The Demise of Clements' Lake Chippewa Resort

After stopping places of the 1870's had evolved into the summer resort hotels of the 1880's and finally into the resort complexes typical of today's resorts by 1896, with the construction of Cornick's Spider Lake Resort , the seeds of Sawyer County's resort industry were allowed to spawn a whole new time-honored way of life, resorting, and open Hayward's vast array of prime waters to the world.

And, by 1923, the Hayward Lakes region had one more blue jewel to add to its crown: the newly formed Chippewa Flowage. Raw and sprawling, this untamed piece of water offered the region's growing resort industry a variety of new possibilities. In fact, even before the Flowage's dam had been created, a couple of fishing resorts had already been established adjacent to it's waterway's original boundaries.

From about 1904 until 1912, John Berger operated and early resort along the north edge of Tyner Lake and, during the teens and early 1920's, Billy DeBrot ran the "Pauquauhwong Camp", a small resort within the bend of the West Fork of the Chippewa river, located just northeast of Old Post. By the time the Chippewa Flowage was created, these resorts were just a memory; but new ones were quickly built in their place.

One of the earliest known resorts to be established on the Flowage was likely to have been built during the Flowage's first year, right in New Post, by Billy DeBrot and George and May James. Today all that remains of this resort, which probably ceased operating during 1930's, is a crumbling red log cabin. The construction of another one of the Flowage's very first resorts (Lessard's Resort) began after Georgina Lessard purchased land where the West Fork feeds the Flowage, on February 11, 1925. With its cabins sold off six to eight years ago, this resort also ceased opertaion. Another piece (Arrow Resort) to be operating shortly after the creation of the Flowage was built by Frank "Connie" Thayer, son of area pioneer Thad Thayer, along the north edge of the channel leading into John James Lake. This old-fashioned, five-cabin fishing camp never had electricity and ceased operating as a resort by around 1950.

And now, as of last October (1996), the oldest surviving resort on the Chippewa Flowage -- Clement's Lake Chippewa Resort (in operation for all but one of its seventy years) -- has succumbed to "progress"… and is gone. Its grounds now lie eerily vacant, where a once-thriving and, during its heyday, one of the most famous resorts on the Flowage used to be. Now, all that remains to indicate what was once there is a lone motor shed, quietly clinging to the bank near the water's edge. Falling into varying degrees of dis-repair during recent years, the unique log cabins which stood as weathered sentinels of a bygone resort era were either hauled off of bulldozed last fall.

Dave Anderson, of Famous Dave's BBQ Shack, purchased the property with the intention of building a whole new resort on the site. Famous Dave's of America, Inc., whose goal is eventually to have 500 restaurants nationwide, now has five restaurants up and running, plans on having 15 by year's end, and 50 by the end of next year. While Clements' antiquated cabins were definitely beyond consideration to be included in Anderson's grand plans, according to Duke Timm, an Anderson spokesman, they were considering keeping Clements' historic, beautifully built log main lodge and tavern. But, because of apparent major structural defects and freezing problems with the building's underlying water supply lines, the prospect of keeping the building was abandoned.

Tentatively to be named the "Grand Pines Flowage Resort", Timm says the plans for the property promise the construction of a Northwoods resort complex which is both aesthetically beautiful and completely modern, with landscaped grounds, possibly a steakhouse, and eleven or twelve really nice loft-style cabins set further back off the lake. This would allow their future guests more spacious grounds in front of their cabins to enjoy.

While the demolition of Clements' Resort and the prospect of the construction of Anderson's new "Grand Pines Flowage Resort," in a way, just mirrors the continuing evolution of the changes that have long been going on in our region's century-old resort industry, one still can't help but feel a heartfelt loss…almost a loss of identity of sorts. For Clements' Resort had its roots so deeply implanted into the soul of the Flowage that it had become one with the Flowage. And, from the perspective of being but one member of a "family" of long-time Chippewa Flowage resort owners, this author feels like he has lost one of his own.

