Devil’s Kettle is beautiful and haunting, as pictured here. And as far as Cook County mysteries go, the public has been long fascinated with where the water ends up that disappears into the Devil’s Kettle on the Brule River. Throughout the millennia people have dropped various items like dyes and ping pong balls into the Kettle and hoped to spot them downstream, with no luck. Two Minnesota DNR hydrologists think they have solved the mystery, but until a fall 2017 test is completed with dye, no one will know for sure just where the water goes that enters the cauldron known as Devil’s Kettle.
Disappointing as it might seem, the teak-colored water entering Devil’s Kettle doesn’t flow straight through the earth, heating up as it passes the core, and ending up piping hot in Chinese tea cups.
No indeed, say two Minnesota Department of Natural Resources hydrologists who visited Judge C. R. Magney State Park and the mysterious Devil’s Kettle last fall.
Instead, the water that flows from the Brule River that splits in two when it comes to Devil’s Kettle, with one side cascading over a 50-foot waterfall and the other side falling about 15 feet into what has long thought to be a near bottomless hole, instead soon reemerges not far downstream.
The idea to perform the tests was Jeff Green’s. Green is a DNR hydrologist who lives in Rochester, Minnesota. He has been fascinated with Devil’s Kettle since visiting it some 20 years ago while on vacation.
“We did this work because we wanted to try to figure out what is going on,” Green told the Cook County News-Herald. “We approached the problem logically and scientifically and first tested to see if it is true that half the river vanishes. We now know that the river does resurge downstream of the falls. We as an agency use science as the basis for much of what we do; this is applied science,” he added.
Last November, at Green’s behest, DNR hydrologists Heather Emerson and Jon Libbey measured the water flow above the Kettle and below the waterfall. They found that the river flowed at 123 cubic feet per second above Devil’s Kettle and 121 cubic feet per second about 500 feet downstream from Devil’s Kettle.
“Lo and behold,” said Green, “The numbers are the same. It’s science in action.”
Once the method was picked out, it didn’t take long to solve a mystery that has roots dating back to the Ojibwe, who were here long before the white man appeared.
“We have a gauging station at the mouth of the Brule River in the park so our stream gauging specialists were already stopping there on a regular basis,” said Cheri Zepplin, DNR. “It only took a couple hours for Heather and Jon to set the measuring equipment – most of that time to walk into the site and find two suitable locations to set the equipment above and below the falls.
“Over the years, there have been several attempts by researchers and others to solve the puzzle,” said Zepplin. “And certainly curious onlookers who have tossed items into the water. I believe most people who love the outdoors have an interest in natural science and how things work.”
Green and Calvin Alexander, a retired University of Minnesota professor who has also been curious about Devil’s Kettle, plan to come back in the fall and pour a fluorescent, biodegradable dye into the Kettle and see where it reemerges. Similar tests have been done in the past, but maybe not with proper dyes.
“I think anytime we can better understand our natural world and its processes, we benefit,” said Zepplin. “This is an amazing example of the cutting power of water, how recirculating currents work, and the marriage of hydrology and geology of the North Shore. I envision opportunities for naturalist/ interpretive programs at the park to share this with our public.
“The post has been shared hundreds of times already today (Feb. 28) on the DNR Parks and Trails Facebook page,” Zepplin said. “People who have never visited the Devil’s Kettle before now have an interest in seeing it. There are also some comments calling it ‘not solved,’ but people are curious and thinking about this beautiful place, so that’s pretty neat.”
Sometime next fall the exact location of where the water disappearing into Devil’s Kettle goes will be known. Or people in China will be drinking funny colored tea.
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