Posts Tagged With: Eveleth US Hockey Hall of Fame

Sunday, March 6, 2022 Grand Rapids MN

Chris wanted to ”Get out of Dodge” one more time before we leave on a 30 day trip at the end of March. We settled on Grand Rapids, MN and the Green Heron B and B. Back in 2017 we had stayed at the Green Heron and found it enjoyable and memorable, so we booked it again. It is a delightful house with only two guest rooms. Our hosts, Johnnie and Chris, have been very accommodating. Our getaway started Sunday and we will return home Wednesday afternoon.

The journey Sunday started slowly as the weather had been a mix of rain and snow Saturday evening. The roads closest to the metro area were the worst. As we went north, the roads improved since there had been less rain and snow up there. Our path was circuitous as we wanted to enjoy the trip and not just drive the almost 200 miles. Our first stop, after a McDonalds breakfast, was at the Sax Zim bog.

Sax Zim is a well known birding area about an hour west of Duluth and an hour east of Grand Rapids. Birders visit here year round, it has a welcome center with naturalists on hand. Sax Zim is a mix of public and private land, totaling over 300 square miles. We have never been here before but have heard about and read about it extensively. Not being birders, we dabble in bird watching, just enjoying what we see rather than seeking out specific species. We are also not patient enough to be true birders.

So what do we do? Well Sunday we drove a portion of the auto route. At one stop we saw our first redpolls-maybe. I say maybe because now that I saw them here, I have to recheck some of the birds that have been outside our condo recently. They might be the same species. We also saw one of the largest eagles we have ever seen. Finally, we stopped at the welcome center and met the naturalist. We did not spend time and effort trying to find great grey owls, a frequent visitor here. Then we left, thinking we might return in the future.

Just north of the Sax Zim Bog is the town of Eveleth. Eveleth is one of a series of mining towns on “The Range”. The Iron Range is, and was, home to the largest concentration of iron ore and taconite in the United States. Current operating and used up mines dot the region, one being in Eveleth. Previous blog posts have discussed and shown the mines on the Range, so I am not covering it again.

What Eveleth does have is the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. Hockey was big on the Range and in the early days of the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament, Range teams were frequent winners. Now as the population on the Range decreases and metro area high schools have more students than Range towns have population, state champions from the Range are few and far between. The Hockey Hall of Fame has been in Eveleth since 1972.

The museum showcases the history of hockey along with displays pertaining to high school, collegiate and professional teams. The 1980 ”Miracle on Ice” whereby the underdog U.S. team, comprised of collegiate players, defeated the USSR team, comprised of professional level players, on its way to winning the Olympic Gold Medal is prominently featured. The fourth Zamboni ice resurfacer ever made is on display here.

The museum is pleasant but probably more of interest to people in MN. Even though there are displays from around the country, there is no doubt there is a preponderance of items relating to MN. Of course, that may be appropriate since Minnesota is ”The State of Hockey”.

Monday morning our hosts made a fantastic breakfast with a fruit/yogurt/honey dish, multi-ingredient omelet, hash brown potatoes, thick bacon, and toast. Then we were off to Big Bog State Recreation Area, about two hours northwest of Grand Rapids. This was our second time here. We are making our second tour of all Minnesota state parks, having already been to each of them at least once. Minnesota is home to the largest peat bog (500 square miles) outside of Alaska. What is a bog? Generally speaking a bog is a wet, spongy area, poorly drained with acidic soil rich with accumulated plant material and having a specific flora.

There is not space here to cover all of this area’s interesting history. In brief, the Indian lands here were subject to various takings by which lies and broken promises were the main ingredients. The counties in the area borrowed money to drain the area to sell it to non-Indian settlers. The land did not drain and the soil is not good for farming. Since the land ended up being worthless, the counties defaulted and the State of MN bailed them out and took over ownership of the land.

Now there is a state park here with camping by the shores of Red Lake and a boardwalk at this section of the park with its concentration of peat bog. The boardwalk is a mile long and we hoped that it would be reasonable to walk on. The first half of the boardwalk was not too bad, as the center part was pretty well packed down. This section of the bog is primarily black spruce trees of varying heights. As we reached about the halfway point where the drainage ditches had been 100 years ago, the trail disappeared. We decided not to continue on and risk stepping off the boardwalk into deep snow on the side. The second half of the bog is more tall grasses and sedges.

By this time it was early afternoon and we decided to have lunch in a small town of Waskish at a local bar and fishing resort. We had eaten here five years ago and repeated our menu choices of that time; wild rice soup, cheeseburger and onion rings. Our drive home continued our pattern of circuitous driving and we enjoyed the back roads with snow covered fields and forests with a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees. Generally the roads were clear with no snow but the best views were on the roads with snow and little traffic.

Ed and Chris, Monday March 7, 2022