The Story of Herman's Landing

Following the closing of the logging era in the upper Great Lakes region, a new industry was to become established adjacent to the Northwoods' waterways… resorting. This centuries-old lifestyle has let to the creation of thousands of resorts throughout the landscape of North America's heartland. Of the different types of angling offered by these resorts, it's the musky fishing which has evoked the deepest passions in anglers and generated the highest levels of notoriety in the resort industry. Those resorts which have had extraordinary success in this field tend to be the most well known and, to this end, Herman's Landing on the Chippewa Flowage is likely to be the most famous of all.

Ironically, the Chippewa Flowage didn't even exist during the resort industry's formative years. During the teens, the site Herman's Landing now occupies was nothing more than a slightly higher ridge of land which divided two large areas of wetlands in the valley of the Chief River. The only indication of man's presence near the location was an old, rickety, narrow plank bridge, set low on pilings just a few feet above the waters of Chief River. Located just to the east of the oxbow of the river, this bridge was said to have been built by the county in 1903 and was likely to have been originally built around 1884 -- when the Chippewa Road to Hayward had been blazed.

In close proximity to this solitary bridge was a cattle farm operated by George Fleming; an orchard owned by a man named Peters, situated along the north bank of the Chief River; Civil War veteran, Col. John Scott's homestead; an old logger's dam; Fred Worman's place; and the-- even then-- long established stopping place of John Kavanagh. Such was life along this portion of the Chief River some 90 years ago.

To accommodate the rising waters with the creation of the Chippewa Flowage in 1922, the county built a new wooden bridge with raised roadway approaches beside the old bridge. A twenty-one year-old local man named Christian (Chris) Lee, who worked his team on the project, had witnessed great numbers of fishermen come to fish off the old bridge daily. When work elevating the road and constructing the bridge was completed, a shack they had used was left. Chris then appropriated it, brought his two boats there, and started a boat rental business there beside Kavanagh's Bridge, as it was then called.

Fred Scheer and other area resorters left their own boats in Lee's care for the use of their guests, allowing Chris to rent them out then the weren't otherwise in use. Eventually accumulating 26 boats of various kinds to serve his lively trade, Lee's Place would, in time, grow into something much larger than Chris had ever anticipated… one of the most celebrated fishing camps in the area.

Upon realizing that his boat rental customers wanted other services (bait, guides, and food), Lee responded to their requests. Chris obtained a wooden piano shipping crate and set it up on end at his landing and sold refreshments from it, tilting the cover up during the day to provide shade and shelter, dropping it down and locking it up over night. On September 28, 1927, Chris began leasing the property-- on a yearly basis-- from Northern States Power for $10/year. That October he married an Ojibwa women named Elsie Slater, and the couple moved into the old shack that had been built by the bridge crew. This very shack is likely to be the same building which still stands today and has long since been known as Herman's Landing's bait shop.

Elsie, born in Old Post in 1898 to Antoine Slater and Annie Whitefeather, was remembered as a very intelligent and caring individual-- undoubtedly a fine partner in both the business and in life for Chris. The Lees did well in their business, soon building their new house and place of business along the road: serving lunches, selling bait, and providing fishermen with expert, courteous Indian guides.

Well accepted into the Indian community of Post as one of their own, Chris had ready access to the finest Indian guides, men who knew the area well. Henry Smith was regarded as one of Lee's best-producing guides, one who was often faced with the problem of trying to outwit and outmaneuver "followers" who were trying to pick up on his secrets. Other Indian guides who worked out of Lee's were Chief Trepania, John Fleming, Ed DeMarr, Ed Slater, Charley Wolfe, John Stone, and James Ford.

During one week in August of 1929, Lee's guides reported catching 21 muskies, although, interestingly enough, they averaged much smaller than they do today. The muskies in the flowage at that time had not yet matured.

Chris Lee began hosting weekly 20-mile-long boat excursions on August 4, 1929, departing from Lee's at three different times every Sunday in a large, comfortable boat and under the guidance of a good pilot to both the Winter Dam and the site of Old Post village where only the Catholic church and cemetery and the jail remained as surviving landmarks.

One of Herman's Landing's present-day guides, Ray Blank, remembers fishing out of Lee's Boat Livery with his father during the mid 1930's, when he was only about 5 years old. Ray recalled, "Dad and I would rent a boat out of there several times a year. Lee had a small tavern and good-sized boathouse just beyond that. There were a couple of wooden benches outside the bar door where the Indian guides would usually sit and hope to drum up some business."

