WHAT COULD HAPPEN?

What if you were entering Terra Incognita, say along the North Shore of Lake Superior where No kind of Verizon cellular service reaches you from the US and the only signal from nearby Canada informs you that the costs will be prohibitive once you get in range. Say, for the first time in your traveling life, you have back-to-back reservations at Ontario's finest Provincial Parks for the next 18 days. The weather is clear, traffic is light, your documents are in order and you are carrying no illegal food stuffs which might endanger the lives and agriculture of our friendly neighbors to the North.

Why look! A national Monument AND a gas station with attractive prices, just before the border. How Fortuitous, he exclaimed. AND, it is large and commodious, easy to manuever in and spotlessly clean...part of the Grand Portage Casino complex...

What, you ask, Could go wrong?

Well, your right front trailer axle hub could crack, your wheel going a tad asymmetrical, loud screeching of complaning metal and cries of horror from bystanders. That might happen just as you pull away from the pumps...

We stopped, blocking horrified convenience store customers in their parking places, ASSESSED, and pulled away to the parking apron to yet more shrieking from metal and spectators.

We took advice from all assembled. Letting the air out of the tire and pulling up on levelers helped free the tire with no further damage, but the carnage was impressive. Clearly, this JUST happened. The grease wasn't burned or even hot. The guts of the brake assembly were a tangled mess, but the lugs were tight. The fracture to the bearing cup was new and clean. No sign of careless maintenance. The tire temperature sensor had not even peeped. We were lucky this happened as it did: Happening WHERE it did, Not so lucky.

POOR THREE WHEELED TRAILER IN A FIELD OF WILDFLOWERS

 

Well, one bit of Luck. Part of the Casino complex is a pleasant campground and site #1 was the easiest to access and empty. This I learned from Richard, who as I was told, would know what to do if anybody did.

 

It was Sunday. It was Festival day in Grand Marias, forty plus miles back and, if we left right away, we could arrive during the Parade which would assure that no one would be at their place. Halfway back we MIGHT get cellular service to try our Roadside Assistance folks at Good Sams, but we thought it would be prudent to depend on ourselves to find someone capable of fixing this. Then, if necessary, risk the towing.

AND NOW, THE REST OF THE STORY...

The people of Grand Marais and Grand Portage are warm, generous and neighborly folks. We learned this through the week, long before the recent mechanical unplesantness. They know and like their neighbors and LOVE their home on the North Shore.

When we drove back into Grand Marais, on Sunday --during the big Fisherman's Picnic Parade -- with our fractured hub, the staff at the Municipal Campground could not have been more helpful. They went through mental inventories of who might be helpful, referring to folks by first names, waving off the place Good Sams was planning to drop our trailer using a towing company no one thought capable. They fixed on Greg Olsen and called him. We later learned that Greg was pulling a float in the parade at that moment with dad's tractor. But right after the parade he appeared on his motor scooter.

Yeah, this is the kind of job I usually get...only Bigger and by the side of the road.

He talked us through the problem which was mostly about Nobody keeps those parts in the county. But he would do his best to get us rolling again. The brake parts were questionable but...

We took a day off to visit the really terrific Grand Portage National Monument and Heritage Center interupted only by a run to the ER (but that's another couple of stories).

Next day, Greg announced that ALL the parts would arrive and he would have us running by sundown. And he did, with grace and skill and a number of pretty good stories of his own.

 

 

 

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SLEEPING GIANT PROVINCIAL PARK

 

We have about decided that the foul-smelling 3AM visitor to our campsite is a randy Fox, not a Sasquatch. There's a plentiful supply of Fox around Sleeping Giant Provincial Park; 30% of last year's photo contest winners were cute fluffy Fox pictures. Flipping on the noisy water pump sends "Stinky" on his way; in our experience, this doesn't work with a Sasquatch ...

Arrived Wenesday at Sleeping Giant after a day of mild anxiety.

• Until noon we were awaiting lab reports (negative, all good).
• Our border crossing was pleasant. (We should have kept those eggs.)
• We were suffering wheel bearing neurosis, but when we pulled into Woody's RV in Thunder Bay at mid-afternoon, they "double teamed" the Airstream and we had new bearings with synthetic grease all around and a new brake assembly on the left rear before we returned from egg shopping. Like with a newly washed car, we imagined the AS pulling more smoothly; even did a couple hard-braking stops to our complete satisfaction.
  
• Now it was 4:30, Sleeping Giant PP was on the itinerary we scrapped during the three day "disablement". We wondered if we could still fit in a visit, but with no Internets, and multiple miles/kilometers down to the tip of the long peninsula before we would know, we were still holding on to our anxieties. The two Ranger Laurens found us a spot.

