Bo's Journal 36 Minnesota

Well, other than a sign saying “Welcome to Minnesota” I wasn’t able to tell much difference – same corn, wheat and soy bean fields, same planted tree lines for wind breaks, same wind for that matter, pretty much the same old sameness. But let me take a moment here to say we love this incredible hugeness, this open, endless sameness. It reminds us how lucky we are to live in a country with so much space we can grow enough food not only for ourselves but for the world. We love this fertile bread basket. It may tend to look the same for millions and millions of acres but it is a blessed picture of plenty and freedom.




Our first objective in Minnesota was to find the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi at Lake Itasca State Park. We pretty much just headed right there with few stops in between and believe me it was worth it! The Lake was officially declared the source of the river in 1891, some 60 years after explorer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, led by Ozawindib, his Ojibwe guide, had named it as the source. This ended over a century of controversy as to the true source. That was a big deal I guess. What I know is that it was fun to find and even though the Gals wanted a picture of me standing at the lake’s outlet I declined as I decided another ‘Old Dog’ should be immortalized! (She is now 60, ya know!)







Next we went searching for some guy named Paul Bunyan and his pet blue ox named Babe. Now this was a critter I just knew I had to meet! I felt it would take a really big deal to beat the Buffalo who came to dinner in our campsite a few nights back! We found one version of Paul and Babe, created in 1937 for the town of Bemidji near a Lake of the same name (go figure). Any ox or anything painted blue that hasn’t moved for about 70 years is not my idea of a great romp and chase. So it was a quick posed picture of me, Babe and the lake then off to find another scenic byway.




We thought it might be fun to take one of the State Scenic Byways which follows the Mississippi. Actually there are some 500 miles of these scenic byways in Minnesota, all part of the Grand River Road National Scenic Byway as it follows the entire 2552 miles of the mighty river’s course all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It was fun to see the river getting wider and faster each time we crossed over it the first 30 miles but the scenery just didn’t change all that much. Where a few days back I was complaining about the endless miles of open space, here I began to fidget about the endless barriers of thick forest on either side of the road, broken only occasionally by a quiet, wet pond or by one of the 10,000 lakes this state is so proud of. I guess I’m just one of those ‘crotchety old things’ now. Finally we stopped for the night at a cool place called Lake Winnibigoshish; cool because I insisted on swimming in the Mississippi River now that it was deep enough for me to get totally wet. What a blessed relief after all of this 90 degree heat and 90 per cent humidity. The mosquitoes here are so huge you have to make sure you are tethered to someone or something in order not to be carried off.




We were sick of the heat, humidity and bugs and collectively decided to head for the shoreline of Lake Superior and hopefully a change in weather. We simply put ‘the peddle to the metal’ and drove all the way to Gooseberry Falls State Park on Hwy. 61 north of Duluth. We stopped for a few photo ops on the way, celebrating temperatures in the 70’s and our first views of the Great Lakes. There were so many neat things that just kept coming up around each curve of this truly scenic byway: the birds, the streams, even a gorgeous brick building that turns out to be a pumping station for the Duluth Water Treatment Plant across the highway!











A few interesting facts about Lake Superior to wrap your mind around: 350 miles long by 160 miles wide, 602 feet above sea level with an average depth of 489 feet, deepest spot: 1,332 feet, shoreline length: 1,826 miles, or the distance from Duluth to Miami. With a surface area of 31,700 square miles one inch of water across the surface is equal to 553 billion gallons and the lake’s volume is 440 trillion cubic feet or 3 quadrillion gallons or 10% of the world’s fresh surface water! It holds more water than all the other Great lakes plus two additional Lake Eries, put together. Now that’s one humungous lake! Actually it is an inland sea with its own weather patterns and everything!





Yikes, we certainly hadn’t expected the campground to be full, as well as the next two up the road. But they were so we drove to a State Forest site about 3 miles inland where the temperature rose about 10 degrees but thank the Gods there were few bugs! Then back to the Lake shoreline and a sweet little village named Two Harbors which was the sight of some of the first iron ore shipping on the Great Lakes. Huge docks have been built and rebuilt over the decades plus the beautiful lighthouse, trails and public parks drew us back a couple of times.






Our adventure continued with a stop in Grand Marais hunting down a Donut Shop a gentleman over at Lake Itasca had drooled about. I absolutely love this rule of Kae’s that major birthdays are celebrated for a whole month because I know that in this crowd that means the end of the low fat stuff for a while and I personally had never tasted a donut. I’ll add them to my list of favs right after chocolate! Grand Marais is one of those cute touristy places with lots going on including the Dragon Boat races. We returned just to photograph this sport before the expected crowd of some 20,000 showed up over the weekend. I guess I was expecting some gigantic carved Viking things only to be a bit disappointed. We did, however, have to sample a few more of those donuts because it was Kae’s actual whelp date and she doesn’t like cake. I was a very happy pup! Just a side note: we stopped at the 1910 Rock Shop so Kae could pick up a few polished agates for her nature sculptures and I met a very cool artist, Katherine Hellner who makes awesome jewelry and things out of the local stone. Kae said it was really nice art and I can attest that Katherine knows how to greet and hug big, old dogs!







We went up Hwy. 61 to the end of the road at the border with Canada to visit Grand Portage National Monument, site of a reconstructed Fort of the 1700’s fur trading period. The name Grand Portage came to be because it was the only spot where items of trade and necessity could be hauled up over the cascades of the Pigeon River. This 81/2 mile great carrying place, or kitchi onigaming in Ojibwe, was the acknowledged throughway to Canada’s prime fur country. In 1784 it became the headquarters of the North West Company who hired large numbers of Indians and French-Canadian Voyageurs, (French for travelers), to carry furs and supplies over the rapids. This highly profitable enterprise succeeded for more than a century, often in direct competition with the Hudson Bay Company. The two companies merged in 1821 putting an end to sometimes bloody feuds. Volunteers recreate the busy environment of the headquarters life of 1797. Birch bark canoe building, bread baking, heritage gardening, fireplace cooking, sewing, musket firing and Ojibwe village life are all here in a living time capsule, true to the methods and life of that time.











We took a walk up the first mile or so of the Grand Portage Trail, in the Grand Portage State Park to the High Falls on the Pigeon River, first in a series of falls and cascades in this rough country. I came to really respect the men who could do this hike, without the convenience of stairs and boardwalks, carrying over 100 pounds on their backs. The falls are pretty impressive at about 130 feet high but the volume looks to be way down due to this drought, I guess.








We began our trek back down Highway 61 toward Duluth with a few fun stops on the way like Gooseberry Falls. It was a fun hike but the very best part was a swim in Lake Superior. I was a bit shocked at the rather cool 40 degree water but it was refreshing enough I had to go in half a dozen times or so.












Next target was Duluth and environs so we could get our mail and head over for a two day trip into upper Wisconsin’s Scenic Highway 13 along the southern edge of Lake Superior. We made a quick stop in Cloquet for our mail and a photo op of the only gas station ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, world famous architect. Built in 1958 for Phillips 66 Gas Co., it has been in operation ever since.




Heading for Wisconsin and there will be more Minnesota too!