Iron Man in Chisholm, MN

Virginia, MN Loon

20' fiberglass loon on Silver Lake in Virginia, MN

Mineview in the Sky

View of an abandoned strip mine from a hill near Virginia, MN

Do you see Nolan?

Maybe now?

Town of Virginia off to the left.

International Falls, MN sights

Voyageur statue in Rainier, MN

International Falls park

Voyageurs National Park Grand Tour boat trip

The Voyageurs National Park Rainy Lake Visitor Center has a display of area history.  The National Park Visitor's Guide information - "On April 8, 1975 Congress enacted Voyageurs National Park as the 36th National Park in the National Park System.  The waterways of Voyageurs include an important segment of a 3,000 mile fur trade route of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  The driving force behind the fur trade was a demand for hats - beaver hats desired by fashionable Europeans.  As the fur trade expanded, it relied on the voyageurs, or French-Canadian canoemen, to muscle trade goods and furs between Montreal and the Canadian northwest."

Next we went on this boat for the Grand Tour, a 2 1/2 hour exploration of Rainy Lake including a view of an old commercial fishing camp, eagles, loons and a stop at Little American Island, a 1890's gold mine.

This mine was dug horizonally into the island.  They weren't able to get the water out so they worked in calf high water all the time.



There was also a vertical shaft mine.

The gold didn't come out in nuggets either, it was all flakes so they had to mine a lot of ore to get a little gold.  Not very profitable.

We went by another island with a mine shaft.  It goes back 80'.

Rainy Lake is huge.  Only 1/3 of it is in the US.

Baby eagle in a nest.

Adult eagle perched on top of a tree.

Old commercial fishing camp.

Voyageurs National Park - Kabetogama Lake

For our first trip into Voyageurs National Park, we went to the Ash River area and did the Blind Ash Bay trail.  Our first stop was an overlook of Kabetogama Lake.

The trail to the overlook was wide, gravel and handicap accessible.  After that it was narrow, full of roots, rock and usually vegetation was brushing up against our legs as we walked.

We saw a few different kinds of fungi.

Ferns

Wild blueberries were just ripening.

After a 1.4 mile hike we came to another overlook.  There is a loop at the end of the trail and we took the longer 1.7 mile way back.  So overall a 3.1 mile hike with lots of mosquitoes and deer flies that bit us despite our repellant spray.



More pretty fungi.