Lucky, it's August Long (??) and festival weekend at the park.

Oh, we are all about Lucky today!

And speaking of blind luck, we weren't five miles along Canada's superb roads when a full grown Black Bear loped across the four-lane divided. We were the only vehicle in sight (Oh, Canada) and Patty swears he looked both ways before bolting.

The campground at Mary Louise Lake has 200 sites of all kinds. There are premium sites overlooking the lake (a couple of knowledgeable Airstreamers there), most sites with trees and privacy, many with acreage. Tidy vault toilets with running water spaced around, one central shower house/laundry with individual unisex showers which never seem to be oversubscribed, a well-run family place with lots of kids, bikes, tents and an absolute minimum of mega-motorhomes.

They are deadly serious about bear proofing here. No smelly dumpsters here. All the refuse is hauled out of the park, promptly (a 35 km run to the park boundary). Campers can deposit their recycling at multiple locations but bagged garbage in the One collection point well away from campsites. It is a cement block FORTRESS with a thick Sasquatch-proof, latched chute.

 

The Visitor Center is small, but the exhibits are first class, including details on tiny Silver Islet. This tiny rock just offshore was once the richest silver mine in the world! Now the silver and the miners are gone and Lake Superior storms have reclaimed it.

Hiking is what you do here. For this short walk near the CG, the park provides this detailed FULL COLOR guide to the plant life along the way. WOW! ....and a gentle suggestion that you might want to leave yours for the next hiker.

 

 

Textures along the trail:

 

 

CLUB MOSS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHITE CEDAR BARK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's the Sleeping Giant formation in the background. In the foreground, Stooping Woman, position #1 in rock skipping.

 

 

Again with Stooping Woman trying to document the "Descend Steeply" in the Trail description.

 

We have seen a lot of crashing cascades along the North Shore but beautiful Sibley Creek is a charmer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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BOUNDARY WATERS DREAM

Yesterday's trip up the Gunflint Trail got me as close to the Boundary Waters as I've ever been. The pencil sketch ads for the Gunflint Lodge ran in Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield -- the adventure porn of my youth. Drop a postcard to the Chamber at Ely and your mailbox would be filled with the most glorious colored brochures from outfitters providing canoe adventures in the Quetico-Superior Boundary Waters. Long hours of study....

But I, then WE, then The four of Us never made the trip...

Watching young families, and seasoned veterans launching and recovering at the edge of the BW yesterday rekindled the Dream. Surely we were too old and stiff and soft to even think about such a trip at our ages... but I guess we could read a few webpages...

There we found that Sawbill Outfitters at the end of the Sawbill Trail offered a half day sampler: three lakes of dramatically different character, three short portages, a little stream, 4-6 hours of "lesiurely" paddling IN A SUPER SEXY 42# KEVLAR TOURING CANOE....

We talked about it over breakfast, packed 25# of totally unnecessary supplies and headed out into the sunshine. The Dream Lives....

The folks at Sawbill Outfitters are pleasant and efficient. Al learned to shoulder the featherlight Kevlar canoe with its custom carrying yoke; Patty schlepped paddles, vests, the 25# of unnecessaries and a smile to the launch which was mercifully downhill on a graded path. There the Dream met reality. It was windy.

 

A West wind on three North-South lakes..? The featherlight Kevlar threatened to windmill around Al's head. Kids, and couples and whole families far less experienced than we were heading out with coolers and fishing rods, gripping poorly sized paddles inexpertly and weaving about.

We launched, Patty adjusting herself into the excruciatingly narrow bow of the Super Sleek Kevlar while Al found that Super Sleek Kevlar touring boats have seats about 4" off the deck forcing aged legs accustomed to upright seating to extend painfully in a position reminiscent of Physical Therapy.

 

 

J

Some relief from the swirling, gusty wind could be found in the wind shadow of the lee shore, but some bays were just full on "whitecappy."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The portages were the novelty to us as downriver canoeists. We were a mixed bag of experienced folks returning from multi-day adventures and those of us on the "four hour tour." Things slowed down a little, but that was good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al LOVED THE PORTAGES. The whisper lite $3000 Kevlar, the evergreens brushing the canoe and not him, AND his legs could flex somewhat naturally.

 

Patty schlepped along good-naturedly EXCEPT when Al reprised his "it's always the bowperson's fault" refrain ... I believe a swim was suggested...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young couple, two kids under seven, 5 days ...AH, YOUTH!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, she looks happy here, but I'm pretty sure the voyageur dream is dead. I know my legs are.

