The Travels of a Journalist—50 BORDER-CROSSING BRINGS MEMORIES OF BWCA CAMPING TRIP IN MID-‘60S
Posted on December 30th, 2010

By Shelton A. Gunaratne ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚© 2011
Professor of mass communications emeritus @ Minnesota State University Moorhead

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Day 8 (Thursday, 18 Aug. 1988)

We left the Pigeon River Provincial Park Thursday (18 Aug. 1988) morning, crossed over to U.S, territory, and entered Grand Portage (pop. 557). The Grand Portage State Park did not exist then. Opened in 1989, its focal point became the 120-ft. (37-meter) Pigeon Falls, known locally as High Falls. The mile of frontage along the Pigeon River offered views of the falls and river gorge from rustic outlooks. Ernest Hemingway nicknamed Grand Portage “the Big Wild.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

The Department of Natural Resources promotes the High Falls as ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-the highest in the stateƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ although it cannot match the 131-ft (40-meter) Kakabeka Falls in nearby Ontario. The Native Americans and the voyageurs found the gorge of the Pigeon River and its two fallsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬‚High and MiddleƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬‚as formidable obstacles for river travel between Lake Superior and Lake of the Woods. Thus, they created an 8.5-mile (13.7 km) footpath to bypass the waterfalls and rapids on the last 20ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ miles (32 km) of the Pigeon River. Called the Grand Portage (ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-carrying placeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚), it is part of the historic trade route of the French-Canadian voyageurs. This footpath was designated the Grand Portage National Monument in 1960.

Furthermore, it was elevated as the Grand Portage National Monument Heritage Center in 2007 to pay tribute to the Anishinabe Ojibway heritage.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

The previous night, I took Carmel and Junius to see the Middle Falls and the Grand Portage from the Canadian side, where rural ON-593 hugs the Pigeon River. However, the High Falls was visible only from the U.S. side.

Now, we were at the eastern end of the vast circle of wilderness surrounding the Minnesota-Ontario border, which we commenced exploring a week before at Voyageurs National Park. We visited the national monument and listened to the historical accounts narrated by the interpretive staff. Then Junius and I walked 0.7 miles on the Grand Portage to Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. The trail’s high point is the head of a drainage flowing to the Pigeon River at Fort Charlotte.

About 35 miles southwest of Grand Portage, we stopped at Grand Marais (pop. 1,353) to refill the car, eat our lunch and take a peek at the famous Gunflint Trail.

WPI Memories of 1966

I was familiar with Grand Marais. I had first visited the town on a weekend (9-10 Sept. 1966), 22 years earlier, as a World Press Institute (WPI) journalist. Let me reminisce what happened on that remarkable weekend.

Michael Johnson, then a WPI assistant director, and Dave McKenna, then a Macalester College student, drove the 14 WPI journalists (including a woman) on the WPI minibus from our headquarters in Saint Paul to Grand Marais (ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Great MarshƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ in French), the seat of Cook County, for their very first camping and fishing expedition in the Superior National Forest in northeast Minnesota. We, the journalists, had no clue about the hazards and joys of camping in the wilderness, which we roughly knew as the Superior National Forest

It turned out that we had to stop at Grand Marais to rent our camping and fishing gear; and to pick up our guide, Jack Underwood, who would lead us in ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-portagingƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ off the famous Gunflint Trail (County Road 12) to the camping grounds on the shores of Duncan Lake and Rose LakeƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  (see Figure 1). The Gunflint Trail is a 57-mile (92 km) paved roadway that begins in Grand Marais, and ends at Saganaga Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA).

We got off the minibus halfway through the Gunflint Trail, 30 miles north of Grand Marais. From there, we had to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-portageƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ our belongings, canoes and other gear to the Hungry Jack Lodge and Campground, near Duncan Lake; and the adjacent Camp Menogyn, near Rose Lake.

The Ceylon Daily News published the feature I wrote under the tile ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Camping in canoe country.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ A few excerpts:

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Having traveled [more than 30 miles] on the Gunflint Trail, we turned to a path that led us to the West Bearskin Lake on the other side of the Hungry Jack Lake. The canoes were ready for us on the shore. We got into the canoes, two in each with all our camping material and crossed the West Bearskin Lake.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-From this point on, we had to carry [ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-portageƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚] all our belongings ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-It is noon. But the sky is gloomy and the wind is chilly. Even with a pullover and a jacket on, I am almost shivering.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  So is Arturo [von Vacano from Peru], who is seated in the middle of the canoe. Not Jack [Underwood] anyway. He has only a thick shirt on and he bears the cold smartly.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Perched on a spot by the cliff, Veikko [Pajunen from Finland] is reading a book ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦[A journalist with the Helsinkin Sanomat, he is addicted to The New York Times.]

