Bear Beach

State Natural Area (No. 402)

Location: Within the Brule River State Forest, Douglas County. T49N-R10W, Sections 8, 9, 18. T49N-R11W Sections 13, 14, 22. 103 acres.

Access: By canoe. Canoe downstream to Lake Superior. On foot, from the intersection of Highways 2 and H in Brule, go north on H 11 miles, then west and north 3.8 miles on Brule River Road to a parking lot. The natural area includes the 5-mile stretch west of the Brule River.

Description: Bear Beach features several extensive stretches of undeveloped beach along the Lake Superior shore, west of the Brule River mouth. The beaches are composed mostly of sand and are unvegetated due to their exposure to wave and ice action. Locally, there are small, scattered pockets of cobblestones and driftwood “gardens”. The site includes the slump clay banks that contain uncommonly occurring combinations of plants and animals. Since the clay banks are continually eroding as they have for thousands of years, this site will continue to move and change with time. The uplands above the beach and adjacent to the natural area are vegetated with speckled alder and a rather open “forest” of trembling aspen, scattered white spruce, white pine, and balsam fir. Paper birch is locally dominant, especially on the bluffs bordering the lower reaches of tributary streams that flow directly into Lake Superior. Several of these streams terminate in small estuarine lagoons at the lake. During migration periods this area is used for foraging and resting by terns, shorebirds, gulls, snow buntings, and water pipits – sometimes in substantial numbers. Bear sign was common on the beach and in the adjacent thickets. As development pressures on shoreline habitats are increasing in northern Wisconsin, Bear Beach represents a rare opportunity to protect beach and clay banks on over five miles of undeveloped, unobstructed Lake Superior shore. Bear Beach is owned by the DNR and was designated a State Natural Area in 2003.