 

 

 

 

 

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THE GUNFLINT TRAIL

When I turned North on the fabled Gunflint Trail, I had no destination, but one overweening GOAL. Sure I wanted to drive the road that opened the Minnesota "Arrowhead" and took dead aim at the legendary Boundary Waters. I wanted to learn its history, smell the evergreen-scented air and see how the scars of the big Ham Lake Fire in 2007 were healing. But my GOAL was to use my meager, amatuerish photographic skills and pure dumb luck to shoot a MOOSE -- a Moose in the sunlight, not a dusky shadow, a Moose in a really wild place, not the drainage from the local highway salt stores, a moose doing moosey stuff, not cornered by an encroaching mob at roadside. It would be wonderful if this Moose had a rack as wide as a King Size Bed, but let's not get greedy. To be honest, the picture was less important than counting coup on my good friend Dave, a truly gifted photographer, who is, as we speak, piloting his Airstream over countless MOOSELESS miles in the wilds of Canada seeking the image which will complete his portfolio of North American Chauvinistic Megafauna.

Dave, this Moose is for you...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WISH YOU WERE HERE, MY FRIEND.

YOU KNOW THE IMAGES WOULD BE BETTER.

 

 

 

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Room at the Inn -- Cascade River

If we build eight more parks on the North Shore this morning, the campgrounds would be full by tonight, said the cheerful ranger at the Tettegouche Visitor Center.

Let's see what we can find for you.

Patty was aprehensive. Her internet search for campsites along the North Shore had yielded nothing for the upcoming weekend. The weather was perfect, the family vacations were in full swing and the little village of Grand Marias was setting up for a festival.

Cascade River has 6 non-reservable sites right now, first come, first served. They will fill up later 'cause it's 65 miles away.

We were Off, tailwind pushing us and looking over our shoulders hoping we weren't missing something.

Yet another cheerful and capable Minnesota Ranger assigned our site -- an electric one! -- and we were off to see the Cascades.

WOW! This little river is only seventeen miles long, but it finishes with a fury of rock-carving energy.

 

 

 

 

...and it just keeps going until It meets the Lake Superior "surf".

 

Circling back in the next days (to see if we missed anything), we found much to see a few miles inshore from Hwy 61 -- The gravel road along the gentle Baptism River covered with Lilies and looking very "Moosey" to us, walk-in campgrounds by stream and lake in the Manitou SP and a perfect little State Forest campground just a few miles inland, VIRTUALLY EMPTY. We think there are lots of other places ignored by the travelers on Hwy 61.

 

 

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TOUR de GITCHI-GAMI

...or how the Polka Dot Jersey still evades these Rail-trail riders.

Here on the North Shore of Lake Superior just a daytripper's hop from Duluth are two of the most visited sites in the North Country. Gooseberry Falls State Park has the most trampled set of waterfalls we have ever seen and, despite some hefty entrance fees, the beautiful Split Rock Lighthouse on a sunny weekend compares with any overcrowed NP visitor center for sheer volume of flip-flopped humanity.

 

Lacing these two attractions together is one completed section of the stunning PAVED Gitchi-Gami trail. The trail sometimes follows along hwy 61 (climbing over the hills that the roadway cuts through) but often swings to the brink of the bluffs with views of the lake and cool updrafts.

Yes, we ride up here; the Winnebagos ride through the cut...

WAIT! There are HILLS? Was I consulted on this?

 

After laying about for two days during a Minnesota heat wave, we saddled up this morning and rode through a gap in the rain shield that was passing over. The grades did not LOOK bad, but we were toast even on the gradual ones. Pressing doggedly onward and stopping frequently to pant, we couldn't help dreading the downhills that would become climbs on the return. It didn't get better as we decended the col d' Split Rock which actually has a switchback!) and rested at the Trail Center in Split Rock State Park. We dragged ourselves out on the lava flow with snacks and drank in the views.

Split Rock Light, the most visited in the US

We don't need your stinking $9 tour badges. We can see just fine from here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cool mist coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The climb up the col was testy until we got the Granny Gear adjusted, but then, on the second leg of the switchback, a MIRACLE. That fierce headwind that plagued us all the way out paid back. We flew, our spirits soared and victory was ours.

We braked for features we missed going out...

 

 

 

A couple of long climbs in the sun and we were back across the Gooseberry River cooling in the breezes at the top of the "Castle". We knew it was all downhill to our campsite from here. We celebrated with calls to Grandgirls and the last snacks.

Soo, a lot of drama for a couple septuagenarian flatlanders. We probably won't be getting any Polka Dot Jerseys for our modest hill climbing, but we are less afraid to stray off the flat and level; We feel a bit better prepared for our annual assault on the Acadia Carriage Trails. We think this deserves a little pie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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