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 Rollie Zuelsdorf can tell you about the wonders of the Horicon Marsh with the kind of insight that spans three generations. He'll can also tell you about lost art of catching snapping turtles that were "as big as people" and the finer charms of the women of Mayville: "Oh, they loved to drink beer. Right out of the bottle."
You may have heard about the big swamp in Horicon. A guided marsh tour from the Blue Heron Landing will leave you with a better appreciation for this sprawling wetland of international importance, and if you're lucky, Rollie Zuelsdorf, the patriarch of the marsh who bears a close resemblance to famed author Ernest Hemingway, will be your tour guide.
"It's the ultimate wildlife and birdlife experience," Zeulsdorf said of visiting the marsh. "The ultimate.
There's no question about it. In the world!"
Zuelsdorf has lived on or near the marsh like his ancestors preceding him, starting with his great grandfather who emigrated from Pomerania, Germany.
The Beaver
"He came to what was then known as the Great Marsh of the Winnebagos for the expressed purpose of trapping beaver," Zuelsdorf explained. "What he didn't know was that there were none."
Seems that most of the beaver had been taken, so the elder Zuelsdorf made a living as a muskrat trapper.
"My great grandfather made $2 a pelt on sheered beaver (muskrat). I came along 100 years later and made ten cents."
The Turtle
"During the summertime I trapped turtles. At that time, this was near the end of the Depression, all of the saloon keepers provided free
lunches…turtle soup, cheese, summer sausage and crackers. The idea was you would come in and cash your paychecks and have couple of beers. I supplied the turtles. The biggest turtle I ever saw weighed 125 pounds. I got some 50-pounders. Right now they go anywhere from ten to thirty pounds. I think I got about two bucks for those turtles, my friends were making 15 cents a week at the bowling alley.
"I was doing pretty well as a young man living off the land between the muskrats in the winter and turtles in the summer."
The Plan
After stints with the Navy and at the local John Deere factory, Zuelsdorf increasingly found himself gazing across the cattails.
"Every day I would walk along that river bank and say, there has got to be a way to utilize this marsh. Somehow we've got to create some interest for visitors."
The first time he saw a pontoon boat, Zuelsdorf knew what to do.
"If I could get one of those pontoons and put chairs on it, I could take four or five people. I started with a 6-passenger, then 30, then another 30. Well, you know how it goes. Today we can take 100 people every hour."
Spotting turtle eggs and beaver slides and identifying birds that are no more than specks in the air to untrained eyes, Zuelsdorf, regales his tour groups with stories of the marsh's colorful history and ecology, spicing things with anecdotes and "the corniest wildlife jokes ever told."
The Place
The place was once the largest man-made lake in the world, replete with steamboats ferrying passengers and cargo from one end to the other. Not long afterwards it was drained and converted to farmland. Today, the Horicon Marsh is much like the place favored by Indian cultures thousands of years ago, a 31,000-acre basin filled with silt and water, tall grass and cattails. The fauna -- deer, fox, squirrel, raccoon, mink, skunk, opossum, muskrat, coyote -- are year-round residents.
It's the largest freshwater cattail marsh in North America.
"When you say Everglades, Horicon Marsh, Okefenokee -- you can say all those in the same breath because we have just as much importance as the rest."
And then there are the birds, the marsh's claim to fame: mallards, blue-winged teal, coots, ruddy ducks, cormorants, herons, terns. The marsh has been visited by 264 bird species, including some from South America, everything from the American Bittern to the Yellow Rumped Warbler.
"The most important thing is the marsh is public land and belongs to the people of the state. Come night or day, nobody can chase you off. The restriction is there is no camping and of course you must have hunting and fishing licenses.
"It's fifty-two miles around. Do you know how much sightseeing you can do?"
 The
Tours
Narrated tours aboard Zuelsdorf's pontoons depart every day through September, hourly on weekends. The Strictly Birding Tour is offered on weekends through September. These popular tours visit the heart of the marsh to view Heron and Egret rookeries. Call (920) 485-4663 for schedules, or visit the Blue Heron Landing website at www.horiconmarsh.com
As Zeulsdorf guides another group along the water, two duck hunters in a small boat pass a few feet from the pontoon.
"If they have any ducks," Zuelsdorf said loudly, "they'll hold 'em up."
The tour group looks at the hunters. The hunters look back.
"If they don't have any ducks, they'll pretend they don't see us."
The empty-handed hunters, with 30 pairs of eyes trained on them, laugh an embarrassed laugh and acknowledge Zuelsdorf with the kind of waves that are closer to salutes.
"Along the river bank you'll see cranberry, buffalo berry, coralberry, mulberry, strawberry, raspberry, all different kinds of fruits…grapes. There's a fine wine made from these grapes called Roth Wine. Those are the grapes of Roth."
Blue Heron also offers guided and unguided canoe rentals through September.
Canoeing and kayaking on the marsh is "the ultimate," according to Zeulsdorf. "Flat water, sheltered from the wind, really something to see and hear. You can drift up to muskrat building a house or a heron on a log."
The Geese
Zeulsdorf is semi-retired now. His son, Mark, operates Blue Heron tours, the grandkids serve as cashiers, ticket-takers and experts on local birding. Rollie helps out when it gets busy, especially in the fall. That's when tens of thousands of Canada Geese leave their breeding grounds near Hudson Bay, 850 miles north, and head for Horicon at speeds averaging 40-70 mph, depending on tail winds. The tourists flock to Horicon, many coming from other states at speeds averaging 55-65 mph along Highway 151, depending on traffic.
The geese will eventually spend the winter in an area encompassing southern Illinois, western Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. The tourists will eventually spend winter in an area encompassing the states of Florida and Arizona.
"Back in 1957 I started promoting goose watching," Zeulsdorf said. "I was doing this with a station wagon. At that time, not many people knew the roads to take to get around the marsh. I think it was a dollar a person and I'd load them in my station wagon. Then I bought a school bus, then I bought a coach. A quarter of a million people come now."
Both geese and the tourists start arriving in late September, their numbers peaking in late-October and early November.
Zeulsdorf eased the pontoon back into the dock at Blue Heron. "Did you enjoy the trip," he asked. "Was I the best tour guide you ever had?"
He need not ask. His audience had already broken into applause.
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"It's the ultimate wildlife and birdlife experience," Zeulsdorf said of visiting the marsh. "The ultimate. There's no question about it. In the world!"
At that time, this was near the end of the Depression, all of the saloon keepers provided free lunches…turtle soup, cheese, summer sausage and crackers.
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