The Bois Brule River (most often referred to as the Brule River) is located in

Douglas County, Wisconsin Douglas County is a county located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 44,295 Its county seat is Superior. Douglas County is included in the Duluth, MN-WI Metropolitan Statistica ...

, United States, near the county's eastern border with Bayfield County. The river is long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed May 1, 2012 The source is in central Douglas County near Upper

St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...

Lake, it flows through the Brule River State Forest, and drains into

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

. The river is called ''Wiisaakode-ziibi'' ("a river through a half-burnt woods") in the

Anishinaabe language Ojibwe , also known as Ojibwa , Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian lan ...

, which was translated into French and incorporated into English. It was the site of the 1842 Battle of the Brule between the

La Pointe Band La Pointe Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe: ''Mooningwanekaaning Gichigamiwininiwag'', "The Lake Superior Men at the Place Abundant with the Yellow Flickers") are a historical Ojibwa band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, located about what now ...

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

and a group of

Dakota Sioux The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into ...

. In 1928, United States President Calvin Coolidge maintained a summer residence, known as the "Summer White House", at the Cedar Island Lodge, located on the upper Bois Brule River. Since then, the property has been purchased by the founders of 3M, the Ordways. The river is known for its trout fishing and white-water canoeing, and is revered by fly fishermen for its prolific mayfly and stone fly hatches. The

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is a government agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin charged with conserving and managing Wisconsin's natural resources. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has the authority to set policy ...

has a fish hatchery and a ranger station that operates the state forest and nearby campgrounds.Brule River State Forest
/ref>

References

Rivers of Wisconsin Rivers of Douglas County, Wisconsin Tributaries of Lake Superior {{Wisconsin-river-stub