Thunder Bay, Grand Portage, Grand Marais, Gunflint Trail, Boundary Waters Canoe Area (posted from Superior Coastal Sports, Grand Marais, MN)

(this post covers 20-23 July, 2007)

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Monday, 23 July-

Last night I made the mistake of depending too much on the window screens we made for Mocha Joe’s many windows. We’ve been in some pretty mosquito-ey places but last night I think we set a new record for number of mosquitoes trying to get in. Everything would have been fine if I had just closed the windows where I know the screens have some problems (like holes or poor fit around the latching mechanisms) but I didn’t think it would matter. It did. Once we realized the enemy was taking advantage of our weaknesses, we closed up and started hunting down the rascals. At my ‘sleeping window’ (the one I keep open for fresh air in all but the coldest weather) I killed more than a dozen mosquitoes through the screen after closing the window. We thought we were done with pest-patrol at least three times only to hear a pesky little one flying past our ears as we tried to fall asleep. They didn’t seem to be all that aggressive about biting but drove us a little nuts when they’d buzz by our ears. But by midnight all was well and we fell into a deep sleep and awoke to see a deer standing unconcerned a few feet from the van.
This morning we decided we’d do a short paddle then work on some of our housekeeping chores. Labashi had slipped on a moss-covered rock and fallen on her right arm a few days ago so we weren’t sure it would be ready for kayaking. We took it nice and easy getting the boats down and prepped and started out very slow. Fortunately, the paddling seemed to be good for her arm. She had no pain and could paddle normally; we just needed to avoid a strain. We had launched at ‘Trail’s End’, a National Park Service campground and launch area and soon paddled across the demarcation line into the protected Boundary Waters Canoeing Area. What a spectacular place! We had a nice, sunny morning, a light breeze in our faces and absolutely primo lakes and rivers before us. We paddled out toward the Seagull River and eventually noticed the current picking up and small rapids ahead. We knew we were in the right place but didn’t expect rapids. Fortunately, they disappeared into the next lake within 50 yards or so. That’s good—we’re going to have to come back this way. I took along the GPS to give us a way to find our way back. With so many islands, it’s easy to take a wrong turn and in fact we saw a group of canoeists do just that. The GPS display shows our trail as we paddle—sort of like leaving breadcrumbs. I don’t have the detailed electronic maps for this area loaded in the GPS to match to the map but at least I know if I get lost I can just go back the way I came.
We paddled for about an hour before taking a short break as we spotted a bald eagle circling the area. Very cool! Another half-hour of paddling brought us out to the main lake and we decided to turn around there; we had better not stretch our luck with the tender arm only to regret it. On the way back we heard a fuss in the tree-tops not far from where we had seen the eagle. That turned out to be three eaglets in a nest, hollering for mom and before long she descended to the nest with a fish. Also in that area we saw and heard a pair of loons up close. Love it!
Now that we were running downwind we no longer had that nice breeze to make the 90-degree day tolerable so we’d occasionally dip up some water with our hats and let it trickle down our backs… not bad!
We had no trouble finding our way back and only a little consternation at paddling UP the rapids (you just had to be sure not to let the bow swing too far to either side). Back at the launch area we declared the day a great success; five miles of paddling in some of the prettiest country you’ll ever see and the arm works fine. After loading up the gear we were preparing to have a late lunch when I realized I had put my wallet in one of my kayak’s dry bags— and that was now in the kayak tied ever-so-securely to the top of the van. So after Labashi bought lunch we drove into the campground looking for a campsite with a picnic table close by the parking area. When we found one I pulled in perpendicular to it and right next to the van. We then placed our little tie-down ladder on the picnic table so I could climb up high enough to reach over and uncover the hatch, get the dry-bag out, and re-seal the hatch without taking down the kayaks. It worked beautifully.
We then finished up our household chores (tidying up the van, taking out the trash and taking care of Dottie (Dottie-the-pottie, that is)) before heading out. We drove most of the way back down the Gunflint Trail until we reached Forest Road 1308 which ends at a large borrow pit used (if I’m any judge of empty shotgun shells and pieces of clay pigeons), by the local fellas as trap-shooting range. There we took a backpacker’s shower (using a plastic gallon jug), had a chili dinner, then took it easy. Ah, life in the wilderness!

