13th Book Excerpt: Early Resorting Within the Chippewa Basin

The following is the 13th of a series of book excerpts the LCO News will feature from local author, John Dettloff. The excerpts will be from his  new book.

Detloff has lived on the Chippewa Flowage, near New Post, for over 50 years.  His family has had a small resort just east of New Post for 56 seasons and for 40 years he has been writing historical articles about the flowage, tribal history (especially Old Post), old guides, old resorts, and fishing.

His new book called Whispers of the Past, A History of the Chippewa Flowage, released on November 1st, gives a comprehensive history of the flowage going back to the fur trade era. 

According to Detloff, the book profiles in great detail the people of the "Chippewa Basin" (the area that became flooded by the flowage) and talks about the 300 plus people who were affected by and displaced by the flowage.  There were probably 250 plus tribal members and nearly 100 non-tribal members that were affected. 

From the Book:

Guests at the Berger resort’s boat dock on the Little Chief River. (circa 1908)

After the logging boom period of the harvesting of the white pine had passed by the early 1900s, another industry, one that was more environmentally friendly, emerged along the shores of the Chippewa Basin’s virgin lakes and rivers… the resort industry.

John Berger’s Eagle Lodge Resort

     One of the earliest places of recreational lodging to become established within the Chippewa Basin was John Berger’s Eagle Lodge Resort.  The resort was built on John Berger’s homestead property, located just off the south bank of the Little Chief River and about a half mile east of the outlet of Chief Lake.  It was an active resort from around 1904 until Berger sold the property during the fall of 1916.  Other than Paul Lessard’s stopping place and hotel, which began catering more to anglers and outdoorsmen around the turn of the century, Berger’s place can be considered the first true resort on the pre-flowage waters.

     John Jacob Berger was born in New York City in 1869, when his mother gave birth to him right after she and her husband had arrived on the boat, having just immigrating from Eichstetten, Baden, Germany.  His parents, Johann Jacob and Mary (Bieselin) Berger soon settled in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, where Johann (Jacob as he was known) worked as a cooper and miner and raised six children with his wife Mary.

     Around 1900, John Berger moved to the village of Hayward to “make his fortune.”  By November of 1900, Berger was operating a saloon near Hayward, with him continuing to run that business until April of 1906.  Frank Masterson had built a small restaurant onto the rear of Berger’s saloon where customers could get a warm meal at his lunch counter.

     John Berger married Margaret LaRonge in Hayward on March 4, 1902.  Margaret’s father, Adolph LaRonge, was French Canadian, and her mother was a Chippewa Indian named Sophia (Gauthier) Gokey.  Margaret’s brother Joseph operated the LaRonge Hotel & General Store in Reserve, and that is likely where she first met Berger.  Margaret (or Maggie, as she was called) had three sons and a daughter from a previous marriage.  Maggie, with her new husband John, went on to have two more boys and a girl: Lyle, John, and Faye.

     On March 31, 1902, John Berger filed a homestead claim (No. 10882) for a 40-acre parcel near the outlet of Chief Lake.  Wasting no time to begin his five year “proving up period,” Berger enlisted some local Indians to help him build a homestead cabin on his property.  Because periodic flareups of scarlet fever and other contagious diseases were prevalent during the early 1900s, John Berger and his family often took refuge at their Chief Lake homestead once the house was completed.

Young Glen Trepania, pictured in 1913, bagged all nine of these ducks with one shot!

     Friends and guests of Berger’s frequently came to fish out of his place, and by 1904 Berger was promoting his place as a summer fishing resort, eventually building two or three additional cabins to accommodate his growing numbers of guests.  Coming to be known as Berger’s Eagle Lodge Resort, John Berger’s place gained much publicity when, on July 2, 1904, a guest named Judge William F. Bailey of Eau Claire caught a 40 and 25 pound muskie, along with several fine pike and smaller muskies, while fishing out of Berger’s resort on Chief Lake.  

