Property Details

Located in Southern Ashland county 88355 County Road F · Town of Agenda · Near Butternut, Wisconsin 

Few places in northern Wisconsin stop you the way this one does.

Because, when you turn off the county road, the driveway opens up and you step out of the truck and realize the outside world is completely gone.

This is 158 acres near Butternut in southern Ashland County — a working maple syrup operation, a serious piece of whitetail ground, a solid timber investment, and elevated views over one of the most storied rivers in the Northwoods, all on the same deed.

THE DRIVE IN

The surrounding area surprises people. This far into Ashland County, most expect nothing but unbroken timber. What they find instead is a landscape that mixes agriculture with hardwood edges — crop fields and pasture sitting against the tree lines, creating the kind of food and cover combination that builds and holds strong wildlife populations year after year. Deer, turkey, grouse, and bear all live here in numbers that show up consistently, season after season. A deer sighting on nearly every visit to the property is not an accident. It is the result of ground that has everything an animal needs within reach.

Power is connected at the road to the entrance garage. From there the gravel driveway winds for eight-tenths of a mile through the heart of the property — long enough to leave everything behind, private enough to feel like the land is yours before you even reach the end of it.

THE OPERATION

Someone built something real here. The syrup operation runs off grid with an industrial generator supplying the extra power needed for the pumps and lighting in the facility.

The maple syrup infrastructure at the center of this property is not a hobby setup. Sap is vacuumed from potentially 8,800 or more taps across the timber and delivered into the production facility, where a modern reverse osmosis system pulls the water out before the concentrate moves into holding tanks and gravity-feeds into a CDL fuel oil evaporator. Most components have been upgraded or replaced. The system that sat dormant for seven to eight years has been brought back deliberately and correctly, positioned to run for the 2026/2027 season without significant additional investment.

The reverse osmosis system supplies clean water for personal use and facility washdown. Several outbuildings and garages handle equipment storage and working space.

And then there is the bunkhouse.

Tucked into the back of the syrup shack, a potbelly wood stove at its center, walls close around you and the woods right outside the window — it works for syrup season and hunting season and the weekend in October when you just need to be somewhere that feels like the real thing. This is where the days end on a property like this, and it does that job exactly right.

THE LAND

An internal trail network reaches nearly all 158 acres. Walk them and you move through towering maple, oak, and old-growth hemlock stands that took generations to build. The eastern boundary meets state land, as you approach the property drops off and the Flambeau River comes into view below. The state owns the land along the river corridor, which means two things worth understanding: you are not walking to a water’s edge you own, but you are looking down at a river corridor that will never be developed, never be subdivided, and never change. The views are permanent. The wildlife movement through that corridor — deer, turkey, and every other species that uses a river bottom as a travel route — is permanent. What the state owns down there, this property benefits from forever.

Multiple elevated positions along the eastern edge offer potential building sites for a future home or cabin with river views that would be difficult to find at any price in this part of Wisconsin.

THE RIVER & THE REGION

The Flambeau has been doing something important in this part of Wisconsin for a long time.

Before roads reached Ashland County, it was the highway. Loggers dropped the great white pine stands through brutal winters, stacked the logs on frozen banks, and sent them south with the spring current toward the mills at Park Falls. River drivers worked the logs through rapids and logjams with pike poles for decades. The last great drive on the Flambeau ran in 1937. The hemlock and maple standing on this property today grew up in the silence that followed, and walking among them you can feel the age of the ground you are on.

Not far to the east, Lake of the Falls near Mercer drops ten feet into the Turtle River — a landmark that has oriented travelers through this country for generations. A short distance away, the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage draws anglers from across the region to one of Wisconsin’s most storied musky fisheries. Nearby, Midway Bar and Grill and Donner’s Bay Resort give the crew somewhere to land at the end of a long day in the field.

This is a corner of Wisconsin that rewards people who take it seriously, the type that hop in a canoe and find dinner.

THE INVESTMENT

Properties with established syrup infrastructure, standing timber, elevated river views, and state and state MFL open land on two boundaries have you feeling as if you have 3x that all to yourself. Not to mention over 6,000 acres of state land and 150,000 acre of Chequamegon National forest are just a short distance away. 

The maple resource carries timber value independent of production. The syrup operation generates income in the months between hunting seasons. The state ownership along the river corridor and the eastern boundary means the seclusion, the views, and the wildlife movement this property enjoys today are not subject to change. You are not buying a neighbor’s decision about what to do with their land. That question has already been answered.

The land sits in one of Wisconsin’s most sought-after recreational regions, in a part of the state where ground like this appreciates quietly and sells without much noise. Whether the draw is production income, whitetail season, musky fishing on the Flowage, snowmobiling, or putting a permanent stake in the Northwoods — this is a legacy property in the truest sense of the word.

Walk it once. You will understand.

Connect with listing agent Jeremy VanHulle to schedule a private tour