Alice's Lake

  I haven’t written anything about my home town in quite a while. The first Friday in April, I had to drive to Rhinelander for my mammogram (too much information?), and on the way home, I decided to take the back roads – Hwy 17 to A to H (short H) to D.

I stopped where short H meets D and shot a few pictures. It was a beautiful day for early April, a thin layer of ice still on the far east end of Lake Alice.

In 1911, just east of town, a dam was built on the Wisconsin River to power the electric generators to run the pulp mill. Legend has it that some construction workers were working on the new dam, when some young women were fishing nearby, including one named Alice. The men overheard them refer to the lake as “Alice’s Lake.” Evidently, the name stuck.

Lake Alice is just under 1,400 acres and boasts various fish - musky, pike, bass, walleye, and panfish, including perch, bluegills, and crappies.

I didn’t see any fish that day. Just this red-winged blackbird.

And this loner, which looks like it could be a Common Goldeneye.

Then there are these, which I am guessing are Buffleheads. I’ve never heard of them before, but it’s the closest duck I could find, and they should be migrating through my neck of the woods (or lakes) this time of year.

I pretty much can only correctly identify loons and mallards. Oh, well, a lake is, at least, still a lake.

Let me know if you know what kind of ducks those are.