     It wasn’t long before Berger’s resort had people coming to visit from all directions.  One treacherous Sunday night, on August 7, 1904, one visitor tragically perished on his way to Berger’s place.  Con Holloran and Dan Fitzgerald had left Kavanagh’s West Fork House for Chief Lake that evening, intending to go by boat to John Berger’s resort.  The wind was blowing quite hard and Fitzgerald lost his hat.  He made an attempt to catch it, lost his balance, and the boat capsized, throwing both occupants into the water.  Both men grappled the boat and hung fast for hours, until Fitzgerald finally loosened his hold and sunk to the bottom from exhaustion.  Holloran had managed to make it to shore but Fitzgerald drowned.

     On April 24, 1906, John Berger sold his saloon business in Hayward and moved his family to the Chief Lake homestead to live full time.  Access to his place was still more limited at the time, but that was about to change. The Tyner Lake Road came down from Hayward and crossed the Little Chief River just west of Berger’s place.  At first, there was no bridge at this crossing and wagons had to ford the river to cross it.  Once across the river at Berger’s place, there was an intersection with the road continuing in one direction going east towards Tyner Lake and branching off in the other direction, going south around the southern end of Chief Lake and onto Reserve.  In 1906, a little pole bridge was built at the crossing place to give much better access to Berger’s place for travelers.

     During the spring of 1907, Berger made many improvements to his resort.  One day that March, while hastily working on a cabin, Berger accidentally drove a nail into his knee.  Not wanting to fall behind on his project, he was back at work only three weeks later.  On June 19, 1907, after proving up on his claim, John Berger received his land patent for his homestead property.  During the summer of 1907, Berger astutely submitted fishing reports to the local newspaper on a regular basis as a means of promoting his place.  

     In October of 1907, once John and Maggie’s children became of school age, Berger set aside a 1-acre lot on the north central portion of his property and, with the backing of the local school board, built a small, one room, log schoolhouse on an outcropping of land that overlooked the Little Chief River.  A number of a Indian children who lived near Chief Lake attended this school along with the Berger children.  The schoolhouse likely served dual purpose and was used as an additional resort cabin during the summer.

     During the tourist season it was common for Berger to package up his guests’ fish and drop them off at the Hayward Railroad Depot to be shipped to whatever city his people hailed from.  By mid-August of 1908, Berger reported that the musky fishing was getting good, with one party catching eight muskies on August 15th.  The resort usually stayed open for fishermen and hunters until the end of October, weather permitting, with good catches still being made and some great duck hunting right up until closing.

        John and Maggie’s second child, John J. Berger Jr., was born on July 10, 1903, and he had many fond memories of growing up at their Chief Lake homestead and resort.  John Jr. – or Jack Berger as he came to be known – was a historian of note himself and had written many detailed accounts of his life in the Chief Lake region prior to the forming of the Chippewa Flowage.  His many fascinating tales, which are too numerous for this article, are presented in their entirety in my book. 

     Fall was also often a busy time at Berger’s Eagle Lodge Resort, with many hunters – as well as fishermen – coming to stay in the cabins.  John Berger’s stepson Glen Trepania, Maggie’s son from her previous marriage, lived with the family at the resort during those years and, even as a teenager, was a skilled hunting and fishing guide out of the resort.  Glen was a crack shot as evidenced by an October 10, 1913, photograph of him holding nine ducks that he had bagged… with one shot!  A World War I army veteran, Glen “Chief” Trepania was a well-known guide for his entire life.  No doubt his younger half-brother, Jack Berger, learned many of his hunting and fishing skills from Glen.

     After John Berger had heard that there was going to be a flowage and that the land where his resort was situated would get flooded out, he decided it was time to move his family back into Hayward during the fall of 1911.  However, he kept the resort going thru 1916.  On September 29, 1916, John and Maggie Berger sold their homestead property – including the school lot – to the Chippewa Valley Construction Company for $1400.  The buildings were eventually dismantled and removed to make room for the coming reservoir.

