A southeastern Houston County resident told of his grandfather walking home with about three miles remaining, when wolves began to chase him. There were haystacks in the farm field, and he climbed on top of one and lit the hay on fire all night to fend off the wolves until morning. Large wolves and cougars were a threat, according to reports from the earliest white settlers in the mid 1850s.
James Donahue (1906-1986) recounted how a Norwegian neighbor, Ole Isakson, had walked down the valley one winter to do some butchering at the Donahue farm. Ole’s clothes were blood-stained from the butchering as he was walking home about dusk while carrying a package of meat. When Ole realized he was being followed by three or four wolves, he threw the package toward the animals who began to fight over the meat. Meanwhile, Ole hurried safely home.
Just as the Native Americans before them, the first white settlers depended on the woods and wetlands for sustenance. But human activity and expansion of agriculture altered the land and therefore the animals who depended on the natural surroundings as well.
There was an abundant population of deer when white settlers arrived in Houston County in the 1850s, but trees were soon removed to build and heat cabins, where cooking was accomplished on wood stoves. Trees were cleared for farm fields, and wood was needed to power riverboats on the Mississippi. The coming of train traffic created a need for wooden railroad ties. Many of the earliest photographs showed bare hills.
Deer were a reliable source of food until eventually – without as many forests – there was no longer habitat for deer. One man recalled being about 10 years old in the early 1940s before he saw his first deer. And his 50-year-old father had never seen one before either.
A “steam den” is an opening in the rocky section of a bluff where steam can be seen escaping during cold weather because air inside is warmer than the air outside. Wolves and snakes could be found there in the winter and be killed for profit. The State of Minnesota first paid bounties on wolves in 1893, but Houston County made $3 payments on wolves as early as 1883, about three decades after settlement. Hides of red fox and skunk could also be sold.
Mink could be trapped along Winnebago Creek, and their pelts could bring about $8 (equivalent of $300 in 2024). Muskrat hides would bring anywhere from $2.50 to $4, and about 40 could be trapped in one night.
After the trapping and hunting, wolves were no longer common, but forests and deer became common again. One 14-year-old boy was plowing with a rented tractor, when near the edge of the field, he was surprised to see a deer bolt out of the woods and jump the fence a few feet away from him. That was rare, since deer would usually stay away from a tractor. And then as he was turning around at the end of a row, an unfamiliar beast came out of the woods about a hundred yards away. Surprised by the sight and sound of the noisy tractor, the animal stopped and surveyed the scene before retreating back into the trees. The lad, wondering what beast he had encountered, asked his uncle, who told him it was a wolf.
Willow “batts” were large willows that grew in the river water. One resident told how driving motored boats into the batts would send hundreds of mallards into the air. Commercial duck hunters would fire away away until they filled many washtubs. About 1930, there were so many ducks that hunters came from as far away as La Crosse.
However, the construction of wing dams on the Mississippi from the 1880s to the 1930s called for not only for layers of willow mats but also rock, quarried from the bluffs along the river. The willow batts and the hardwood-forested islands began to disappear.
There was once plenty of swampy areas and wild rice. But by 1945, farm chemicals had reached the river and within just a few years, created silt and a weed-filled environment unsuitable for ducks to feed.
Long-standing family traditions came into conflict with concern for conservation and the enactment and enforcement of game laws. In 1933, a man from New Albin was sentenced by the Justice of the Peace to 30 days in the Allamakee County jail for trapping muskrats out of season.
There were “closed areas” where it was illegal to shoot ducks or shoo them out to where they could be shot legally. Taking ducks out of the closed area could result in fines or incarceration. One man, his brother and father were taken to jail in Winona, because they could not pay the fine. His mother sold their best horse to finance their release.
Before “catch and release” was a practice, fishermen did not throw away anything. If a fish was too small to eat, it would be used as fertilizer in the garden. You could keep the less desirable rough fish (catfish, bullheads, sheep(s)heads and later, carp) but not the game fish, such as northern pike and bass. One crew placed their game fish in the bottom of their fish box and then loaded the carp on top. On the way back to shore, they were stopped by the game warden, who wanted to check their fishing license and their fish. One of the elder fishermen was prepared, inviting the warden to follow him to the shack where he kept his license. Due to all they stored in that windowless shack, the door had a hasp padlock on the outside. When they had entered, one of the other fishermen padlocked the door shut, and the crew began throwing the still-alive game fish back into the water. That accomplished, they unlocked the door. The warden was angry beyond description. But there was no longer any proof, so there was neither arrest nor fine.
Source: “A Creek Runs Through Me; A History of the Winnebago Creek Valley in Southeastern Minnesota” by Barbara Scottston and Terry Atherton, 2013.
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