And if the demise of Clements' Resort makes a mere "family member," sense this loss, I can't begin to feel just how heartsick Clements' "parents" (its small legion of former owners) are feeling. Why not meet some of these "parents" -- t he people who built, care-took, and lived and worked at Clements' throughout the past seven decades -- and review some of the lore of a very special place which is no but a memory:

On August 10, 1925, George Wende, a German born contractor and mason and former owner of a farm not far from Cornick's Spider Lake Resort during the teens and early 1920's, purchased about 120 acres of land from the Wise Brothers Land Company in order to build a fishing resort on the new flowage. It was wild country back then and the only building standing on the site where George chose to construct his resort was an old cabin, made of squared hand-hewn timbers, previously owned by the Thayer family. Using this old homestead as their quarters (and later as a rental cabin) while they worked on the main lodge and it's living quarters, George -- assisted by his two older sons George and Carl -- worked hard to complete the building so that the rest of his family could move in from their Hayward home. The main lodge was a two-story frame building with the bar and dining room situated in a glassed-in, porch like extension of the front of the building and a full living quarters in the back. Being a mason, George did the mortar work on the dining room's beautiful stone fireplace himself.

Then George began working on the cabins, most of which were made out of cedar logs. Not knowing anything about building log cabins, it took a loot of guts for George to tackle such an undertaking. But, being a skilled artisan and very adaptable, George was quick to learn. Most likely spending the bulk of the 1926 season building his cabins, it probably wasn't until the 1927 season the Wende's Lake Chippewa Resort first opened for business.

Building his resort in stages, George continued to add more cottages as both time allowed and the demand dictated. Eventually constructing a total of ten new cottages, George had built himself a sizable resort complex. His cabins were completely furnished with the latest conveniences of the day and had screened-in porches. Nine of the cabins were log and two of the cabins were sided, frame style, cabins.

Cabin #1, the original homestead building, ceased being used as a rental unit during later years and was dismantled sometime in the 1980's. Its thirty-foot long, 8" - by 12" square logs were salvaged and used for steps and bracing around the resort. Cabin #2 had three bedrooms; Cabin #3 & #5 were one-bedroom cabins; Cabins #4, #6, #7, #8, #9, & #10 all were two-bedroom cabins; and Cabin #11, the largest, had four bedrooms. During later years, Cabin #6 was used as a shed. Wende's offered both housekeeping and American plan accommodations.

Wende's resort boasted of guaranteeing its guests a good rest on its up-to-date beds with innerspring mattresses, offered electric lights and running water, had shower baths and lavatories in a separate building near the cabins, had a good bathing beach and boat landing, and offered experienced guides -- giving its guests all the modern conveniences of the day. They also had a laundry, sold live bait and tackle, assembled a large fleet of boats for rental to their guests, and sold provisions in their own store.

During the wintertime, George's sons would cut big blocks of ice out of the river and then haul them up to the resort's ice house by wagon team. Being well packed in sawdust, the ice would keep right through the summer and supply all of the resort's ice boxes through the tourist season. Cabin rates during the late 1930's at Wende's were $12/week for two, $20/week for four, $26/week for six, and $30/week for eight. Cabins with dining room service were $22.50 to $26.00 weekly. Boat rental was $5/week and guides ere getting $4 a day.

Catering to fishermen, hunters and golfers, Wende's guests came by auto and rail.. and come they did. George Wende built his place into a very successful and well-known Northwoods resort, building a clientele of regulars who kept coming back year after year.

In 1930, a young Ken Ackley began musky fishing and guiding on the Flowage and it was at the Louis Dance Hall, located on CTH B near the Dun Rovin Lodge, that Ken first met George Wende's daughter, Anne. The two got married in 1932 and stayed on to live and work at the resort until 1941. Ken guided and helped with resort maintenance and Anne worked cleaning cabins and waitressing in the dining room. Once Ken had become a permanent fixture at the resort and built up a reputation as a premier fishing guide, it helped attract more fishermen and -- combined with the successes of the resort's other guides -- this all contributed to bringing Wende's much notoriety as a first-rate fishing camp. It wasn't long before a following of very dedicated musky fishermen had developed.

