Qualla: Brunet Island State Park

Brunet Island State Park: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ramblingnome, CC BY-SA 3.0. The deer own this island. Hundreds of white-tailed deer roam freely across Brunet Island, so numerous that they devour nearly every young hemlock sapling that tries to take root. Small fenced plots scattered through the forest protect what the deer cannot reach -- tiny exclosures where the next generation of trees grows behind wire, a quiet battle between appetite and persistence playing out beneath the canopy of mature eastern hemlocks that have stood here for generations. This unlikely tension between wildlife abundance and forest survival defines Brunet Island State Park, a green jewel formed by the confluence of the Chippewa and Fisher Rivers just north of Cornell in Chippewa County, Wisconsin.

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Image: Ramblingnome | CC BY-SA 3.0

Brunet Island State Park: The Frenchman Who Built the Valley

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY 3.0. The park takes its name from Jean Brunet (1791-1877), an upper-class French immigrant whose life reads like a picaresque novel of frontier commerce. Brunet arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in 1818 and found work with a trading company. Two years later, his employers stationed him i...

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Image: Bobak Ha'Eri | CC BY 3.0

Brunet Island State Park: Where Two Rivers Build an Island

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ramblingnome, CC BY-SA 3.0. Brunet Island exists because the Chippewa and Fisher Rivers refuse to share a single channel. Their confluence splits around a wooded landmass, with backwater channels at the north end creating several smaller undeveloped islets. The regional landscape bears the deep imprint of t...

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Image: Ramblingnome | CC BY-SA 3.0

Brunet Island State Park: Depression-Era Craftsmanship

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ramblingnome, CC BY-SA 3.0. Northern States Power (now Xcel Energy) donated Brunet Island to the state of Wisconsin in 1936. Two years later, the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived and built a log shelter that still stands, a handsome artifact of Depression-era park development when young men from CCC camp...

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Image: Ramblingnome | CC BY-SA 3.0

Brunet Island State Park: Trails, Water, and the Old Abe

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit McGhiever, Public domain. The park serves as the northern trailhead for the Old Abe State Trail, a bike and hiking path that follows the Chippewa River south to Chippewa Falls, connecting to Lake Wissota State Park along the way. On the island itself, a network of trails threads through the hemlock forest...

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Image: McGhiever | Public domain