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Sunday, 22 July-

What a wonderful night we had! We both slept very heavily and it felt SO good. After breakfast and a washup we drove to the Superior National Forest ranger station in Grand Marais. Our visit had been so brief yesterday that we didn’t have a chance to look around. I wish I had the money and time to buy and read the interesting books they have about the Boundary Waters and Lake Superior.
We then drove into downtown Grand Marais and stopped at a combination outdoors shop and internet café—the ‘Superior Outdoors’ shop and ‘Neptune’s Café’. This one is very interesting. About two-thirds of it is an upscale sea-kayaking and hiking shop while the other third is an espresso counter, internet café (three Macs stand ready for duty at $3 per hour or you can bring your own laptop and use the wireless hotspot for free) and living room. The living room portion is for coffee drinkers to lounge about to read the papers or back issues of outdoors magazines. Another alternative is to pop a DVD or video from the owner’s extensive collection of sea kayaking videos. Very cool idea! I had an excellent mocha while browsing and just wish this place was closer to home—I’d be spending a lot of time there instead of at Starbucks.
We then headed out the Gunflint Trail to our first stop—the local seaplane base and airport. The seaplane base is Devil Track Lake with a ramp leading from the water to a hangar. But just a little further up the ramp is an old (and now-abandoned) grass strip. Judging from the layout of the homes here, it appears the lots were originally sold as an airstrip community. You could build your house here and keep your plane in your own private garage/hangar and take off via water or land, according to your whim. But something happened which led to the asphalt-runway municipal airport being built across the street and a little up the hill and the grass strip was abandoned.
We drove up the hill to the municipal airport to look around and there in the hangar was a beauty—a Stinson. Some of the film footage we had seen at the Bushplane Heritage Center at the Soo showed the very distinctive gull-wing shape of the Stinson and there was that shape again. I noticed a guy adding oil to the engine and walked over to talk with him. The plane is indeed a Stinson, a 1937 Reliant model, and as I got closer I could see it’s absolutely perfect. It turns out this guy and his partner rebuild Stinsons and this one is their third. It’s a grand-prize winner at Oshkosh and the guys were preparing to leave for this year’s Oshkosh meet as we spoke. But there’s currently a thunderstorm astride the flight path right now so they’re just waiting it out and then will be off. What a spectacular airplane—and (re)built right here in tiny little Grand Marais (and there was a partially-completed one further back in the hangar).
We then drove on out the Gunflint Trail toward the Boundary Waters. The so-called ‘Trail’ is actually a very nice country road of two-lane asphalt. It soon enters the Superior National Forest and throughout its length has the appearance of wilderness yet there are about two dozen nice lodges along its length as well as a dozen or so campground and at least as many trailhead parking lots. We noticed during our travels today that every third car or so had one or two canoes, most of them higher-end Kevlar canoes of the We-noh-nah brand (we priced one at an outfitter’s shop at $2500—but then again it only weighed 37 pounds while our old Grumman 15 sitting back home weighs close to twice that). Conspicuously absent, though, were RVs. Apparently this area is thought to be a ‘roughing-it’ camping area. Fine by me!
Along the way we stopped at the Moose View Trail for a short (and unremarkable) walk of a little over a half mile. Our next stop was the Honeymoon Bluff trail where we did about three-quarters of a mile to see a spectacular high-bluff view into the Boundary Waters lakes. And later in the day we walked the Magnetic Rock Trail of about four miles (round trip). The Magnetic Rock Trail was very interesting in that it led through an area burned over in 2005. Knee-high vegetation is the only greenery but that still seemed lush and we found a big patch of blueberries to savor. At the far end of the Magnetic Rock Trail is a large monolith rock about 30 feet high and perhaps 60 feet around. We took this to be Magnetic Rock as we approached. But I walked on by to get a better view and stopped on a large rock outcropping. On impulse I got out my lightweight pocket knife and tested whether the rock drew it nearer. It did!--- and quite strongly. In fact the knife took a much stronger dip there than at the monolith. I have no idea why the rock outcropping is magnetic. All the rocks in this area have a high iron content but I don’t know if the magnetism was induced by the earth’s magnetic field or what. I’ll have to see if my friend Google knows when I get back to the coffee shop in Grand Marais tomorrow.
We finished our hike around 17:00 and drove a bit further north before deciding to start looking for a suitable camping spot for the night. As we passed the very last marked forest road on the map we saw it had a sign showing an ATV, motorcycle, and a Jeep, indicating a trailhead for those. It quickly narrowed down to more of the now-familiar weeds-closing-in-from-all-sides two-track but we pressed on, knowing that somewhere there would be a clearing or turnaround to unload the ATVs and motorcycles from their trailers. About a half-mile in we came to a nice little clearing and that’s our home for the night. Tonight our entertainment was listening to two podcasts of ‘This American Life’.

