My friend turned me into a
WSI (Woods Scene Investigator)
He worked for the National Forest Service
for almost 33 years. He started out working in the Ottawa National
Forest and eventually relocated to Eagle River and worked in the
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. He worked as an Engineer, one
of his biggest responsibilities was Surveying. He surveyed all the
section corners that were laid out on the 1800’s. He also
surveyed out many of the existing roads that are in the national
forest today.
A big part of finding the original
section corners was to be able to read and understand the survey
notes that were done by the original surveyors. A lot of times they
would refer to bearing points, sometimes bearing trees. You can
imagine how the forest changed in 100 years, in order to find
bearing trees he had to be a WSI.
He has taught me so many things about the
forest, he taught me how to scan the landscape and see How the
Hand of Man changed the landscape. He taught me how to figure
out witch way the wind was blowing and how thick the forest was
when this entire area burned off many, many years
ago.
Most of all he is a mentor to me.
I originally met him through Boy Scouts, He’s a fellow
Woodcarver, But most of all He’s a Terrific Person that I
someday hope to match up to.
A while back I asked him if he remembered any
unique landmarks that he came across in all his years of working in
the National Forest. He told me of several, all he needed to do was
to be able to remember where they were. This is one of those
unique landmarks and we hope to bring you many more throughout this
summer.
When you walk into the forest at the trail head (waypoint
Trailhead) you will be walking on a trail that once was a road. The
trail is well defined, it is a 1.7 mile hike from the parking lot
to the cache. When my friend first started working in this area he
drove this road, his supervisor pointed to the area where the cache
is and said “That’s the old Gold
Mine”
There's not much left to the old mine, you can see where the
original mine was.
Another feature of the area is the 5 Virgine White Pines,
holding my arms out I can't even begin to Hug these trees.
It's amazing how massive these White Pine are.
Doing some WSI we found some old steel cans, these cans
were Beer cans from before "Pull Tabs" Remember Pull tabs were
before Pop Tops. Looking closely you can see what brand of beer
they are.
Doing some more WSI he taught me how this pine tree grew the
loop. See if you can figure out how it grew in a circle. I didn't
mark the waypoint where it is located but you should be able to
figure out what caused it to grow the way it did from the
picture.
Enjoy the hike, pay attention to the landscape and see what you
can learn.
Permission for this cache was given by the Eagle River
Ranger station.