Horicon Marsh — America's Great Cattail Marsh

An hour northwest of Milwaukee lies the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States — a 32,000-acre glacial basin that is both a National Wildlife Refuge and a State Wildlife Area, and one of the most important stopover points for migratory birds anywhere between the Gulf and the Arctic. In spring and fall the sky over Horicon fills with tens of thousands of Canada geese, ducks, herons, egrets, and pelicans, while more than three hundred bird species have been recorded across the seasons. A day here moves at the pace of the water: a slow auto tour along the refuge's dike roads, a paddle out among the cattails on the marsh's canoe trails, and quiet boardwalk walks over open water thick with wildlife. It is an easy, flat, restorative day trip — binoculars and a paddle rather than boots and switchbacks — and an entirely different face of Wisconsin than the lakeshore or the northern woods.