Lake Puckaway Loop

Germania Jaunt | Lake Puckaway | Mecan River | Muir Park
 Newton Township | Northwest Passage | Oxford Briggsville Loop

Marquette County is well known in cycling circles for its bike trails and it’s easy to see why.  The scenery can’t be beat and the rural nature of the county means there’s plenty of wildlife and little traffic.  The county has laid out 7 designated bike trails that can be found on the map inside of the Marquette Passport booklet created by Marquette Now.  The Passports can be found at most Marquette County businesses, libraries, and government offices.

Mecan Puckaway bike route The Lake Puckaway Loop bike trail in Marquette County is about 14 miles long. It offers roads that can shorten the route, too. It also makes a great walking route. The route is shown on the map made by Kathy Kuss , www.kathykusscreative.com, for Marquette Now. They are available at most Marquette County businesses in the Marquette County Passport book.

A quiet, mostly flat trail is the Lake Puckaway Loop just north of Puckaway Lake.  The best place to start this trail is at the Puckaway boat launch.  There, you can leave your car, take your bike off the rack, and pedal away into sublime country beauty.  The boat launch area has picnic tables so you can start or end your ride with a relaxing snack or lunch.  There are also bathrooms located at the boat launch site and the beautiful view of Puckaway Lake will make a rider want to stay.  The lake is 5,433 acres.  Bring binoculars and try to spot some of the hundreds of birds that migrate, live, or nest on Puckaway.  

Before you leave the boat launch area and as you view the wide lake, think about how this area was inhabited for thousands of years by Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Woodland, and Oneota people and then by Ho Chunk and probably other Native Americans.  The Puckaway wetland area was always a thriving place with plentiful food sources like wild rice and water fowl, turtles, and small mammals.   The evidence of inhabitants as far back as 8,000 years has been found throughout the years.  Their spear points and pottery sherds as well as camp sites and villages leave a record of their being here long before European settlers.  The area you bike through was walked by men, women and children hundreds, even thousands of years ago who found their home here in the same land you now bike through.

Puckaway comes from a Native American term apuckawa or puckawa meaning wild rice field, according to origin of place names on the Wisconsin Historic Society website.  Mecan may be derived from an Ojibwa word for trail, mikana, as reported in The Romance of Wisconsin Place Names.  

Country Road Beautiful hardwood forests surround much of the Lake Puckaway Loop bike route in Marquette County. Flat roads and little traffic make it a pedaling heaven.

The Lake Puckaway Loop is just about 14 miles of mostly flat road.  The far north section presents a few hills, most of which can be avoided, for those less athletic riders, if you turn south off Fawn Drive onto Town Hall Road and then take Fern Avenue west back to the designated route.   But if you do take the shorter route, you’ll miss some beautiful country and good biking.

You may want to make a jaunt off the trail south onto County C off Riverview Drive to see a small roadside cemetery of early settlers, the few old headstones standing as a tribute to some of the people who were here over 100 years ago.  

On the Lake Puckaway Loop you’ll see miles of hardwood forest, hear songs of scores of birds, and be able to view hundreds of wildflowers that vary throughout the spring through fall seasons.   You’ll see nary a car as you pedal through lush vegetation and breathe fresh country air.

Church Emmanuel Lutheran Church makes for a pretty country site on the Lake Puckaway Loop bike route.

For miles you’ll only see woods and a few farm houses with outbuildings.  Take a break for pictures at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, a beautiful example of the little country church, its spire reaching into the sky.   Then, as you travel on 19th Avenue, you’ll drive by White Lake golf course and be able to peak through the woods and vintage resort cabins at White Lake where Scharenberg’s Supper Club keeps peacocks in the summer season.  Look for their dramatic tail displays in spring.

If you’re not riding through hardwood forest, it’s likely you’re gliding through wetlands where dragonflies hover and frogs croak out love songs.  It’s prime area for bird watching.  Don’t be surprised to see wild turkeys and white tailed deer along the route.   

The Lake Puckaway Loop bike trail in Marquette County also makes a great walking trail.  Of course, follow safe pedestrian walking guidelines if you head out by foot.  If you leave from the boat launch, you can use your map to shorten the trail, and if you stay on the southern portion, you won’t have any uphill climbs. Back roads pedaling or walking doesn’t get much better than on the Lake Puckaway Loop bike trail in Marquette County.