Pine Creek Watershed Project

Watershed History

Prior to statehood and the first settlements in the region, the Pine Creek watershed was covered with the dense virgin timber that characterized so much of the northern US before European colonization. Iron and timber were the natural resources which sparked the settlement of this part of Upper Michigan in the years following the Civil War. Iron-mine development beginning in the late 1870's gave rise to the communities of Iron Mountain and Norway and to the eventual formation of Dickinson County, the last county to be organized in the state. While a small iron-mining operation began about the turn of the century in the vicinity of what is now the Groveland Mine at the head of the Pine Creek watershed, large-scale operation of that mine came much later, in the late 1960's. The first major impact on Pine Creek came about from the harvesting of the native timber.

Between 1868 and 1917 practically the entire central area of the Upper Peninsula and adjoining northern Wisconsin was subject to complete harvesting of the native forests. The timber was driven by water down the Menominee River to sawmills located at Marinette, Wisconsin and Menominee, Michigan. The Menominee River Boom Company, agent for the large sawmill operators, saw to the construction of numerous small dams on creeks and streams throughout the river basin, to hold water until spring for release to carry logs downstream on the crest of the snowmelt runoff. One such dam location was at Rock Falls, in the middle of the Pine Creek watershed. The stripping of the forest cover off the hills allowed sediment to enter the creek and its tributaries, while the seasonal release and surge of stored waters contributed to erosion along at least the lower reaches of the creek and along any tributaries so impounded.

In the mid-1950's planning was undertaken for implementing a major fish habitat improvement watershed project on Pine Creek, running from the northwest corner of Section 13, T40N, R30W, to the mouth of the creek at Loretto. The project was completed in the early 1960's and was intended to address bank stabilization along this section of the creek, along with providing shelters and directing flows to improve the overall creek habitat for fish, particularly trout. Most stream bends along this reach were riprapped or armored, and numerous wooden deflection structures or jetties were constructed in the creek. Remnants of some of these structures are still observable along lower Pine Creek.

In 1986, Trout Unlimited of Dickinson County undertook a physical observation survey of Pine Creek, in cooperation with the MDNR Fisheries Division staff from Crystal Falls. Stream channel characteristics and bottom composition, as well as bank cover and erosion were noted and recorded for much of upper Pine Creek. No stream improvements are known to have been undertaken as a result of this inventory work.