Monthly Archives: December 2018

2018 Trip 6: The Gunflint Trail, Dec. 5-6

Posted on December 7, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Gunflint Lake from Lookout Point

Gunflint Trail, Grand Marais, MN Dec. 5-6

Wednesday was our last full day at Gunflint. We hiked up to Lookout Point for a high view of the still unfrozen Gunflint Lake. We overheard at the lodge that almost all other lakes had frozen over, evidently Gunflint is frequently one of the last lakes in the area to freeze over. Of course, this is the same place where I heard one gentleman state: ” I used to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon but then in high school I switched over to Miller’s.”

Driving to the end of the Gunflint Trail

Still hoping to see moose, who did not come wandering in front of our cabin window, we drove the last 12 miles of the Gunflint Trail. The day had started to lightly snow, sort of the snow that you know is fake on the Hallmark Channel Christmas movies; a light, wispery couple of flakes here and there. As we drove to the end of the trail, seeing neither people, autos, or moose, the snow increased. We probably ended up with an additional two inches of light, powdery snow that day. Chris took a few pictures of rocks to prove we had been here.

We even skipped lunch, despite it being paid for in our meal plan. We have just been enjoying the food, eating more than we normally would at home. Another meal might have had us explode-and it would have made it difficult to finish the larger meals served at dinner time. Our last Christmas cards were addressed, completing one of the tasks we had brought with us to work on during slow times. One more naturalist program awaited us. John, the naturalist, is a jack of all trades and gave an afternoon performance of country music. Besides enjoying the music, we conversed with him about various country artists. John knew much more than we did, but we were able to pitch in about several country western museums that our 2018 travels had brought us to.

Thursday morning at Gunflint Lodge

Leaving Gunflint Lodge and driving back to Grand Marais

Thursday morning we packed up and said good-bye, thoroughly enjoying our time at the Gunflint Lodge. I know I drove slower than the locals on the way back to Grand Marais and Highway 61 since I pulled over several times to let cars pass. The two inches of powder from the day before was primarily packed down; the snow plow we saw was heading up the Gunflint and had no impact on our driving lane. A shopping stop in Grand Marais was successful for some items for me and a few Christmas gifts. The drive to St. Paul was still another 4.5 hours but under sunny skies. The truism that cloudy skies in winter are usually warmer than clear skies was accurate today. The blue skies made for brighter pictures but it was probably 10-15 degrees colder than Monday through Wednesday.

Have you ever been asked by a company how you found them, internet, direct mail, etc? In most cases, when I even remember, it is a mix of factors. Such it was for our next stop, Wild Country Maple Syrup. We had left Grand Marais and were heading home. Along the side of the road, I observed one of those state transportation signs thanking a person, family, company, etc for picking up litter along a particular section of the road. This sign thanked Wild Country Maple Syrup. It rang a bell. My cousin and her husband had mentioned this place after their recent visit to the North Shore of Lake Superior. Chris did a quick search and found that the company was about a 20 minute drive off Highway 61. We looked at each other and said why not, we are retired, what is another hour or so for the drive home.

Sap collecting tubing lines at Wild Country Maple Syrup

The 20 minute one-way estimate was accurate even those the miles were much less. Once again, the paved clear road transitioned down to a snow-covered lane and a half road lightly traveled. As we neared Wild Country, we noticed the plastic lines my cousin had mentioned. This company taps into thousands of maple trees over the 320 acres of land they own. 60 plus miles of food grade PVC tubing collect the sap in the spring and bring it into the sugaring house. When sugaring is over, all of the lines and 18,000 plus taps have to be cleaned. At the site, the sales building had an open sign. Well, that was accurate. The door was open and interior notices indicated this was an honor system of payment. You took your selections of maple syrup, noted them in the ledger, and then dropped cash or a check in one box or used an app program to pay by credit card. We dutifully complied and left without seeing a soul.

We made two other quick stops, one at the gift store at Split Rock Lighthouse (nothing of interest) and at the Rustic Inn Cafe for a meal/snack. From there, it was all clear sailing until reaching St. Paul around 7 PM. Next trip, two weeks in Orlando in mid-January.

Wild Country Maple Syrup sales building

Ed and Chris Saint Paul MN Dec. 7

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2018 Trip 6: The Gunflint: Dec.3-4

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

High Falls of the Pigeon River at Grand Portage State Park,MN

Gunflint Trail, MN (Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness) Dec. 4

Chris is starting her 70th birthday celebration six weeks early. This is a winter vacation in the north woods of Minnesota. Monday morning we left Duluth. It is 110 miles to Grand Marais where we turn NW to our lodging at Gunflint Lodge. The trip from Duluth to Grand Marais is all along the Lake Superior shoreline. We decided to go 40 miles past Grand Marais and visit Grand Portage State Park. Since we are on our second go-round with visiting all of MN’s state parks, visiting Grand Portage at the tip of the Arrowhead region made sense. The state park highlights the High Falls of the Pigeon River which forms a portion of the boundary between Canada and the U.S. We have been in the area before, writing in blogs in 2014, 2015, and 2016 so I am not going to go into details.