The Pahquahwong Camp

     While Thad Thayer’s fine hotel and stopping place began taking in boarders back in 1882, his guests were primarily men involved in the lumber industry, visiting dignitaries, and travelers on the Chippewa Road who needed a place to stay.  Lodging for recreation seekers seldom occurred at The Post until after the turn of the century.  

These three log cabins at the Pahquahwong Camp resort had roomy screened in porches.  (circa 1917)

     Once wealthy outdoor enthusiasts began taking notice of the angling potential in the waters of Chief Lake, the Chief River, and the West Fork of the Chippewa River, the idea of building a resort at The Post made sense.  To accommodate these eager outdoorsmen at The Post, Billy DeBrot and George James built the Pahquahwong Camp, having the place open for business by June of 1916.  

     Billy DeBrot, born on May 31, 1877, in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to a mixed blood Ojibwe woman named Esther Denasha and a Swiss immigrant named Ali DeBrot, had labored in the woods as a logger for many years and worked in the construction business.  George James, born in The Post in 1873 to Ojibwe parents Negwanebi and O’Quegan, had worked as a logger, storekeeper, and fishing guide.  Billy and his brother-in-law George partnered and built their fine log cabin resort across the river from Thayer’s Hotel, on a high ridge of land which the West Fork of the Chippewa River wrapped around.  

     Building their resort – which came to be known as the Pahquahwong Camp – on the allotment of Ne-baw-e-ge-zhig-o-kway (Mrs. Alex Slater), DeBrot and James offered their guests three spacious log cabins with large screened in porches.  The two cabins that were side by side were smaller and a larger cabin was a bit further away from the other two, but they all provided visitors with a fine view of the Chippewa River.  Another two or three cabins may have been added later.  

     Their Pahquahwong Camp attracted many people – including some notables – to try their hand at fishing.  Arriving via the railroad, their guests were picked up by wagon or auto and driven to The Post.  From there, they would take a short boat ride across the river to reach their accommodations.  

     Many of the guests, if not all of them, hired Indian guides to take them out, namely, George James, who knew every stretch of the river.  Ollie DeBrot was another noted “river man” who guided out of his brother Billy’s resort, and expert boatsman Fred Smith, who also often fished on the river, likely guided out of the Pahquahwong Camp as well.  

     The boats that George and Billy provided their guests with were wooden river boats that were pointed at each end so that they could be maneuvered in either direction.  The boats had two sets of oar locks positioned in the middle third of the boat and they could be rowed by up to two sets of rowers.  The boats were also equipped with a long sturdy pole for when it was necessary to pole the boat through certain stretches of the river.  Billy named his boats after his sisters, with photographs showing two of the boats named after Nell and Sue.

     Billy and George’s resort venture would be short lived, however.  Being forced to close it down in October of 1922 because of the coming flowage, the two partners helplessly watched as their resort became stranded on an island the following summer (in 1923) as the rising waters of the Chippewa Flowage surrounded their place.  After their resort got flooded out, DeBrot and James were offered $400 from the Power Company for the loss of their resort buildings.  After requesting assistance from the Indian Agency to help them get a better settlement yielded no results, DeBrot retained a firm of attorneys from Milwaukee to get a better deal.  The power company ended up paying them over $1800 in compensation.  

     Although that settlement didn’t occur for several years, DeBrot used his share of the settlement money to put towards building a new resort (Indian Post Lodge) in 1927 after the Chippewa Flowage was created.  In the meantime, DeBrot and James opened a small resort right in New Post in 1924, which they operated for a short time.

     Although these early ventures into the tourist trade within the Chippewa Basin by people like the Lessards, the Bergers, and Billy DeBrot & George James was somewhat short lived, it planted the seeds of a resort industry that would soon grow and flourish… the seeds of which were planted and sown by both white settlers and tribal members.

     (To order a copy of John Dettloff's new book, send a check or money order for $29.95, plus $6 shipping and 5 1/2% sales tax, made out to Trails End Publishing and send it to: Trails End Publishing, 7431 N Flowage Rd., Couderay, Wi 54828.)