John Muir’s The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, -part 3 of my reading,
Now settled in Wisconsin, he describes the wonderful animals he gets to know so well including the oxen that worked so diligently and are so wise, and his wonderful pony Jack, that he and his brother rode with no halter or bridle at breakneck speeds through the woods and kettles of his home. He describes vividly, as only he can, Fountain Lake (now Ennis Lake) and the fishes in it. We can visit this place today, called Muir Park, it has been preserved in Marquette County.
From the WDNR State Natural Area website; https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/statenaturalareas/MuirPark
Muir Park contains a variety of upland and wetland communities surrounding 30-acre Ennis Lake, a spring-fed kettle lake occupying a marshy pocket in the ground moraine. The seepage lake has a marl bottom and a maximum depth of 30 feet. The surrounding vegetation is diverse and includes a rich fen that lies along an outlet stream, sedge meadow, and open bog, a northern wet forest dominated by tamarack, southern dry forest, oak opening, and wet-mesic prairie.
The calcareous fen and prairie contain a diversity of unusual and rare species including grass-of-Parnassus, Kalm’s lobelia, bottle gentian, and nodding lady’s-tresses orchids. Big blue-stem, Indian grass, blazing-star, and prairie phlox are present in the low prairie, which grades into a spongy sedge meadow and tall shrub community. Tamarack, poison sumac, and bog birch, with numerous pitcher plants beneath, can be found in the bog near the lake’s southeast corner.
The area was settled in 1849 by the Ennis and Muir families and was the boyhood home of John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, who admired the natural beauty of the area. Muir Park is owned by Marquette County and was designated a State Natural Area in 1972
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