magazine article from the premier issue of 'Our Wisconsin"

My Sweet Memories of Aqualand This daughter of a zoo-keeping family recalls her growing-up years at one of Wisconsin’s most popular--and beloved--summer tourist attractions. As a little girl, the first time I saw a newborn baby, I tried to scratch the boy behind his ears. Being raised in a zoo taught me very young how much animal babies liked a little help scratching that hard-to-reach place, so I thought human babies would appreciate it too. My family created Aqualand, a northern-Wisconsin tourist park and petting zoo. It ceased operations some years ago, but at its height in the 1960s, Aqualand drew as many as 72,000 visitors per summer. Even now, people I meet all over Wisconsin are in awe when they hear I was part of the Aqualand legend. It entertained generations of people and for 45 years was a keystone of countless families’ summer vacations to the Star Lake/Boulder Junction area. My husband, Dick, well remembers coming home from college with me for the first time while we were dating. We laugh as he tells people his surprise at finding a forest of cardboard boxes in the kitchen--each housing a baby animal of some sort, and all of them waiting to be cuddled, fed and, of course, scratched a little bit behind the ears. Founded by my granddad, Pat Wilsie, and carried on by my folks, Bruce and Jody Wilsie, Aqualand was established in the boom era of Northwoods summer tourism in the lat 1940s. World War II was over, people with more disposable income were relaxing in to family life... and that included summer vacations. The most popular family car of the time was the station wagon, and Wisconsin’s Northwoods was a favorite destination for it. Vacationers Flocked North The overwhelming popularity of Aqualand is evidenced by old photos of cars lining the roads after the parking lot filled. Dad, who also worked as a fishing guide, recalls returning home one day to find the parking lot so packed that 104 vehicles were parked along old narrow Highway K. Highlights everyone still remembers are rows of giant fish tanks with portholes that allowed visitors to see native fish swimming, up close and personal. There was a muskie pond where purchased frogs could be tossed into the water. Watching several hungry muskies simultaneously surface for a snack was a sight no one forgot. The otter pools were mobbed with spectators as these mammal’s playful antics gave everyone a smile. Smart-aleck goats would cross the suspended swinging bridge to stand on a platform and use their mouths to hoist a bucket of corn on a rope, which traveled upward via pulleys. My personal highlight was watching the teenage boys who worked during summers at the zoo, as they attempted to cross that swinging bridge on a dare. None were as sure-footed as those goats! Bears Chugged “Bruin Brew” Everyone recalls feeding the bears “Bruin Brew,” a colored punch made for us at the local soda bottling plant. Younger visitors remember bottle-feeding newborn fawns in the nursery. Countless cute snapshot opportunities were everywhere you looked, and these photos now reside as sweet mementos in so many family albums. Just recently, I located a vintage video of Aqualand from 1970. Someone had saved it to a website that publishes home movies. This 5-minute family video featured one of our goats crossing the old bridge. As a kid, I would never have dreamed that watching that tough old goat strutting his stuff would one day make me cry. I remember our pet timber wolf Dakota, how gentle and loyal he was with us as children. I remember Mo, my self-proclaimed personal pet cougar; the soft pads of his paws that never clawed, never hurt. He knew I was weaker and he knew I loved him. Little Smith, the baby raccoon that rode on my shoulder until the day he decided to see what my earlobe tasted like... Yes, I remember Aqualand, as so many people do. It was magic... it was my home.

Remembering Jim

I just got word tonight that a former classmate and former Aqualand employee has passed away unexpectedly. Jim was always so full of life. There were about six or seven of us, all teens, all classmates who worked together at Aqualand during my high school years. But it was the time that Jeff, Jerry, Jim and I worked out on the grounds crew together that really stands out to me. Those boys had such a way of making hard work fun. In the midst of it all there was rough housing, practical joking and my personal favorite-the dare. We would get 50 gallon barrels of waste cookies from the "Rippin Good" Cookie factory near my great uncle's farm in Ripon. When the cookie frosting machines gummed up they scraped the whole works into barrels for us and we then used them to coax the bigger carnivores into their dens so we could deep clean their pens. On a minor dare, one of the boys took a taste of the scrap and soon we were all hooked. The sealed barrels kept the "gunk" from getting stale and it was yummy, let me tell you. I will never forget my first fist full of frosted animal cookie gunk. To this day, Rippin Good frosted animal cookies are my ultimate comfort food, reminding me of simple times, simple joys and the uncomplicated friendship of youth. Jim was the most daring of us all. Only Jim tasted just about any of the "foods" we fed the animals- Jerry and Jeff seemed to have a much more delicate gag reflex. But I will never forget the greatest dare flung out one hot summer day by one of the older guys who worked with us teens and dared us all to walk upright across the swinging bridge that connected two towers. It was the "Goat Bridge" and the sure footed goats would trip trap across to get a fist full of cracked corn that visitors to the zoo would place into the bucket which was tied to a rope pulley. The goat would cross and then in an act of pure show-off goatsman-ship the goat would put his lips around the rope and pull the bucket up to get the corn. I don't remember the prize attached to the dare, but it was not insignificant because our elder didn't think any of us would do it. (I had crawled across on all fours to clean the tower, but that was a once or twice a summer event, and it was always a slow go as the bridge was high over a murky,shallow barnyard pond- not anything one would want to take a dip in and possibly too shallow to break a fall from the heights). Jim jumped up from the picnic table where we were all on one of my Dad's famous "coffee breaks" and we all proceeded to follow him to the barnyard. Jim climbed the first tower- a series of switch-back ramps that goats used to get to the bridge. Without hesitation, he stepped out onto the bridge and proceeded to run, yes run, all the way across and all the way back. With the grace of a born athlete he climbed back down the ramps, jumped the goat pen fence and held out his hand for the prize. Jim was agile, athletic, sweet hearted and had the longest curly eyelashes I have ever seen. His smile was impish and you could never stay mad at him, no matter how much he frustrated you. It has been years since I have seen Jim, but upon learning of the loss of him earlier tonight, I felt the sadness of a shared childhood remembered. It seems the friends of our youth stay forever young, and larger- more important in their impact on our lives in a different way than the friends we have met since becoming adults. I did not know Jim's adult life, but I know he was loved and I know that he will always be large in my memory. God Bless you Jim, I imagine you running, jumping and smiling that charmer smile in eternity tonight.

Introduction to tell you why

When I look back at growing up “Aqualand” it sometimes feels like it must have been a dream. I know for sure my sisters and I were the richest kids in school, the luckiest on show and tell day and had more playmates than anyone else. When I say richest, I mean in experiences- seemed like we Wilsie girls were envied by all the kids. We had wolves and cougars in the kitchen and fed baby crows, skunks and porcupine their meals as our after-school chores. Bringing one of these little friends to show and tell was quite a hit, and inviting a friend for a sleep over was always an accepted invitation, though sometimes we wanted our friends to hang out more with us- not our oodles of animals. As we got older we learned the responsibility of being committed to another living thing at all times, not just when it was convenient. We learned to work hard, be loyal and to trust each other. As my husband and I look forward to opening the Aqualand Ale House, I am committed to recapturing the story from the beginning. Beginning with my grandfather Perry “Pat” Wilsie, I will try to paint a picture of how and why Aqualand came to be. By spring, I hope to be present, ready to tell a new story as Aqualand Ale House opens the doors to new friends where new memories will be made.