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Beneath the cedar, pine and fir trees, a fire is aflame. It is the fire with which Dick is cooking our midday meal of macaroni and beans ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ I begin to wonder how we managed to carry all this material to the camping site ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- It is night. Dick is playing a musical instrument. Others sing. We are seated around a fire [singing to fit DickƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s music or telling yarns]. We go into our tents quite late. I get into my sleeping bag and bend like a millipede for warmth ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ But Mike [Johnson] comes and wakes us up to see the northern lights.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The morning is colder. The wind is heavy ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ I cannot wash my face with the ice-cold

waterƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦[I see] Roy [Bull from England] crossing the Rose Lake in a canoe. He is determined to land on Canadian territory!ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

Back to 1988

I narrated my 1966 adventures to Carmel, Junius and Yoke-Sim as we ate lunch at the South of the Border Restaurant. I told them that as a rural boy raised in poor Ceylon, I had never dreamed of canoeing, camping or portaging.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  I embellished my story further as I took them to see the Cook County Historical Museum (5 S. Broadway). Then, I treated them with a tour of six miles into the Gunflint Trail.

From Grand Marais, we continued driving southwest on SR 61 sandwiched between the North Shore of Lake Superior and the eastern edge of Superior National Forest. Commonly known as the North Shore, SR61 runs a length of 180 miles (290 km) from the north terminus 0f Interstate 35 in Duluth to the Grand Portage on the Ontario boundary. Some of MinnesotaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s most enchanting state parks are located on SR 61 (see Figure 2). Camping facilities are available in all except the two in Grand Portage. But on this particular Thursday in mid-August, we couldnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t find a single campsite to stay overnight. We stopped to admire the scenic beauty of the Cascade River and the Temperance River state parks. We drove to the township of Lusten (pop. 360) to see the operational mechanics of its chairlift to the mountains. Curiosity took us to see three other state parksƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬‚Tettegouche, Split Rock Lighthouse, and Gooseberry Falls.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Because all the campgrounds in the state parks were full, we had no choice but to accept the offer of one of the 112 campsites at the Burlington Bay Campground, a municipal facility in Two Harbors (pop. 3,613), once known as Agate Bay.

Day 9ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  (Friday)

Two Harbors is known for its annual Folk Festival in the final week of January.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  It also plays a pivotal role in the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, an annual 400-mile race on the North Shore starting in the port city of Duluth (pop. 84,419).ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Our destination for the day was Duluth, 30 miles further to the southwest.

We left the campground in the morning to see the giant loading locks on Agate Bay, immediately to the south of Burlington Bay. Then, as we headed toward Duluth, we stopped to let Carmel and Junius enjoy the French River Coldwater Fish Hatchery, a facility of the Department of Natural Resources.

Duluth has some 23,000 fewer people than in 1960. However, the population of Duluth MSA (known as the Twin Ports), which includes the adjoining Wisconsin city of Superior, stood at.276,368).

We wanted to enter Duluth through the Skyline Parkway, a somewhat disconnected 30-mile roadway that extends from the Lester River Neighborhood on the east side of the city to Thompson Hill, “West Duluth” near Interstate 35.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Skyline Parkway crosses nearly the entire length of Duluth and affords breathtaking views of the famous Aerial Lift Bridge, and Canal Park to the many industries in and around the port. However, finding the eastern gateway to the parkway was not easy.

Our first stop after we entered East Skyline Parkway, which disappeared at Glenwood Street, was the Tweed Museum of Art located on the campus of the University of Minnesota Duluth. The museum has a permanent collection of more than 6,000 works ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-covering a range of periods and cultures in art history, with particular strengths in American landscape painting.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

After re-discovering East Skyline Parkway, we drove on it up to North Lake Street, from where the parkway turns in to West Skyline Parkway. One feature of the Skyline is that ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-from high on the bow of the hillƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ it offers magnificent views of the tip of Lake Superior.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  We decided to drive down the steep hill on Lake Street to the Harbor Basin south of I-35 –ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-largely a conversion of an old warehouse district into restaurants, shops (especially those dealing in antiques and other novelties), cafƒÆ’†’ƒ”š‚©s, and hotelsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ (Wikipedia).

