Best of 2015 - Staff Pick: Best Sandbar
Winner: The One in the Chippewa River
When it comes to aquatic obstructions, islands get all the love: Think palm trees, sea breezes, and Hawaiian pizza. Sandbars, on the other hand, are ignored. They are quite literally overlooked – until someone runs into one, prompting derisive criticism (at best) or retributive dredging (at worst). Rarely does a sandbar do anything noteworthy, let alone heroic. That all changed Labor Day, when high water caused a barge holding a construction crane to come loose from its moorings at the Confluence Project site along the Eau Claire River in downtown Eau Claire. Free from its constraints, the barge drifted downstream to the Chippewa River, then toward the Grand Avenue pedestrian bridge, where a costly, cataclysmic crash seemed imminent. It was then that the valiant but anonymous sandbar stood its watery ground and stopped the runaway barge, likely sacrificing some of its own sand in the process. As police kept pedestrians off the bridge, contractors tugged the barge back to shore, where it soon returned to work. Sandbar, for your bravery in the face of oncoming riverine construction equipment, we salute you!
Editor’s note: Second place in this one-of-a-kind category goes to the SandBar & Grill on Lake Wissota, which we hear has a pretty good fish fry.