Ray continued, "Many people who rented boats didn't have motors and the ones who did had these huge, small-horsepower engines. So a half mile in each direction of the bridge is where much of the fishing took place and things were fairly busy in close proximity to the landing. The flowage was so dark and heavily stained you couldn't see three inches below the surface of the water and, as a result, there was practically no weed growth. We mostly fished shorelines and wood. There were bogs all over and stumps and standing timber blown into them that big log jams had formed which wouldn't allow you to get within 50 yards of shore."

When the Lees were ready to sell in 1937, Ken Ackley, a guide at the time, said he was offered Lee's Place for $2200. By the time Ken was finally able to raise the money he stopped in at McGuire's Bar while on the way to cinch the deal with Lee. There he happened to run into a man who had just bought Lee's Livery that morning… P. Kelly Hellmund.

It was most likely Kelly who built the first cabins at the landing. By the late 1930's, he and his wife Marie had enlarged Kelly's landing to have five or six housekeeping cottages. They were completely furnished, had beds with innerspring mattresses, screened-in porches, and were lit by kerosene lamps. It wasn't until around 1943, Gerald Thalacker, Sr., a guest of Kelly's who was general manager of the Eau Claire Electrical Cooperative, brought him a Delco generating plant and wired each cabin to accommodate one like and one outlet for a 120-volt refrigerator.

Kelly also extended the boathouse out towards the road with, in its lower level, room for boat storage, an ice shed, and a fish cleaning area and, upstairs, some rooms where the help would be put up for the night. During the 1939 and 1940 seasons, Phyllis Bachand (later DeBrot) was one of the young women who worked for the Hellmund's and stayed there on occasions when she had to work late.

Phyllis, now 79 years old and one of the last surviving residents of the Old Post, remembers, "They had a small kitchen in just past the bar and the dining room was off to the left. Marie was in charge of the cabins and kitchen and was very nice to work for. I cleaned cabins, did the laundry in the building behind the boathouse, waited tables in the dining room, prepared shore lunches for the guides, and even cooked for the latecomers off the water if the cook had already gone."

When not guiding, Kelly's guides would often help out at the resort. In fact, it was Phyllis Bachand's future husband, Chick DeBrot, who planted the willow trees in front of the cabins -- some of which are still there to this day. Two young Indian girls who worked for Marie during the early 1940's were Bernadine Wolfe and Delphine Fleming. And it was Delphine's father, John Fleming, who had gained a reputation s one of Kelly's very best guides.

It was around the summer of 1941 when John proved his mettle by catching what was undoubtedly the largest known musky catch ever made out of the Chippewa Flowage at that time… a 56 inch class musky which was said to have gone 52 pounds. John's daughter, Delphine, was there waiting tables at Kelly's the day he brought the big one in. She was only about 12 years old at the time but will never forget it. John's fine catch was just a harbinger of things to come for the young resort. For through the next decade, ever increasing numbers of big muskies were to be brought into the landing, culminating with the greatest musky catch in history and… forever affirming Herman's Landing's place among the most fabled of all fishing camps.

In 1944, the Hellmunds sold to Herman and Edna Cranske and the resort took onits still current name of "Herman's Landing." Herman, a kind, hard working, German-born man added additional cabins and -- by the time he sold the resort then years later -- had expanded it to having eight Housekeeping or American plan cabins (two of which had additional connected units) and, above the boathouse, three small rooms and one large room which eventually came to be rented out.

In 1944, Herman began subleasing the buildings and peninsula just southeast of the bridge to an equipment company from Eau Claire (Miller, Bradford, and Risberg). Maintained by Herman, this company cabin -- originally built by Kelly around 1940 and likely used as his living quarters -- remained as a private retreat for the firm's owners and their customers until the mid 1980's.

In the main lodge there was a small grocery store, and the kitchen remained a busy place with Edna Ceranske cooking. There was a table back in the kitchen where the guides would either take their meals or sometimes a young Bruce Tasker would sneak his friend John Fleming a beer or two. Indians weren't allowed to drink alcohol back then.

In terms of guiding prowess, what Henry Smith was to Lee's Livery and John Fleming was to Kelly's Landing, Bruce Tasker grew to become for Herman's Landing… their dean of all guides right up into the 1990's. It was around 1949 when Herman encouraged Bruce to begin guiding for the resort after observing how many muskies he and his friend, John Zeung, were catching. Herman would furnish the young men with a boat, motor, and provisions and say to them, "Just bring back some muskies." And they did -- during one week, catching fourteen!

And so, with John Fleming as Herman's only other primary guide at the time, Tasker began guiding for Herman's, at first using John Fleming's boat (boat #23) whenever John wasn't using it. Bruce guided out of Herman's for more than 40 years and, while he may have retired in 1994, he still frequents the place and is happy to dispense musky tips to eager anglers.

