When we first talked about exploring Minnesota, our #1 destination was Voyageurs National Park, a water-based park on the US-Canada border, named after the French-Canadian fur traders who traveled thru the area regularly in the 18th and 19th century. They would leave Montreal in the spring with goods, paddling as much as 14 hours per day, making 36 portages, to arrive in Grand Portage, 1200 miles away in less than two months. There they would trade the goods for animal pelts, beaver was most in demand.
Planning our visit was a bit complicated. 40% of the park is water and there are three visitor centers spread hours apart. We picked the Rainy Lake area to visit, which does have a trail, but we were told we really need to go out on a boat to see the park. Normally the park offers boat tours for visitors but a couple months back they had a bad flood and the tours were halted. We would have to rent a boat to explore, but Daddy didn't want to do that for a variety of reasons.
We opted to do a short hike along the Oberholtzer Trail.
Daddy spotted a lifer Black-backed Woodpecker for me, but I wasn't fast enough for a photo!
The next day I talked Daddy into renting a boat. About 15 minutes into our boating adventure, the motor quit. OK, I'm starting to see why he was reluctant to jump in a rental boat. After half an hour of trouble shooting, we gave up and called for help. Daddy started rowing and by the time the owner showed up, we were pulling up to the dock.
He traded our boat for another and pretty soon we were boating once again. Our first destination was the gold mine on Little American Island. This was in operation in the 1890s but you can still see the shaft and some machinery left over.
Looking down into the shaft.
The lake has many small islands to explore. We stopped at this private island campsite, wow, what a great place! We enjoyed a picnic lunch here and some relaxing.
It even has a toilet! It's missing a few walls though.
Yes, that's a leech! They have very large ones and you can even see them swimming along the surface of the water! Creepy!
We returned the boat to the Sha Sha and enjoyed dinner at their restaurant. Afterwards the kids bought some peanuts to feed to the mostly tame chipmunks that hang out there.
We stayed at a Boondockers Welcome right on Rainy Lake. It was a beautiful spot with kind hosts.
Asher got his chance to try fishing into Canadian waters from the US. He could definitely cast pretty far.
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