The area has become an entertainment venue with events such as is the annual Bayfront Blues Festival and Grandma’s Marathon. The Harbor BasinƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s attractions include a three-mile long lake-walk, the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, a lighthouse pier, Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center, Great Lakes Aquarium and the William A Irvin floating ship museum.

On this visit, we took Carmel and Junius to see the Canal Park Marine Museum. Next to the Canal Park, we crossed the Aerial Lift Bridge (originally built in 1905) and drove on Minnesota Avenue all the way to Minnesota Point, also called Point Park, where we ate our lunch. Located seven miles away on the narrow sand spit on Superior Bay demarcating the boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin, it was a dream spot to look around. We enjoyed the majestic view of the Interstate 535 bridge crossing over from Duluth, Minn., to Superior, Wis., high above us on to the northwest.

Next, we re-traced the sand spit back to the Canal Park to visit the 1988 star attraction, the Depot (at 506 W. Michigan St.). Built in 1892, it served seven different rail lines, and accommodated 5,000 passengers. It re-opened in 1973, housing the Duluth Art Institute, Duluth Children’s Museum, Lake Superior Railroad Museum, St. Louis County Historical Society Museum, North Shore Scenic Railroad, and five performing arts organizations. (Its current admission is $12 per adult)

Thereafter, we crossed the border to Wisconsin on I-535 Bridge, which we saw from the sand spit below earlier. On Wisconsin territory, we visited the Barkers Island from where we saw Park Point, our lunch spot. We drove past the Marina and the Old Firehouse and Police Museum (built in 1898) in Superior.

Back in Duluth, we decided to explore the West Skyline Parkway that we missed in the morning. We had no difficulty finding the western gateway to Skyline. We had a magnificent view of the city from the Enger Park Observation Tower along the parkway.

We wanted to camp overnight at the renowned Jay Cooke State Park. Because it was already packed, we had to settle for the KOA Campground in Cloquet.

On Day 10 (Saturday, 20 Aug. 1988), we crossed Minnesota from east to west. We reached Moorhead at 6.30 p.m.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

Figure 1: The 1966-67 group of WPI journalists camped and fished in Rose Lake and Duncan Lake on the Minnesota-Ontario border. This two-day experienceƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  (9-10 Sept. 1966) perhaps was the focal factor that sparked my lifelong craving for camping thereafter.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

Figure 2: Enchanting State Parks on Minnesota’s North Shore

A=Grand Portage State Park. Its main attraction is High Falls on the Pigeon River.

B=Grand Portage National Monument and Heritage Center, a reconstruction of the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-carrying pathƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ (portage) of the fur traders and the Ojibway tribe.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

C=Judge C.R. Magney State Park. Its main attraction is the DevilƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Kettle waterfall on the Brule River

D=Cascade River State Park. Its main attraction is the seven cascading waterfalls.

E=Temperance River State Park. The falls along the Temperance River are its main attraction.

F=George H. Crosby Manitou State Park, the only state park on North Shore that offers ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-backpackingƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ campsites.

G=Tettegouche State Park. The high cliffs overlooking Lake Superior are its main attraction.

H=Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. Its main attraction is the lighthouse.

I=Gooseberry Falls State Park. Its main attractions are the five falls on the Gooseberry River and the Gitchi Gummy Trail.

J=Jay Cooke State Park on the Saint Louis River.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

Figure 3:ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  DULUTH AND VICINITY

The upper line from A (=Magney Park/Thompson Hill) to E (=Lester Park) approximates the Skyline Parkway. The parkway disappears from B to C (UMD campus area) and re-appears before D=Amity Park. F=Canal Park, where the Aerial Lift Bridge provides entry to G=Minnesota Point/Point Park on the sand strip. The Harbor Basin lies to the west of Canal Park. H=Barkers Island in Wisconsin is just a hoot from Point Park.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  I=KOA Campground in Cloquet, Minn., where we camped.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

Picture 1: The Aerial Lift Bridge is a landmark in Duluth.(Photo by Alfred Essa. Wikimedia Commons 2007)

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

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