Part 10: Northern Minnesota

20210819-0826

The Trip

The Photos

The photos below are what we saw.

Our hike to the lake revealed that there were many party barges moored at remote camps on the lake's shore.

The lake was clean and devoid of boat traffic.

There were remote camp sites scattered on the shore of the lake.

Our plan was to skirt the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on the network of dirt roads on the southern edge of the wilderness.  Nature intervened.  This area of northern Minnesota has been suffering under a summer-long drought.  A cluster of thunderstorms in the past week promised to bring relief in the form of rain, but instead brought dry lightning.  A set of fires in the deep forest was result.  Roads in the area were closed and the air was filled with smoke.

Typical of the current fire-fighting strategy, the fires resulted in the formation of a local incident base and staging area for men and material.  The base was at the road closure.  Our only choice was to divert south on the asphalt.

We rolled all day as part of our diversion and finally came to a small town on the south side of Lake Vermillion.  A train brought our progress to a temporary halt, but as we took a photo of the lead locomotive, we notice the engineer pointing at Thor.

We stayed at a state campsite at Wakeumup Bay on Lake Vermillion.

Like most of the lakes in the area, there were dwellings on the shore with private docks.

From Lake Vermillion, we headed north to International Falls.  During our travel, the wind shifted direction and starting blowing the smoke from the fires in our direction resulting in poor visibility.  The shot above is across the Rainy River showing some of the wood pulp processing plants on the Canadian side.

We headed east from International Falls to a camp on Rainy Lake and spotted this bit of Americana intended to command driver's attention.

Nearby, the world's largest bass awaited.

We spent one night on Rainy Lake and then headed north toward a place called Rocky Point on Lake of the Woods.  Along the way we passed this crew laying fiber optic cable.  This dozer was pulling......

...and this dozer was being pulled.  The cable laying setup ran the length of the dozer and the cable was routed down the single-tooth ripper.

The cable insertion device was quite complex and included many hydraulic lines and cylinders.

Roads in this area were gravel, but were in good shape.



We arrived at Rocky Point and found a large fishing resort with an RV area.  The owners were doing plumbing work so there was plenty of heavy equipment in the area.



A am amazed by the number of attachments that are available for Bobcat loaders.  This hitch was attached to allow the Bobcat to position the fishermen's trailers in tight parking spots.



It was quite windy, but warm.  Lake of the Woods is a large lake that is hundreds of miles long and stretches well into Canada.



There were some nice spots right on the lake shore.



The lodge is open year around, but the waitress told me that the winter is the busy season.  Why?  Ice fishing.  The resort provides ice transport to tow fishing shacks onto the ice as well as delivering fishermen to/from the shacks to the lodge.



The resort had a large marina.



We left Rocky Point and headed west and passed this interesting vehicle in a small town.  I am guessing that this is the kind of vehicle that is used to deliver fishermen to their shacks on the ice.



Mattracks's manufacturing is in this small town and they put their various models on vehicles for display.  I would love to see the Smart car actually run on snow with these tracks.

Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2021, all rights reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.