Chris and Ed at the High Falls, the walking sticks belong to the group of five women.

The High Falls are 120 feet compared to the 135 feet of Manitou Falls in Pattison State Park in WI which we visited Sunday. The falls here are much more impressive. We had our picture taken by a group of five women friends visiting the area and celebrating the falls with glasses of wine. After picture-taking, we back-tracked to Grand Marais and began the 42 mile drive up to the Gunflint Lodge.

Road transition top to bottom on the Gunflint Trail.

The Gunflint Trail is a 57 mile scenic byway stretching from the city of Grand Marais on Lake Superior northwest to the Canadian border. The landscape is a transition zone of the boreal forests (fir trees) and the hardwood forest, interlaced with lakes, rivers, and bogs. The drive begins as an uphill drive from the lakeshore up the cliffs into the forests. The road is paved but given the snowy weather, the clear pavement gradually becomes more snow-covered as we drive further inland.

This area is home to state and national forests, to numerous resorts, cabins and outfitters, and to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The BWCA is 1,000,000 acres of wilderness devoted to canoeing, hiking and fishing. As regular readers know, we are not going to be doing outdoor camping. We are staying at the Gunflint Lodge which has been around for 90 years, although much modernized from those early days. We had hoped to see the northern lights but cloud cover is going to put that idea out of mind. There is a regular naturalist program and we plan to attend several of the programs. (Remember last summer’s Geezer Camp? This is definitely more upscale.)

Chris, Gunflint Lodge, and Gunflint Lake

The lodge is located on the south side of Gunflint Lake, on the north side of the lake is Canada. The use of the term Gunflint stems from hard rock, frequently called chert. Native Americans and French Voyageurs found that the chert could be used as the spark (or flint) for igniting flintlock muskets, ergo the name which is still in use. Winter outdoor activities at the lodge, depending on the weather, include snow shoeing, cross-country skiing, dog sledding, hiking, fishing and sledding. Summer activities are broader, including outfitting services if you wish to go on canoe trips into the BWCA.

Gunflint Lake has not frozen over yet. Ice was forming but wind-driven waves destroyed the early ice and has prevented the lake from freezing over. Smaller lakes are frozen. This area receives more snow than the Twin Cities; not deep enough for snow shoeing yet but noticeably deeper than back home.

The lodge top; our cabin bottom

Gunflint Lodge has about 50 cabins ranging from one to five bedrooms. We have a one bedroom cabin right next to the water. Mid-week early December is relatively slow. We chose a cabin for lodging with the meal plan option; all of our meals are provided in the lodge. The meals have been very good and there is a wide selection. Staff that we have met range from people who have been here for over fifteen years to some newbies just arriving for a stint of several months to a year. The lodge used to hire foreigners on work visas; in today’s changing legal environment that is not an option. We were told that all of the resorts up here were seriously understaffed this summer. Still there are over 20 staff working here from a dog musher to wait staff to a naturalist. Most live on the property; it is a long drive to Grand Marais. It took us an hour and a quarter to drive the 42 miles.

There is no cell service up here and Internet is only available in the lodge, hence the delay in writing and posting the blog entries. The idea is to relax and get away from day-to-day stress. People seem to enjoy the idea, although there is some use of the wi-fi by visitors in the lodge-including us obviously. Visitors and staff come from all over. The ones we have met have come from Roseville MN, South Dakota, Rochester NY, Atlanta, and Milwaukee.

On the hike to Lonely Lake from Gunflint Lodge

The trail to Lonely Lake

on the trail to Lonely Lake

Tuesday we spent most of the day, excluding meals, attending naturalist activities. A two-hour hike in the morning with the naturalist took us to Lonely Lake through a forest of spruce, tamarack, white pine, birch, and aspen. The trees had a cap of snow on many of the branches. The skies have been consistently cloudy but the shades of gray along with white and green still provide attractive vistas. We saw jays, ravens, pine grosbeaks, and chickadees, no wolves, bear, or moose.

In the afternoon, we were indoors. We made dream catchers and listened to presentations on northern lights and shipwrecks of the Great Lakes. It has been a relaxing and enjoyable time so far.