During August of 1933 there was a long, hot drought period -- the lake level was way down (8' or 10') -- and musky fishing was very slow. Because it seemed evident that the muskies weren't using their shallower haunts, some musky fishermen discovered, upon trying a little experimentation, that row trolling bucktails in the middle of the river channel in front of Wende's Resort was the way to get them. Soon there were so many boats out there that it seemed as though you needed a traffic cop on the water to keep order. During a fantastic one-week spree, Wende's guests were said to have pulled 52 muskies (ranging from 16# to 40#) from the river. Anne remembers catching one of those fish herself, right out in front of her resort, with her mother, Ella, on shore yelling shouts of concern about getting help to land the fish. Anne was pregnant with her oldest son Floyd at the time.

While first getting the resort established, and raising six children there, times were sometimes tough, but George and Ella lived within their means and all their children chipped in working and the resort grew into being a very successful and satisfying venture. In 1943, George lost his wife to a heart attack at the resort. With the help of his children, he tried his best to continue running the resort but, around 1945, sold out to Jim Clements, which is when Wende's Lake Chippewa Resort became known as Clements' Lake Chippewa Resort.

Shortly after buying the resort, Jim and Alice Clements faced a major setback when the beautiful main lodge which George Wende had built some 20 years earlier burned to the ground around 1947. With Clements reportedly hiring three Swedes who didn't speak English to build a new main lodge, construction began as soon as possible. Rustically elegant, practically everything in the new lodge was built of natural log, knotty pine and knotty cedar. It had a full living quarters, a dining room with varnished hardwood flooring, a social room for guests, and a spacious tavern with a wooden bar and handmade wooden furniture. In the bar, beautifully varnished log beams spanning the breadth of the room overhead supported a high roof. The lodge also had ornately built stone fireplaces center-piecing both the dining room and tavern.

Also owning Deerfoot Lodge from 1950 through 1956, the Clementses had their hands full running two resorts at the same time. But, with the help of Morris Bright, Jim and Alice ran back and forth and were able to keep both resorts running smoothly.

With their ownership of Clements' resort coinciding with the period at which the Flowage's musky fishery had reached its full maturity, Jim and Alice were able to witness the Chippewa Flowage's musky heyday first hand. The parade of big musky catches which their guests brought through the resort, year after year, seemed to be never ending.

Louie Spray took his 69# 11 oz. World record musky out of the Flowage during this period and there Clements' Resort was situated -- being known as one of the most productive musky fishing camps on one of the world's best musky lakes. By the early 1950's, the Milwaukee Sentinel had been sponsoring a much-publicized, state-wide fishing contest, having Clements' resort as one of their official weigh-in stations. And with a star lineup of regular musky men already "hooked" on their place by this time, Clements musk lists swelled with record numbers of impressive entries. During the early 1950's, numerous 30# to 40# muskies were hauled into Clements', many of which not only took honors in the Milwaukee Sentinel Fishing contest, but some of which also ranked high in the national Field & Stream Fishing Contest.

Jim Clements was smart enough to know how the notoriety from all this would be great for his resort, so he took advantage and made sure his resort garnished all the publicity it could during this musky-fishing bonanza. While there's no doubt that the musky fishing was tremendous at this time, at times Jim Clements was known to give things an artificial boost by adding water to some of the large muskies which came in to be weighed. Rounding off muskies' weights to the next highest pound -- to account for "dehydration" -- was also probably considered innocently acceptable at the time as well. So for a few years, the weights of many of the muskies charted tended to be consistently 3# to 4# too high.

While this practice was commonplace all over during that era and was done as an innocent means of promotion, the downside to it is that it has created a somewhat distorted view of what the true capabilities of our fisheries are and today, because we can't match yesterday's exaggerations, something is "wrong". Actually, we can take solace in knowing that, because of the release program, the quality of our musky fishery is, in reality, once again near the level that it was back during Jim Clements' day.

