The Sugar River was the designated boundary in 1829 between Indian lands to the west and U.S. government lands to the east.  Remaining Indian rights were ceded in a treaty signed at Rock Island, Illinois, in 1832.  When he surveyed the area in 1833, Loren Miller reported “The water is of the best quality”.  The river had a sand and gravel bottom and was fed by many springs and seeps.  At the time, the river supported native brook trout.  With the decline in water quality, they and many other animals have disappeared.

Today this part of the Sugar River has brown and rainbow trout, native smallmouth bass, various minnows and darters, white suckers, black bullheads, and occasional other game and panfish.  Marsh marigolds brighten its floodplain in late April.  You may see deer tracks on the trail.  In recent years beaver have re-established themselves.  Signs of their work can be seen along the trail.

North of Highway PD is an area of wet prairie and sedge meadow.  Among the flowering plants here are:

· Glade Mallow, a species which grows only in the midwest.  It is threatened in Wisconsin by damage to its habitat and by weed-killing chemicals.  It grows three to six feet high and has coarsely-toothed lobe leaves.  Its blossoms, in June to August, have white petals about .3 inches long.

· Water hemlock, a poisonous plant that grows three to six feet tall and has cluster of small white flowers from May to August.

· Mountain mint, with whitish to rose-pink or purple flowers with small purple spots in late July to mid-September.

· Swamp saxifrage, with rosette-like leaf clusters at its base.  In spring it has small flowers, greenish-white, yellowish or purple, with five narrow petals.

Along the trail about .3 miles northwest of Paulson Road is a rich, intact prairie remnant, about 50 yards long, with a balance of grasses and broadleaf plants.  Look for these plants:

· Jacob’s Ladder, whose loose clusters of blue, bell-shaped flowers are showy in spring.
·Shooting Star.
·New Jersey Tea.  In late June to late July, it has densely-clustered white flowers on long stalks of a bushy, woody plant.
·Bottle Gentian.  It has blue to white bottle-shaped flowers from August to October.
·Gayfeather, a variety of blazingstar.
·Rosinweed.
·Golden Alexander, with flat-topped clusters of small yellow flowers between April and June.
·Rattlesnake Master.
·Asters and Goldenrod.
·Big Bluestem grass.

·Bluejoint grass, two to four feet tall, growing in heavy clumps.  Its nodes often are swollen.