Last night we received more heavy rain, which put the total over the last two days at almost a foot of rain! We drove into downtown Wisconsin Dells to have lunch at Dave’s Famous BBQ and then take the boat tour of the Dells. Famous Dave’s was just as good as we remember from Kansas. The tour boat was leaving out of their high water dock due to the recent rains. We learned the river was four feet higher than normal and was running at five times the volume. We took a bus down to the dock from the parking area and waited to board the boat, the General Bailey. We managed to get front row, top deck seats! The Wisconsin Dells is called the dells due to the multiple layers of rock that are laid on top of each other. Apparently, Dells is the French word for pancakes stacked on top of each other. This rock type and formation is only found in three other areas of the world, one of them being in Bavaria, Germany. David’s friend, Herbert, had taken him to see a similar canyon in Bavaria, on one of his trips to Germany, which could be this formation. The Wisconsin river runs through this narrowing in the dells. It was originally used to run White Pine logs from northern Wisconsin down to the Mississippi river in the 1800s. When the railroads came and began moving the lumber, the river traffic dropped and the old hands that used to help shepherded log rafts through the Dells narrows and the twisting channel turned to tourism. In the early 1900s, a dam was built to convert the energy of the river into hydroelectric. This flooded the rapids in the narrows but made it easier for the tourist industry. There are two tours, one above the dam and one below. We took the tour above the dam. The river was running high, so some of the rock formations that were normally above water were covered. The current through the narrows was running hard and fast which made the trip through them a bit more exciting than normal.
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| Witches Gulch |
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| The Narrows |
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| Witches Gulch |
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| Witches Gulch |
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| Witches Gulch |
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| Bennett's Rock |
Above the narrows the boat stopped so we could walk up into the Witches Gulch, a narrow canyon that had been cut by glacier run-off. It reminded David a lot of the canyon in Germany. We hiked up through the narrow canyon enjoying the drop in temperature and the rush water. After that stop, we went across the river to another rock formation. To help sell Wisconsin Dells as a tourist destination in the late 1800s, a photographer by the name of H.H. Bennett took beautiful photos of the area, but the cameras of the day required the subject to stay still from 30 seconds to two minutes to develop the film. H.H. Bennett wanted to show action in his photos and developed what is today’s modern camera shutter. To show case his achievement, he had his son jump from a cliff top across to a rock formation now called Bennett’s rock. They reenact that shot now by having a German Sheppard jump back and forth across the gap (See photo). The trip back down through the narrow was even more exciting as the current rocked and tossed the boat as the captain tried to keep us in the channel!
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