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Saturday, 21 July-

We left Thunder Bay reluctantly this morning even though we hadn’t had a restful night. A trucker was sharing the lot with the three of us (camper vans, that is) and he idled his engine all night. Worse, he had something cycling in and out every few minutes so that the sudden lack of sound when it switched off was as jolting as the noise itself. I couldn’t get to sleep until 0100 or so even though I was using ear plugs. I awoke again at 0300. Labashi went to sleep quickly but awoke around 0300 and had difficulty falling back asleep. But we both slept heavily for a few hours between 0500 and 0800 and that’s good enough.
We first drove over to the local Safeway to shop for supplies since our Wal-mart was not a Super-WalMart and had only limited groceries. We then headed down Route 61 toward the US border, only 60 miles away. Along the way we stopped at a local cheese farm and I bought a bag of excellent gouda cheese curds. I call them ‘squeaky cheese’ because fresh cheese curds like this make delightful and quite pronounced squeaking sounds as you chew them—something about the friction against the surface of your teeth. They’re salty and yummy-good. And if they don’t squeak, they aren’t fresh.
The border crossing at Pigeon River was a cinch—two minutes of basic where-do-you-live, how-long-have-you-been-in-Canada and did-you-buy-anything-there questions. I think this is made possible by a passport computerized scan and a match to Mocha Joe’s license plate and a record of our entry at the Soo last week.
Just across the border we stopped for gas ($3.01 per gallon feels so much better than the $4.50-a-gallon gas in Canada) and then at Grand Portage State Park. After a nice long chat with the rangers there about local wildlife, we hiked back the half-mile to High Falls and back, then took another short walk to the international boundary marker and a sign about the establishment of the . Grand Portage State Park is on the Pigeon River, the section bypassed by ‘The Grand Portage Trail’. The latter is an eight-and-a-half-mile-long portage trail which bypasses 12 miles of rapids and falls of the lower Pigeon.
We then drove on to the Grand Portage National Monument. I thought the term ‘national monument’ in this case meant a monumentally-large stone with a bronze plaque summarizing some historical fact. But instead it was a small national park re-creating the Grand Portage stockade and Great Hall—in other words a fur-trading post. The post belonged to the North Western Company and, in fact, was the predecessor to Fort William at Thunder Bay. As the Scottish gentlemen who owned the North West Company realized that their trading post at Grand Portage was about to fall inside the about-to-be-drawn northern boundary of the United States (roughly established by the Treaty of Paris in the late 1700’s), they moved their trading post to the present Thunder Bay area (i.e., to Fort William). The point was to avoid being taxed by the U.S. government.
We had intended to only spend a half-hour or so at Grand Portage but stayed several hours. The staff was so knowledgeable and the subject of the fur trade so interesting that we were spellbound. The afternoon lecture was about the North West Trade Gun and was very thorough and included a live-firing demonstration. These are .58 caliber flintlock smoothbore muskets which are slimmer and lighter than most and were so well-made and reliable that they were still being sold for daily use in the Canadian bush as late as 1912. We also learned about the making of Chippewa birch-bark baskets used to cook food. The baskets are waterproof and their liquid contents were heated by dropping in very hot stones (this was the custom prior to metal pots being brought to the area by fur traders). We also had a remarkable (and long) lesson about the voyageurs, construction of their canoes, their route from Montreal to Grand Portage and then west, their dress customs, their diet (peas-and-grease or dried-corn-and- grease for the most part and perhaps pemmican for the ‘Northmen’ or ‘Hivernois’ (‘winter-ones’ in French). We had a chance to smell the bear grease used in making pitch to seal the birchbark canoes (the pitch is a mixture of spruce-gum, bear grease, and pulverized charcoal) and to smell pemmican (made from pounded buffalo meat and grease). We learned how to make char-cloth and how to make fire with char-cloth and a strike-and-light set (flint and steel) and a bit of tinder. We had a chance to lie down on surprisingly-soft reed sleeping mats in a bark tipi and I used a ‘tump-line’ to carry a bale of beaver furs while jogging along at a ‘dog-trot’ the length of the storage house. For the latter, I carried a 45-pound bale while the real voyageurs carried not one, but two 90-pound bales across a portage. We learned that they would carry the two 90-pound bales while ‘dog-trotting’ along, bent way over with eyes to the ground for a half mile. At that point they’d drop the bales, untie the tump-line and trot back for the next load (and later a third double-load), each man responsible for six bales (or equivalent in other goods) which he would move in half-mile-at-a-time groups until the portage was complete. The 8-1/2 mile portage at Grand Portage would be completed in a few hours in this manner.
I tried on a period (repro) gentlemen’s felt top hat and a wool blanket-coat (‘capote’) and had a chance to heft a muskrat-spear and a war-club and to run my hands through the furs of beaver, bear, red fox, silver fox, ermine, and wolverine. Ain’t life grand!?!
After Grand Portage we drove on to the tourist town of Grand Marais. We made it to the National Forest office just a few minutes before closing but that was enough to get a Superior National Forest map and ask for recommendations on where we could camp for free (or cheap) tonight somewhere nearby. When we learned that you can camp about anywhere there’s a pulloff along a dirt road, Labashi pointed out an old jeep road and asked if we could camp there (as an example) and the answer was yes. We drove to Forest ‘Road’ 1305 which is an overgrown two-track with weeds higher than the headlights and bushes brushing against the van on both sides. We eased in, hoping we’d eventually find a pull off or it was going to be a long back-up session back out to the hard road. When the going looked too iffy to continue I stopped and walked out ahead for a few minutes and realized it wasn’t that bad and after a few minutes more I found a good spot for the night. The nice thing about this place is it feels remote but it’s really only about a half-hour walk out if the van gets stuck or breaks down or something. Not a bad tradeoff to be out here alone and in a beautiful area all to ourselves. We celebrated with an excellent curry-chicken dinner and a glass or three of tawny port.