By the early 1950's, Clement's Resort had developed into one of the ultimate resorts in musky country. Considered to be the place to be, this first-rate resort offered all the amenities of the day and was known to be a fisherman's paradise. Supporting more than 25 resors by then, the Flowage, during the peak tourist season, was abuzz with activity. Pete's Bar, one of the lake's most well-known and centrally located hot spots, was said to have had as many as 30 or more boats on it, all at once, during prime time. Anyone shooting a musky there had to be cautious so as not the direct their "shrapnel" towards another boat.

Much of the tall-standing timber and stumps which originally inundated the Flowage's shallows was still around but was beginning to dwindle. Thirty years worth of winter ice flows was starting to reshape the Flowage, uprooting this timber… one tree at a time. Decay and an occasional rouge lightning bolt also began to topple these reminders of the old Flowage. The musky fishing remained at the peak level which had begun around 1938, walleye fishing was excellent, and huge slab crappie were being caught.

It was at this time, during the fall of 1954, that Jim Clements' sister Lois, and her husband Rolland Brinkman, purchased the resort. Running the place for 19 seasons (through 1973), the Brinkmans guided Clements' Resort during the prime of its "life". Continuing to offer both housekeeping and American plan cottages, all eleven cabins were well kept -- many of which had been re-decorated by the 1960's. They had a fleet of 20 boats and outboard motors available for rent. Some of the Brinkmans' primary fishing guides were Ken Ackley, Art Drake, Bill Wright, Jess and "Chick" Ross, and "Charlie Man" and "Junior" Thayer.

With an experienced chef on hand like Ann Drake, known to be a wonderful cook, Clements' was known to serve "the best of foods" in their dining room. She worked there until shortly after her husband, Art Drake, died. Having as many as seven employees working for them at times, the Brinkmans had a cook, two housekeeping helpers, and a boat and a bait man. Because the main lodge had a total of six bedrooms, sometimes the help would use some of them and other times the extra rooms were rented out.

While the fishing tales could be heard in the tavern, the lodge's social lounge gave guests a place to gather and get acquainted and enjoy TV, music, or other entertainment. In addition to spending time at their nice sandy beach, the Brinkmans' guests were offered activities like outdoor shuffleboard, ping pong, horseshoes, badminton, basketball, softball, and a children's playhouse and grounds. Group functions like wiener roasts, birthday parties, card parties, and planned island shore lunches were also offered.

Around 1963, the Brinkmans had a new motel built just up from their beach. Its four 2-bedroom deluxe units had TV's and were equipped for either housekeeping or American plan.

Rates for the 1966 season, for housekeeping cabins fully equipped with cooking utensils, were: $50/week for a one-bedroom cabin; $60/week for a two-bedroom cabin; $70/week for a three-bedroom cabin; and $80/week for a four-bedroom cabin. Redecorated cabins rented for a bit more and American plan cabins worked out to be a bit less costly. The deluxe housekeeping motel units rented for $100/week for up to 2 people. Boats rented for $2/day and 18 h.p. motors rented for $8/day. Guide rates were $20/day.

In March of 1974, Dave and Sharon Price bought Clements' Resort from the Brinkmans. The resort's restaurant was still serving on the American plan with Kay Cammack as its cook, business was good, and Dave, Sharon and their two children (Brian and Brenda) were enjoying their new lifestyle. Dave, a good mechanic and all-around handy man, was very knowledgeable and was good with the people. Diane Robb (who later, with her husband Walt, owned Baumgarten's Resort) also worked there as a cook and cleaned cabins, and Randy Leonard (who later owned Deerfoot Lodge) worked there bartending and guiding in order to help put himself through college.

But tragically, on August 1st of their second season, Dave (32 years old at the time) was killed in a late-night boating accident when he drove a high-speed boat into one of the four stumps which used to be located on the edge of the river channel off the southeast shore of Fleming's Island, just east of Herman's Landing. Sharon had a real tough time of running the resort during the rest of the season and this accident could be regarded as the beginning of Clements' Resort downhill slide. Since a 50-year old resort -- like Clements' was the at the time -- requires such constant attention to remain kept up and there was no man around continuously to do the work, not all of the resort's maintenance needs were able to be addressed. But, thanks to all Diane's help in the restaurant and with housekeeping duties, Randy's help in the bar and doing outside work, and the help of another of the resort's workers, Tom Servie, Sharon was able to get through that year and the next season and keep the resort on even keel.

