Bezhik Creek
Bezhik Creek starts in a marsh almost a mile southwest of Niswi Lake. The creek drains a number of lakes along its course. These lakes include Niswi Lake and Neesh Lake through Bezhik Lake. Farther downstream, a small stream flowing out the east side of Serenade Lake drains that little lake. Bezhik Creek ends about 1000 feet upstream of Forest Road 464 where it empties into the Moose River. Several areas along Bezhik Creek's course were affected by the 1999 Independence Day Windstorm.
The name Bezhik by the way means "One" in the Ojibwe language. Since the Ojibwe spoke many different dialects of the language, there is no official spelling for words translated to English. So Bezhik, Neesh, Niswi and Neewin (one, two, three and four) are often spelled differently depending on who did the translation to English. For a primer on Ojibwe, check out this article.
This area was most recently burned in 1910 by the Sioux River, Bootleg, Big Moose and Cummings Lake complex. In 1894 it may have been impacted as the Chad, Cummings, Lac La Croix, Crooked Lakes complex raged near this area. Also, around 1755 the area was burned during the Big Moose, Oyster, Lac La Croix complex fires.
What is a Primitive Management Area (PMA)?
Paddling Bezhik Creek
From satellite images, some fairly long sections of Bezhik Creek appear to be navigable between Bezhik Lake and Serenade Lake downstream to the north. On some old maps, Serenade Lake was called Jonathan Lake. Serenade Lake is not within the Canthook Lake Primitive Management Area. Given the remoteness and difficulty of reaching Serenade Lake, it is interesting to note that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources actually did a fisheries survey on this lake in 1985. They came up empty. The survey mentions that Serenade Lake is six feet deep and covers 56 acres. You can find the fish survey here. There will almost certainly be many beaver dams to lift the canoe over and the stretches of the creek that flow through the forest (fallen trees, small rapids) you can expect to be much less navigable compared to the sections of the creek that flow through open wetlands.
There is very little additional information to be found on Bezhik Creek.
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