On October 20, 1949, something happened at Herman's which catapulted the aura of the place into something of mythical proportions… a Rice Lake saloon keeper named Louie Spray caught the world's record musky of 69 pounds, 11 ounces, while fishing out of Herman's Landing. When the fish was brought in to Herman's it couldn't be weighted because Herman didn't have a sufficient scale.

Word went out on the party lines that the world's record musky was at Herman's and people flocked to see the creature, but Louie wanted to get the fish properly weighted so he didn't hang around too long. Flowage guide Ken Ackley remembers getting there too late to see the fish, stating there was just a huge water mark outlining where the fish had been lying on the floor.

Louie publicly said he got his fish off of Fleming's Bar, a hot spot less than a mile from the resort. While it was later found out that Spray had gotten the fish near the Old Post area of the flowage, the publicity which had rained down upon Herman's following this catch and successive huge musky catches from their place during the early 1950's made Herman's the most desirable destination in the world to musky enthusiasts.

When Herman began talking about selling the business, Bruce Tasker and John Zeug considered leasing it from the Ceranskes, but in the spring of 1954 he ended up selling to two couples from Illinois. Longtime friends, the Carls and Clagetts had been vacationers together on the flowage since around 1947, spending most of their time at Clements Resort. They were looking for a hotel type of business and when Rocky Carl heard about Herman's and pitched the idea to his wife Meredith, she remembered him saying, "Now Meredith, all you'll have to do is keep the books."

Today, Meredith retorts about that with a chuckle, "Keep the books!? Ha! Boy, I painted…and I hammered…and I cooked…and I bartended…and I cleaned cabins…and I gave bait…and I pumped gas, and…I didn't know what I was getting myself in for."

Russ Clagett's wife, Bette, echoed Meredith's sentiments by fondly remembering, "I think I slept with a paint brush. Our motto was, 'If it doesn't move, paint it!'" But it was a labor of love for the two couples over the next 24 years. As for their four children who grew up at the resort, "It was", according to Vicki (Clagett) Alves, "like growing up in Disneyland and gave us kids some of the best years of our life."

Once the Carls and the Clagetts had sold their homes and purchased the $60,000.00 resort, two families with their four children (Dennis, 9; Vicki, 4; Cathy, 6; and Georgia, 3) suddenly all found themselves crammed into two bedrooms and one bathroom as their living quarters in the lodge. So the first order of business during the following year, 1955, was to tear the roof off the lodge and enlarge it to have six bedrooms and three baths for a cost of $20,000.00. The Ceranskes had stayed on for that first summer to show them the ropes, bunking in the large room upstairs in the boathouse.

Starting out with their ten separate rental units, Rocky and Russ maintained and repaired the cabins. Meredith and Bette gave the place a much needed woman's touch, making the cabins more comfortable and attractive and the camp more into a family resort. Cabin #9 was a tiny cabin which no longer served as a rental so it was turned into a playhouse for the kids. They rented out not only the rooms upstairs in the boathouse, but also set up army cots in the boat storage area below where there was room for maybe a dozen men at perhaps $5 a head, according to Betty. "but the mosquitos were free," she quipped.

The task of maintaining their fleet of wooden boats was so painstaking that, after a few years, Herman's switched over to aluminum boats and got an Alumacraft dealership. This created room enough to move the laundry into the boathouse. Russ's son Dennis served as the dockboy from the time he was 9 until he was about 16 years old. After, Herman's had a long list of successive dockboys -- some of whom later became guides. "Sox" Nelson, Tim Korf, and Joe Wickersheim served as bartenders.

There were two sets of employees (one cook, one waitress, one bartender, and one dockboy) for each of the two shifts (6 AM to 3 PM and 3PM to 9PM). The Carls and Clagetts themselves worked on a swing shift, with one couple working from opening to 11 AM, the other from 11AM till 7PM and the other back from 7PM till closing. The next day the shifts were reversed. Meredith was in charge of keeping the books; Betty oversaw the cabins, kitchen, and ordering; and the men bartended and maintained the place. All four could book reservations.

The bait shack was remodeled an, by the early 1960's, NSP demanded that all cabins -- some of which were within 20 feet of the lake-- had to be moved back from the water's edge. Guides Les Heath and Earl Borne assisted with that project, raising up the cabins and rolling them away from the lake on logs.

It was the Carls and Clagetts who started the tradition of the "musky bell" at Herman's, ringing it each time a musky was brought in. Given to them by the captain of a Lake Superior oar boat, each time its ring echoed across the waters of the flowage, it served as a reminder that this was the heart of musky country. The impressive tally of catches charted annually at Herman's only served to bolster the claim.