Chris and Ed at Lonely Lake

Ed and Chris. Dec. 5

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2018 Trip 6: The Gunflint Trail: Dec. 2

Posted on December 2, 2018 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Waves from Lake Superior crashing at Canal Park, Duluth

Duluth, MN. Sunday Dec. 2

As we peel off our cold weather gear, we can hear the sound of the waves from Lake Superior crashing on the rocks outside our hotel in Canal Park, Duluth MN. The focus for this trip is three nights lodging on the Gunflint Trail, a 50 some mile dead-end road, leading from Grand Marais MN on Lake Superior to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness along the Canadian border. The Gunflint and other upcoming activities will be discussed in the next posts; today was an extra day tacked on to the trip to experience new places and to ease the total drive time of 5.5 hours from St. Paul to the Gunflint Lodge.

Saturday’s major snow storm was heavier south of the Twin Cities so the drive north from St. Paul to Duluth was generally on clear roads. We thought we would stop at Tobie’s world famous restaurant in Hinckley to have a pecan or cinnamon roll for a mid-way snack. Everyone else in the world had the same idea. We picked up a bag of peanut M & Ms (me) and a take-out coffee and donut holes (Chris) and kept going.

Chris and Ed at Amnicon State Park, WI. The park had a stand where you could place your camera or phone to take a selfie.

Our first stop was at Amnicon State Park east of Superior WI. Amnicon is an Ojibwa word meaning spawning ground, evidently relating to fishing. However the railroads and European settlers had other plans for the area; lumbering and quarrying. As the trees and quarries became less profitable, the land was given to the local town and then the state for a park.

Our visit came about because the park is located on top of the Douglas Fault, a geological upheaval running from Lake Superior to the Twin Cities that occurred about a half billion years ago. The combination of that fault, glacial action, and the force of erosion created a series of water falls. We were curious to see the falls, particularly in early winter with the combination of snow and water tinted brown by the natural tannic acid in the area.

We had the park to ourselves. The falls are close to the parking area; a hike to see them was a pleasant diversion. Although the sky was gray, the green fir trees, the white snow, and the yellow-brown tinted water made for a pleasing sight to behold. These falls are not dramatically high, more a pleasant series of rapids. Given the cold weather, the flowing river cuts a channel through ice-lined stream banks and carves little ripples through the ice for the river to run underneath.

Manitou Falls at Pattison State Park, WI

About a half hour to the southwest is a second Wisconsin state park, Pattison State Park. This park is home to Manitou Falls, the highest falls in Wisconsin at 135 feet. Recent rains and high waters have put some of the trails impassable, limiting the view of the falls. Nevertheless, the proximity of the two waterfalls to each other gave us an opportunity to view both with just a limited expenditure of time.

After Pattison State Park, we drove to Duluth and our Hampton Inn hotel in Canal Park. We were a little early for check in, so we spent about 30 minutes watching the waves from Lake Superior crash on the shoreline. An earlier storm this summer was particularly violent and erased most of the paved boardwalk running from the Canal Park area up to the Rose Gardens of Duluth. Today’s wind storm was not as violent, but the crashing waves made interesting sounds and views. It was particularly unusual for us to see the waters of Lake Superior coming on-shore as a deep brown color. Normally, Lake Superior water is extremely clear but evidently today’s wave action is stirring up sediment from the lake bottom as it hits the shoreline.

For dinner, we ate at an old-time Duluth establishment, the Pickwick restaurant. My family frequently ate here when we visited Duluth when I was a kid. The decor was lovely and warm, with a view overlooking the lake. We observed two freighters coming into the harbor and two freighters leaving the harbor during our dinner time. Observing four freighters in the space of 90 minutes was unusual; we don’t usually see that many in such a quick time span. The meal was excellent, their apple crisp was not as good as mine, but was very tasty and more than sufficient for two people. Their prime rib soup, which is a specialty on Sundays, is made with the unused prime rib from Friday and Saturday night specials. It was delicious.

Some scenes from Bentleyville

We finished off our evening with an hour and a half to two hours walking through Bentleyville. Bentleyville is a 15-year-old attraction, started by one man in his backyard. Now it is a 40 night free attraction of millions of Christmas lights located in a Duluth waterfront park visited by over 300,000 people per year. Besides giving away free cookies, hot chocolate, marshmallows to roast, and popcorn, any kid under 10 gets a free stocking hat.

The lights seem to go on forever, with theme areas of rows of Christmas trees made of lights, an homage to armed forces, a Thomas the Train area, 12 days of Christmas, etc. The crowds are large and friendly; no talk of politics to spoil the ambience. This was our first time here and was a major reason to take this additional day to get to the Gunflint Trail.

Ed and Chris Dec. 2

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