Lac Courte Oreilles facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Lac Courte Oreilles |
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 Lac Courte Oreilles
Location in Wisconsin
Lac Courte Oreilles
Location in the United States
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| Location | Sawyer County, Wisconsin, United States |
| Coordinates | 45°53′N 91°25′W / 45.883°N 91.417°W |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Max. length | approx. 6 mi (9.6 km) |
| Max. width | approx. 2 mi (3.2 km) at widest |
| Surface area | 5,039 acres (2,039 ha) |
| Max. depth | 90 ft (27 m) |
| Water volume | 168,800 acre-feet (208,200,000 m3) |
| Shore length1 | 25.4 mi (40.9 km) |
| 1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure. | |
Lac Courte Oreilles is a large freshwater lake in northwest Wisconsin. It's found in Sawyer County. The lake has a unique, irregular shape with many peninsulas and bays. It stretches about six miles long and is about two miles wide at its widest point.
This big lake covers about 5,039 acres. It's quite deep, reaching up to 90 feet in some spots. The shoreline is about 25.4 miles long. A small stream called Grindstone Creek flows into the lake from Grindstone Lake. Water flows out of Lac Courte Oreilles into Little Lac Courte Oreilles. From there, it travels through the Couderay River to the Chippewa River, and eventually reaches the mighty Mississippi River.
Lac Courte Oreilles is about eight and a half miles southeast of Hayward. Hayward is the main town for shopping and business in the area. This lake is one of three large natural lakes near the city. A small community called Northwoods Beach is on the north side of the lake. Part of the lake is also within the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation. Many people have seasonal cabins and homes along the lake's shore.
The lake is a popular spot for fishing. You can find lots of different fish here, like northern pike, muskie, walleye, and bass. Because of its beauty and great fishing, Lac Courte Oreilles is a popular resort area. Many visitors and cabin owners come from big cities like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Chicago.
Why is it called Lac Courte Oreilles?
The name Lac Courte Oreilles is also used for the nearby Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation. In the Ojibwe language, the lake is called Odaawaa-zaaga'iganiing. This means "Ottawa Lake," named after another group of the Anishinaabe people. Early English speakers also called it "Ottowaw Lake."
French fur trappers were the first Europeans to explore this area. They named the lake Lac Courte Oreilles. This French name means "Short Ears." They called the local Ottawa people "Courte Oreilles" because they believed these people cut the edges of their ear lobes. Another idea is that some tribes stretched their earlobes with jewelry. The local people's ears looked "short" compared to those tribes. However, the Native Americans of this area did not stretch their ears; they just had naturally shaped "short" ears.
A Look at History
Before Europeans arrived, the Ojibwa Indians lived around Lac Courte Oreilles. The first known European visitors came around 1660. Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers traveled through the area. They stayed for a while at an Ojibwe village on a lake that people believe was Lac Courte Oreilles.
Later, in 1767, an Englishman named Jonathan Carver visited the area. He traveled north from the Mississippi River up the Chippewa River. Carver stayed at the Native American village on Lac Courte Oreilles from June 22 to 29, 1767. He called it "Ottowaw Lakes." He said the village was on both sides of a channel between two lakes. After his visit, he traveled to the St. Croix River. He went through Grindstone Lake, Windigo Lake, and the Namekagon Portage to the Namekagon River.
Carver and another explorer, James Stanley Goddard, believed they were the first white people to visit the area. They probably didn't know about Radisson and Groseilliers' visit more than a hundred years earlier.
In 1831, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a U.S. Indian agent, also visited the lake and the Ottawa village. He described his trip from the Namekagon River to Lac Courte Oreilles. He traveled through the Namekagon Portage, Windigo Lake, and Grindstone Lake. Schoolcraft said the Native American village was at the lake's outlet. From what Carver and Schoolcraft described, the Ottawa village seemed to be on both sides of the channel between Lac Courte Oreilles and Little Lac Courte Oreilles.
Lac Courte Oreilles and its village were well known to traders and explorers back then. The village was one of the largest Native American settlements in the area. Schoolcraft reported its population as 504 people in 1832. This shows how important it was. The village's importance likely came from Lac Courte Oreilles being a key spot on the travel route. This route connected the Chippewa River area to the St. Croix River area. To reach the St. Croix River, travelers went north and west through Grindstone Lake, Windigo Lake, and over the Namekagon Portage to the Namekagon River.
