I didn't write much while we were at Bearskin for reasons of poor internet. The Lodge at Bearskin _has_ wifi, but they encourage you to only be on briefly as it does not have a huge amount of bandwidth and, even if it did, you're up on the Gunflint Trail, for gods sake, why are you on-line!!??
Instead, we spent many days doing this:
We did go on a couple of new-to-us hikes, while up at Bearskin, however. One day, Mason and I decided to drive to the end of one of the roads and hike up to Ruby Lake. From where we parked it was only about a mile to the lake, so that was just about the perfect distance for our "indoorsy" family. There was a rowboat there with a sign that suggested we could take it out for a fee, but there was no place to pay and no oars. Possibly, we were supposed to get such at some lodge or other? Our Bearskin front desk person had made it sound like if we brought money along, getting the row boat out would be self-evident. Alas, no. But, we enjoyed the scenery at any rate.
You can see what kind of weather we've been having from both these shots, which is to say: SUNNY. This was possibly the most ideal weather we have ever had up at Bearskin (this is our fourth year going to Cabin 1.)
The second hike that we did involved a LOOOOOOONG drive to the end of the Gunflint Trail. The drive itself was both beautiful and... unexpected. We were up early-ish, around 8 or 9 am, and the roads were packed with tourists. I like to meander on the Gunflint Trail, not going more than 50 and always obeying signs that suggest that hairpin turns should be taken at 25 mph, etc., so that meant that several times I had to pull over into a cutout to let faster traffic get around me.
Plus, we drove through a huge swath of countryside that had been devastated by the 2007 Ham Lake Fire. Shawn always has a very visceral reaction to burned landscape, even when it has had years of regrowth. She did not like the sections of Yellowstone that had been burned, either. I don't have the same reaction, but I can understand it. The forrest looks 'wrong.'
We stopped at the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center and did a bit of hiking on their "trails." I put trails in quotes because honestly? Some of them looked like we had taken off down deer trails until we hit signage that marked the names of the various trails. A couple of the trails took us to nice vista where you can see how the fire affected the area.
Mason is in his hoodie because the weather was also very mild. Today, here in Grand Rapids, I overheard one of the servers at our hotel say that the high was going to be 67 F / 19 C.
After six full days at Bearskin, we packed up and headed off for the second leg of our grand summer vacation: the slow meander home/north woods road trip.
Last year, after our monumental road trip to Yellowstone National Park and back again, my family discovered that we LOVE road trips. Plus, leaving Bearskin is really hard, so for the last few years we've always extended our vacation with mini trips to somewhere vaguely civilized, but new to us. A few years ago, we tried out Thunder Bay (which led to the experience of being several hundred miles into the trip and Shawn realizing we forgot our passports.) The last time we stayed a few extra days in Duluth. This time, we are exploring some classic Minnesota spots like Ely and Bemidji, with a special trip to visit the headwaters of the Mississippi. Because Shawn is from Grand Rapids, MN, we are staying here a few days to check out some of her old haunts and to use this hotel as a launching off point for other adventures.
Yesterday we drove from Bearskin back down the Gunflint trail to Grand Marais and Highway 61. From 61, we veered back north for Highway 1 and Ely. Highway 1 should have been idyllic, but there was a LOT of construction and somewhere just before Ely we hit our first batch of bad weather since leaving for Bearskin. Plus, there always seems to have to be "that one town" where we all arrive hangry and grouchy. This trip it was Ely. I was made especially mad by the fact that my family was starving and so wanted to JUST STOP AT A SUBWAY. I wanted a nice sit-down meal at a cute place in Ely. My family won out, because even I was too famished to really enjoy driving around trying to guess which place would be good to stop at. And, of course, literally the moment we stepped into the Subway an ENTIRE TROOP OF BOY SCOUTS got in line in front of me. I kid you not, and I could have screamed. But, food helped and soon enough we were stopping at Ely's International Wolf Center for a close-up at the Ambassador wolves.
The wolves were nice and, for once, Shawn enjoyed a museum. Shawn isn't exactly a museum connoisseur, but she is the State Archivist of Minnesota and, thus, has a few standards. Let me tell you, the museum at Chik-Wauk did NOT meet them. The wolf center? Yes. Though we all agreed that the entry fee ($13 a person) was a little steep considering what you got out of it. Though we did not stay for any of the demonstrations, which might have made it worthwhile.
The wolves were hanging out near the observation window, though, to snooze out of the rain. The white wolf, Greyson, got up and shifted to a new position and I got this picture of a very sleepy doggo.
It was funny because as Mason and I were returning the canoe to Bearskin Lodge, someone's husky came bounding around the corner at speeds and my honest first reaction was to grab Mason's arm because I thought we were being rushed by a wolf. Though it only took a second to sense the happy-puppy vibe off the husky AND to notice that it wore a harness. But, yeah, for a brief moment I thought, "HOLY SH*T, WOLF" and, yeah, looking at this fellow, you can see the resemblance.
The rain stopped by the time we were leaving the wolf center and so we made our way down to Grand Rapids with only a few roadside attraction stops. This is the other thing about my family. We are all about the roadside attractions. Last year, our go-to phrase was "might be worth a detour!" and we still live by that. (That, and "the destination *is* the journey.") So, we stopped to see the world's largest floating loon in Virginia, MN as well as the "Iron Man" (but not Tony Stark) statue in Chisholm, MN.
After that we collapsed in our hotel room.
This morning we got up moderately early and attempted to drive the "Edge of the Wilderness" Scenic Byway (aka Highway 38). But, we discovered less than halfway up the byway that it was CLOSED. It's very rare that the entire highway is closed, but this was both lanes blocked, giant signs reading DETOUR, ROAD CLOSED. Undeterred, my family followed the detour through Leech Lake Indian Reservation and reconnected with the scenic byway in Marcell, MN.
Our favorite was a stop to hike the Trout Lake and Joyce Estate site. There were nicely maintained (wide and "easy," aka no steep grades) trails that took us into the woods. If we had known we were going to hit the closed highway, we might have lingered longer here and explored more. On the other hand, my family is rarely up for hikes of more than a mile or two roundtrip, so we probably did just enough.
We did eventually get reconnected with Highway 35 and we went to the trail's end at Effie, MN. Effie apparently sports Minnesota's largest open air rodeo and a metal sculpture of a mosquito, jokingly known as Minnesota's state bird. Mason really wanted to pose by the mosquito giving it the finger (mosquitos consider our son an all-you-can-eat buffet and always have, when he was little we some times called him 'Skeet Rounds, because he was covered from head to toe in mosquito bites), but Shawn managed to keep him from doing it.
We are still on the road for two more full days. Tomorrow, we head to Bemidji where we'll spend a night. Then, it's off to the headwaters and home. If the wifi is good in Bemidji, I will try to do another write-up.
Adventure!
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