Fox River (Green Bay tributary)

thumb|right|Looking west toward Buffalo Lake in [[Montello, Wisconsin|Montello]]

thumb|right|Looking east at the Upper Fox River in Montello

thumb|right|The Upper Fox River emptying into [[Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh]]

thumb|right|The [[Interstate 41 bridge over the Lake Butte Des Morts just north of the river's entry into Lake Winnebago]]

thumb|right|The bed of the Lower Fox River in [[Appleton, Wisconsin|Appleton during bridge repairs]]

The Fox River (Menominee: Meskwahkīw-Sīpiah, "Red Earth River"; Ho-Chunk: Nionigera) is a river in eastern Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region of the United States, flowing through the ancestral homeland of the Menominee and Meskwaki peoples. Unusually, the Fox River flows northward—from its headwaters in south-central Wisconsin toward Green Bay and Lake Michigan—a direction resulting from the landscape formed by receding glaciers at the end of the last ice age. Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Fox River valley for at least 13,000 years, since the recession of those glaciers. Prior to European settlement in the late 17th century, the shores of the Fox River and Green Bay were home to roughly half of the estimated 25,000 Native Americans living in present-day Wisconsin.

The river's English name is a translation of Rivière aux Renards (French for "River of the Foxes"), given by explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette because it flowed through the territory of the Meskwaki people, whom the French called Renards.

The Fox River is the principal tributary of Green Bay, and via the bay, the largest tributary of Lake Michigan. The city of Green Bay, one of the first European settlements in the interior of North America, is on the river at its mouth.

Course

The Upper Fox River begins as a small stream northeast of Pardeeville. It flows west by southwest towards Portage where it comes within of the Wisconsin River before turning north. The Fox River and the Wisconsin River are connected via the Portage Canal, which was the first waterway between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. After flowing past Montello, the river goes northeasterly until reaching Lake Butte des Morts. Here it is joined by the tributary Wolf River before entering the west side of Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh. The Upper Fox flows for a total of .

The Lower Fox begins at the northern end of Lake Winnebago, where it flows north past Neenah, Menasha, and Appleton as it begins its The highest recorded flow on the Fox near its mouth was on June 3, 1990.

Tributaries of the Fox River include the East, Fond du Lac, Wolf, White, Mecan, Grand, and Montello rivers.

Name

The name is the translation of (French for "River of the Foxes"), given by explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette because it went through the territory of the Meskwaki people, called in French. In the Menominee language, the river is known as Meskwahkīw-Sīpiah, which means "Red Earth River". In the Ho-Chunk language (Winnebago, Hoocąk, Hocąk), Fox River is known as Nionigera. According to a member of the party of La Salle, it was also called the Kakaling River.

Demographics

Along the banks is a chain of cities and villages, including Oshkosh, Neenah, Menasha, Appleton, Little Chute, Kimberly, Combined Locks, and Kaukauna. Except for Oshkosh, located on the Upper Fox River near Lake Winnebago, these cities and villages identify as the Fox Cities. Farther north along the Lower Fox River, from its outlet from Lake Winnebago and before its mouth at Lake Michigan, are the cities of De Pere and Green Bay (located at the lake), and the villages of Ashwaubenon and Allouez; although they are in the Fox River Valley, this grouping of cities and villages does not refer to themselves as Fox Cities.

History

Since the recession of the glaciers that once covered much of Wisconsin, the Fox River has supported several Native American cultures, and has been important for its fisheries, waterfowl, wild rice, forests, and water. Archaeologists have claimed that indigenous peoples lived in the Fox River area as early as 7000 BC.

Prior to European settlement in the late 17th century, the shores of the Fox River and the Green Bay were home to roughly half the estimated 25,000 Native Americans who lived in what is today Wisconsin. The first Europeans to reach the Fox were French, beginning with explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634. In 1673 explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet canoed up the river as far as Portage. Here they made the short portage from the Fox to the Wisconsin River and then canoed on toward the Mississippi River. They established an important water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River known as the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway. It was likely long used by Native Americans prior to European encounter, as they had extensive cross-country trading routes related to the Mississippi River.

During the French colonization of the Americas, this route was used frequently by fur traders. French-Canadian men who established homes on the Fox River married First Nation women, producing mixed-race descendants who were generally raised within the matrilineal cultures of their mothers and identified with the tribes. In Canada, the Métis of the Red River of the North are classified as a distinct ethnicity because of their shared culture. The company was hoping to establish Green Bay as a port city to rival Chicago by making the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway into the principal shipping route between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. This goal was never achieved, as the Upper Fox remained too shallow for significant shipping even after damming and dredging. In addition, the lakes that the narrow, winding stream flows through were frozen solid for five months every year. Dredging of the chemicals in the river began on April 28, 2009 and capping started soon after during the summer of 2009. The cleaning project concluded in 2020 and cost an estimated $1 billion. The Fox River will continue to be monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for many years following the cleaning project's completion.

The U.S. government and State of Wisconsin filed suit on October 14, 2010, against nine paper companies and two municipalities for their failure to pay for PCB cleanup actions. The companies named in the suit were NCR Corporation, Appleton Papers, CBC Coating, Kimberly-Clark, Menasha Corporation, NewPage Corporation, Glatfelter, U.S. Paper Mills (Sonoco) and WTM (Wisconsin Tissue Mills). The local agencies sued were the City of Appleton and Neenah-Menasha Sewerage Commission. Several settlements ensured that the responsible parties paid for a large sum of the cleaning project costs and other restoration efforts. A settlement, reached in 2019, required that NCR Corporation, P.H. Glatfelter Company, and Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP cover the cost of all future cleaning efforts.

Since the late 19th century, dredging of river bottom sediments has been done to allow large ships to enter the Fox River. The contaminated sediment has been used since the 1960s to fill local wetlands, causing adverse effects on wildlife and plants. After 1978 it was used to develop an off-shore engineered holding area called Renard Isle, also known as Kidney Island. Renard Isle was capped in 2015 and its ownership was transferred to Brown County in 2017. There have been several proposed plans for the land, including turning it into a National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Among the wildlife in the Fox River Valley are birds such as mallard ducks and Canada geese, and fish such as walleye.

Before the 1950s parts of the Fox River were used for recreational purposes. This only lasted for a short period of time as the water quality deteriorated, and the water was considered unhealthy.

The Wiouwash State Trail runs concurrent with the Fox River from downtown Oshkosh to Lake Butte des Morts for about .

Fishing

Fishing was a huge aspect of life on the water as many fisheries were set up along the river. This remained large for a short period of time but also was soon limited by water pollution and the depleted amount of fish. Restrictions were placed on how many and what kind of fish could be caught.

The Fox River has produced multiple state records in fishing. Currently the records for Striped bass, Shortnose gar and Northern hogsucker have all been caught in the river.

Fox River (Green Bay tributary)

Course

Name

Demographics

History

Fishing

Images

See also

References

External links