access to the interior: the Wilson Flowage C Hunter Walking Trail (0.8 miles, native surface) and the Schmuland Hunter Walking Trail (1.9 miles, native surface). Both trails are gated to prevent motorized use and follow old logging roads through forest openings managed for wildlife. These trails remain non-motorized year-round, preserving the quiet character essential for foot travel and wildlife observation. Sailor Lake Campground, located at the area's edge, offers 25–26 rustic sites and serves as a staging point for backcountry access.

Hunting opportunities include American black bear, white-tailed deer, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, and small game including fox, raccoon, beaver, and otter. Wisconsin DNR regulations apply: deer gun season runs November 21–29, archery/crossbow season September 12–January 3, and bear seasons vary by zone with an application deadline of December 10. Hunters must observe a 150-yard firearm discharge buffer around developed recreation sites and cannot use nails or screws on live trees. The roadless designation means interior access requires foot travel or non-motorized means, keeping hunting pressure dispersed and habitat undisturbed.

Fishing access centers on Chase Creek and Hoffman Creek, both supporting brook trout in their headwater segments. Crane and Chase Lake, the 86-acre headwater lake, holds walleye (stocked biennially), largemouth bass, bluegill, black crappie, and yellow perch. Forest Road 550 provides vehicle access to Hoffman Creek Flowage; Crane and Chase Lake boat access is maintained on the west shore. Interior creek fishing requires hiking or paddling from these access points. Chase Creek is listed as an impaired water due to sediment, but the roadless condition protects the stream corridor from further fragmentation and allows natural recovery.

Birding in the area benefits from diverse forest and wetland habitats. The Riley Lake Wildlife Management Area, located within 24 kilometers, is the primary documented hotspot with 122 species recorded. The roadless area itself supports breeding warblers including black-throated green warbler, ovenbird, northern parula, and blackburnian warbler in mature conifer stands, plus waterfowl and shorebirds during spring and fall migration through the flowages and wetlands. An experimental whooping crane population is documented in the region. Photography opportunities include wetland flora—orchids, marsh marigold, bluebead lily, and ferns—and wildlife including black bear, gray wolf, and wood turtle. The absence of roads preserves the quiet, undeveloped character that makes these dispersed recreation activities possible.