FredericWisconsin

Parks & Trails

A lake in the middle of the village, seven parks and two of Wisconsin's best-known trails.

Coon Lake Park

The village's largest park: a 54-acre lake with undeveloped public shoreline, next to 80 acres of community hardwood forest.

Carved Coon Lake Park sign Boardwalk crossing Coon Lake in fall Flag garden on the lakeshore

Walk the boardwalk, fish from the piers or put in at the boat launch. Watch a short video of Coon Lake made and shared by Tammy Seebach.

Through the year

Pink and violet sunset over Coon Lake

Long evenings on the water

  • Fishing piers and a boat launch
  • Softball and baseball fields
  • Basketball and pickleball courts
  • Playgrounds, horseshoe pits and sculpture gardens

Seven village parks

Frederic has seven community and neighborhood parks, with more than 40 acres of public parkland in all. Between them you will find:

  • Walking, hiking, ski and snowshoe trails
  • Picnic shelters
  • Playgrounds
  • Basketball courts
  • Pickleball courts
  • Ice skating rink
  • Sculpture gardens
  • Public restrooms
  • Horseshoe pits
  • Fishing piers
  • Boat launch
  • Softball field
  • Baseball field
  • Bandshell

Rent a park shelter

Open-sided picnic shelter in a village park

Book a shelter for a reunion, birthday or community event. Call Village Hall at 715-327-4294 or email clerk@fredericwi.com or office@fredericwi.com to check dates, then send in the reservation form.

Gandy Dancer State Trail

The trail follows the old Soo Line railroad grade, right through Frederic. It is named for the crews who laid the track, who used tools from the Gandy Tool Company of Chicago and worked to a rhythm, earning the nickname "gandy dancers."

Southern segment
47 miles, St. Croix Falls to Danbury
Surface
Crushed limestone, level grade
Towns on the way
Centuria, Milltown, Luck, Frederic, Siren, Webster

Using the trail

  • Biking: allowed year-round with a Wisconsin state trail pass, sold by vendors along the trail and at the Polk and Burnett County tourism centers.
  • Walking and running: welcome. Dogs on a leash 8 feet or shorter.
  • Snowmobiles: allowed in winter once the county opens the trail.
  • No hunting or trapping on the trail corridor.

Details from the Wisconsin DNR.

Ice Age National Scenic Trail

Grassy trail through birch and pine woods

A footpath of roughly 1,200 miles that follows the edge of the last glacier across Wisconsin, from Potawatomi State Park on the Door Peninsula to Interstate State Park on the St. Croix River. It is one of eleven National Scenic Trails in the United States, marked with yellow blazes.

South of Frederic, the trail shares the Gandy Dancer corridor for about 19 miles, from St. Croix Falls past Luck, then turns east toward Straight Lake State Park.

Segments near Frederic

  • 15.5 mi

    Gandy Dancer Segment

    A level walk on the shared rail grade through small towns and farm country on a glacial outwash plain.

  • 4.3 mi

    Trade River Segment

    Winding boardwalks through the Trade River headwaters, and a big basalt boulder left by the Superior Ice Lobe.

  • Start

    Interstate State Park

    The western end of the trail in St. Croix Falls, on the St. Croix River. Wisconsin's first state park.

Maps, conditions and guidebooks from the Ice Age Trail Alliance. Logging in the county forest can sometimes make blazes hard to find, so carry a map.