It was around this time that Clements' -- and many other resorts as well -- quit offering American plan accommodations, but they did keep their restaurant going. A couple of years after Dave's passing, Sharon ended up marrying Tom Servie and they ran the resort together, for a few seasons, until personal problems caused a split and the resort had to be closed down before the end of the 1979 season. And because Clements' Resort remained closed during the entire 1980 season, the resulting neglect caused the resort to deteriorate more rapidly.

Breathing new life into Clements' Resort that fall was a group of six Wisconsin investors (the Clements Land Company) who purchased the place and reopened it for the 1981 season. The owners -- Dan Hardy, Chris Brandt, Dennis Ulman, Tim Fenner, Bruce Schultz, and Carol Schmid -- hired various managers to run and maintain the resort during their nine year stint. Managing were: Kent and Bernadet Wabiwitz in '81, Jim and Cindy Perillo in '82, and '83, Tom and Mary Blackstone in '84, '85, and '86, Don and Rose Wolc in '87 and '88, and bud Brandt in '89.

With tough challenges like trying to build back a clientele, with the resort having been closed down in 1980, and trying to keep up a resort with ever increasing maintenance needs, the manages had their work cut out for them. While the cabins were much older and in greater need of repair, the main lodge for the most part, remained a beautiful, sound building. In fact, around 1980, when an eighty-foot tall pine tree came slamming down onto the lodge's roof, with the exception of some minor damage, the roof easily stood up to the test.

Within a couple of years, Clements' Resort had attracted a pretty good following as a fishing resort and seemed to be "keeping their head above water". Unfortunately, when the Wolcs took over as managers, being an older couple and with Don's health becoming increasingly worse, they were limited as to how much work they could tackle. After Don took ill early in 1989, Bud Brandt (Chris's father) agreed to fill in to manage the cabin rentals but wasn't able to keep the bar open. So once again, during these years it was difficult to keep up with the maintenance.

On January 1, 1990, William Kasko and his wife Dolly purchased Clements' Resort, becoming the sixth and last owners of this historic resort. With nine of the original eleven cabins (Cabin #2, #5 and #7 - #11) still available for rent and the four motel units kept up, the Kaskos had thirteen units to rent. Reestablishing the dining room which the previous owners had converted into part of the manager's private living quarters, the Kasko's enthusiastically promoted the reopening of Clements' restaurant offering good food and nightly specials at the "Doll-or-Bill's" Restaurant.

The resort was back on track, attracting a decent following of fishermen and families. Business seemed to be pretty good, but the couple eventually split up and Bill continued running the resort himself through October of 1996. Being rather attached to this lifestyle, it wasn't Bill's intention to sell -- but out of the blue -- a good offer came along and he decided to sell to Dave Anderson… who had big plans for the property.

The word spread quickly that Clements' was to be sold and torn down to make room for a whole new resort (the Grand Pines Flowage Resort) to be erected in its place. Upon hearing that, I rushed over to Clements' last fall to see the place one last time and visit with Bill. Sensing the finality of what was about to happen, I took in as much as I could about the place.

The Wendes had given this place life, shape, and direction; the Clementses had given this place rustic charm and notoriety; the Brinkmans had given this place class and stability; the Prices had given this place their courage; the six investors had given this place rebirth; and the Kaskos had given this place one last hurrah. Imagining the great diversity of people who had spent the past seventy years vacationing here, many of whom have since left this world, I wondered… when Clements Resort "dies", could there be a secluded corner somewhere in heaven's wilderness where the resort could be "relocated" to, giving the Wende's original guests a familiar place they could return to?

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

John Dettloff
Sawyer County and Lake Chippewa Flowage Historian