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Friday, 20 July-

This morning we first drove to a nearby Seattle Coffee House to connect to the Internet to check email, upload my blog entry, and download the latest episodes of podcasts we subscribe to. The podcast thing may be getting a little out of hand—I now have over 1250 podcasts on the laptop and we don’t listen to them nearly fast enough to keep up with the incoming ones. Something’s gotta give.
We spent several hours on the web and even broke separately for lunch in the van while the other worked on the web. Afterwards we toured the Thunder Bay Museum, a nice little local-history museum. We then drove to Boundary Park and Centennial Park to look around and take a walk. We then drove on to Hillcrest Park and Sunken Gardens for a look about and just to sit at the pretty little overlook of the Bay and the Sleeping Giant (an offshore island) before deciding we really, really needed to go shopping for a lawn chair to replace one we broke at last week’s reunion. Have you looked for a lawn chair recently? Almost nobody carries the standard-design aluminum ones anymore. We finally found a steel version at a Canadian Tire store (not just tires anymore!) after striking out at Wal-mart, Sears, and Zellers.
We then stopped at little neighborhood Vickers Park to make supper before returning to our spot at the Wal-mart parking lot. Labashi and I walked over to the nearby Chapters (a Canadian version of a Borders book store) and browsed for quite a while. I found three fantastic books I’ve not seen in the states. First was a history of the Vespa scooter. I had a Vespa 125 (actually an Allstate-branded one sold by Sears at the time) in high school – a 1961 model—and I very much enjoyed seeing not only the pictures of the scooters but also the advertising and promotional photos and posters. The second book I loved was a history of the VW camper bus. We had a 1972 bus in the late Eighties and took it diving to Florida in summer—what a mistake that was! But I loved seeing the historical information and pictures of many customized camper buses. My favorite book, though, was the third— called something like ‘Mobile Dreams’. It’s a history of the travel car, camper car, pickup camper, travel buses, and RVs, from the 1920’s to the present. I’ve seen exterior shots of many vintage campers but they typically are parking-lot shots or old family photos where these photos are professionally shot and include many shots of interiors as well as a history of the company on the production models.
Labashi finished up browsing before I did and returned to the van to read but I wandered across the parking lot to a ‘Future Shop’, a Canadian version of a Best Buy. I enjoyed checking out the hi-def tvs but didn’t see anything I need—we’ll just stick with our old 27” Sony (at home, that is) for the foreseeable future. We don’t like all the jaggies and squished people at high prices on the new models.
We’ll be leaving Thunder Bay tomorrow so I should summarize our visit here. We loved Thunder Bay. We had read in our older ‘Rough Guide’ tourbook that Thunder Bay is a gritty pulp-mill town but we don’t agree at all. There are parks all over the city, the arts community is active, the Bay is beautiful, wilderness lies nearby and there are lots of interesting things going on. And while the Thunder Bay Border Cats minor league baseball team has been getting pounded by the Green Bay Bullfrogs lately, the Thunder Bay Chill soccer team hosted the Des Moines Menace tonight (I only mention them because I just love those team names). ANYway, there are much worse places to live, I’m sure and we’ll have fond memories of Thunder Bay.

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