Posts Tagged With: Grand Portage State Park

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