Around 1958, a construction crew came to the area looking for a place to park their self-contained workman's trailers for the summer. They came to an arrangement with Herman's Landing and were allowed to set up camp across the road, on the land the resort had been leasing just above the beach. After the workers vacated the camp, because trailer sites had already been prepared, Herman's decided to make a small trailer park there for their guests. Deciding to use the playhouse building (Cabin #9) as the park's bathroom, Rocky -- assisted by Connie Po-tack -- moved it in such a hurry that they forgot to disconnect its electrical feed … causing a blackout at the resort for the rest of the day.

Growing to a community of fifteen or twenty trailers, many of which were occupied by serious musky men, Herman's musky chart continued to expand along with the growth of this tight little band of "flowage bums." During one five-day period in July of 1964, 29 legal muskies were caught out of Herman's. More muskies just drew more musky fishermen and they began averaging an impressive 200 muskies a year during the mid 1960's. By then, the trailer court had expanded into a campground as well and Herman's Landing was experiencing its busiest of times.

All this activity up from the beach had begun to exact a toll on the surroundings, though. Some of the trailer sites were not being kept up and there were even concerns by some about the camp's effect on the environment. Around 1967, NSP made a decision to prohibit Herman's Landing from allowing any permanent trailers there and the site became strictly a campground. Some years later, NSP took over the running of the campground themselves and gradually began to expand it.

In 1978, the Clagetts retired and sold out to the Carl's daughter and son-in-law, Cathy and Dwayne Gormanson, who -- along with Cathy's parents and her sister, Georgia -- all operated the place together. The bar area was enlarged with the addition of an inside fire pit and the kitchen was expanded that year. Georgia moved on after a year or so and the Gormansons eventually took over the running of the business.

There was little that the Gormansons were allowed to do to improve their cottages because NSP was strict about making them adhere to the covenants of their lease agreement. So the aging resort just slowly continued to deteriorate. But everything changed in July of 1988 when the State of Wisconsin purchased NSP's land holding on the Chippewa Flowage (nearly 7,000 acres of land for just under seven million dollars), allowing those on leased land (including Herman's Landing) the first operation of purchase.

On July 10, 1992, Carls and the Gormansons finally purchased the land that their resort had been occupying for so long and Dwayne, a former industrial arts instructor and skilled builder, wasted no time in tearing down their worst cabins and beautifully doing complete rebuilds on three of the units. Rocky Carl passed away in June of 1992 and Meredith has since retired from the resort, with Dwayne and Cathy purchasing the entire place in the fall of 1996. The old company cabin on the peninsula has been transformed by Dwayne into "Herman's Hamlet" and has stood as one of the resort's more requested lodgings during the past several seasons.

And how's the fishing you ask? Better than ever! In 45 years of charting a staggering 8,500-plus musky catches, Herman's best musky years have been 1994 , when 409 muskies were caught, and 1998 when more 50-inch-plus muskies were landed than during any other year on the flowage.

Last year, the Gormanson's decided it was time they themselves retire from the business, so they put Herman's Landing up for sale. Because a stipulation of the Gormansons' purchase agreement of the property from the state was that the state had the first right of refusal on purchasing the land when the Gormansons decided to sell it, this put the future of Herman's Landing continuing as a going resort business on shaky ground.

Had the state bough the property, it's likely they wouldn't have continued its operation as a resort. But they saw the existence of Herman's as an essential asset to the continuing development of tourism and recreation in northern Wisconsin -- so they passed so that private enterprise could take it over. The only problem was that, because of what the business had grown to, few entities had the resources available to purchase the resort. Had no one bought it, the place would have likely been broken up, sold off, and ceased operating as a resort.

But, on March 29, 1999, this all became resolved when -- after more than 60 years -- things have come full circle in respect to the stewardship of this business. For this enterprises is, once again, under the ownership of members of the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe. It was Chris and Elsie Lee who started it, and it is the LCO Tribe which will be breathing new life into it for the new millennium. With their intentions to continue running Herman's Landing as a resort (with some minor improvements planned for the near future), the LCO Tribe will be conducting business as usual, retaining the quality expertise of Herman's same capable staff and enlisting as their Operations Manager, Michael Isham (experienced as an assistant manager of a 250-room hotel and hospitality facility in Louisiana) and, as their Assistant Operations Manager, Paulette Dettloff (with thirteen years experience operating a fishing/vacation resort on the flowage) to oversee the running of this historic and most celebrated resort.

Reprinted with permission of John Detloff. Originally published in the Trailblazer Magazine, April 28, 1997.

John Dettloff
Sawyer County and Lake Chippewa Flowage Historian