Kangaroo Lake features forest and wetland communities surrounding the north end of Kangaroo Lake. The site is owned partly by the Door County Land Trust and by The Nature Conservancy. The bulk of the SNA land is owned by TNC with a smaller portion owned by the DCLT. Both organizations give the Kangaroo Lake name to their own preserves which in both cases, contain lands that are not within the SNA. The bulk of the DCLT’s Kangaroo Lake Nature Preserve surrounds Peil Creek and is not in the SNA. Meanwhile, virtually all of TNC’s Kangaroo Lake lands are within the SNA, save for a disjunct parcel approximately 2.5 miles northwest. The easiest parking access is via the DCLT parcel on Maple Road, just north of CTH E. The recommended boat put-in is at the west end of the causeway.
I would call my visit to this site incomplete. Continuing on the same gray day as before, my brother and I started hiking in from the DCLT trailhead. We found ourselves in a very nice woodland with large-flowered trilliums and yellow lady’s-slippers in great abundance. We wandered around the forest for quite a while before viewing a cabin of some sort in the distance. Figuring we must have lost our way, we made an about face and tried accessing the site further from a scantly visible pull-off east of the lake on CTH E. This degraded terrain gave way to some gnarly and impassable wetlands. We resigned ourselves to taking some depressingly gray photographs from the causeway, determined to visit this site again someday, preferably with a kayak. As it turned out, the cabin we thought we saw was likely owned by DCLT/TNC as they tend to leave structures intact when purchasing conservation lands. The more you know… But as I mentioned, this site deserves a more in-depth visit and that is the plan.
More of my photos (and full-res) from Kangaroo Lake can be viewed here.
Additional Information
| SNA # | 335 |
| County | Door |
| Natural Communities / Geology |
Lake, Northern Upland Forest, Northern Wet-Mesic Forest, Marsh |
| Size (Acres) | 357 |
| Parking | Parking Area, Roadside |
| Trails | Yes (partial) |
| Easy to Find | Yes |
| Best Seen By | Foot, Kayak |
| Marked Boundaries | No |
| Ownership | Door County Land Trust (PDF) & The Nature Conservancy; More info: Wisconsin DNR |
| Located Within | n/a |
| Dates Visited | 5.21.10 |
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State Natural Areas of Wisconsin 