It was meant to be.  The Blue Dolphin canoe, pocked with holes and abandoned at a DNR boat launch, was destined to become the Bark River search and rescue boat.  Mike Fort connected me with Jay, who works with the DNR at Lapham peak, and who had been storing the boat in his backyard for years, and Pati and I lashed it atop her subaru and brought it home.  It was soon refurbished and christened in the tannin brown waters of the Bark River.

The long neglected Bark River was crisscrossed by huge downed trees, choked with thick floating mats of duck weed and festooned with the refuse of the Village of Hartland.  My good friend, Mark Mamerow, is a seasoned canoeist and I was lucky to have his stable hand at the stern.  

We took many a trip down the Mighty Bark in the Blue Dolphin with chainsaw, chest waders and garbage bags and, slowly, cleaned up the river and made it navigable again.  I’m looking forward to the “river rats” return to the Bark in 2016 — it’s been a while and I wonder if the river is still open all the way to Lake Nagawicki.

You might want to get a bird’s eye view of the river before we take you up close in this gallery.

We are heading upstream from Hwy 83

Feels Like Up North

Mystery Island

Bark River

The Blue Dolphin docked at a spring channel

I cut through this snowmobile bridge with my chainsaw

Duck weed dam

We opened up many log jams like this

July 2015 just downstream from the Parker Brothers’ bridge

Now you can paddle around it…

After World War I, Jim and John “Ike”, Parker built a homestead on the south side of the Bark River.  Their niece, Debby Erwin, known as “Ms. Lake Country” in the real estate business, used to visit “The Old Boys” at their home on the Bark River and she shared many stories about them with Pati and I.  Jim got into some difficulties with the authorities and lived there “under the radar.”

They loved to hunt and buried their beloved dog, “Jacob Boy”, on the island across the north side of the Bark River.  The gravestone is still there: Jacob Boy of Avondale 1941-1955, it reads.  That’s a reference to Avondale, England and I image Jacob Boy looked something like this.

Ike loved to carve wood (their father owned a lumber business in Merton) and you can see an authentic totem pole he fashioned at the old home site.  I found it hidden in a buckthorn thicket on the hillside between the house and the river.  Marlin Johnson and Brian Engel erected it quite ingeniously!

The brothers built the bridge over the river in 1948, etching the date in the concrete foundation at the south bank.  I’ll never forget the heavy rain in the summer of 2008 that lifted the bridge from it’s center support posts and left it pointing downstream, hanging by a corner on the south bank.  Luckily, Mike Fort was there to help me and we repositioned it exactly.  Later, Pati and I replaced the deck boards.

In the early 70’s a woman with the surname Minogue, who taught pottery at a local school, moved in with her son.  He didn’t care much for The Buckthorn Man and he used to curse a blue streak, harassing me for cutting buckthorn on the adjoining IAT property.  Occasionally, I would find a dead bird and a nasty note from him under my windshield wiper.  There were many times I stayed late after working, to enjoy the moon and stars with my old friend Jack Daniels, that I would hear him howling and wailing as if possessed by a demon.

Marlin loaned me his research papers and documentation related to The Marsh and I am starting to scan them and post them on the Marlin Johnson’s Research page.  Below, in one of the nuggets from Marlin, John Parker comes to life.

In 2007 Marlin negotiated the purchase of the property on behalf of the Waukesha County Land Conservancy and Pati and I became the caretakers.  How ironic!  It wasn’t long before The Buckthorn Man had cut all the buckthorn on the Parker/Minogue property.  That was some of the most gratifying work I have ever done!

On October 18, 2007 the Village of Hartland Fire Department burned the homestead down for a training exercise (removing the structure was part of the purchase agreement), and Pati was there by chance to capture these pictures.

Cottonwood Avenue

Closet size bedrooms

The Old Boys Homestead

No indoor toilet!

The Garage

The Chief Augie Wilde

On April 24, 2008, Pati and I took a plane ride over the Hartland Marsh.  It was a birthday present from Pati and our objective was to get some cool pictures to use in our presentation to The Village of Hartland Board to ask permission to cut the buckthorn and honeysuckle on the village property around the Cottonwood Wayside/Gazebo.

We followed the Bark River Northeast from where it spills into the Upper Nemahbin Lake and upstream through Lake Nagawicka finally arriving at the Hartland Marsh.

Bark River flowing into Upper Nemahbin Lake

Heading upstream Northeast …

… away from Nemahbin

to where the Bark exits Lake Nagawicki

Bark entering Lake Nagawicki on the left

the area between Hwy 83 and …

… Lake Nagawicki

Bark River passing under Hwy 83

Commerce center on …

… the south side of The Marsh

Looking Northeast at the Hartland Marsh

the “Mystery island” upper right

Detention pond below Cottonwood Wayside

Waukesha County Land Conservancy Property

Old property line running north to south

Views from north side …

… of Hartland Marsh