Boundary Waters - Kwitchurbeliakin'

Friday, June 21, Day 60.

Here we are, the longest day of the year, and we are about as far north as we can get in Minnesota.  And the weather channel is telling us once again that we are under a cloud highly localized to where we are! 

We have passed a number of these signs, a new one on us.  But we haven't seen any deer.
Probably because its not winter!

One of the places recommended to us was the Wolf Center.

They had four wolves, all about a year old, in the enclosure.  All had been born in captivity.  The purpose of the Center is to educate people about wolves as they are being reintroduced into the wild.

They had a wonderful exhibit at the Center, part of which explained man's relationship to the wolf through the ages.   They also had art work from early civilizations, as well as current artists, and concepts of what human perceptions were.  They explained wolf howls, pack behavior, etc.  This is a worthwhile place to visit.

We stopped at the ranger station and it happened to be quiet, so this ranger gave John a lot of his time to explain the boundary water area.   It is a series of waterways and bogs with a glacially carved landscape. There is very little vegetation and few trees.    Canoeing is the big thing here.  You have to have a permit to enter the area, but then you can pretty much do or go where you want.  It's administered by the National Forest Service.   The area is shared with Canada, so since 911, they have had to tighten restrictions on people going back and forth across the border.

Basically, you take a canoe, and paddle and portage your way through as much of this 100 mile long area as you want.  There are over 1500 miles of canoe routes over more than 1,000 lakes, rivers and streams.  

We also stopped at a small museum dedicated to the life of Dorothy Molter.  A trained nurse, she visited the Boundary Waters with her father and loved it so much, she stayed for 56 years.

She had a series of cabins out in the wilderness that required five portages to get to.   Ely was the nearest town.

Her brother would often visit and make signs for her.  She also had a collection of broken canoe paddles that people brought to her.  

Here's the part of the country we are talking about. 

When the Forest Service took over the Boundary Waters, they offered Dorothy a pittance to buy her place.  She had no where else to go, so she refused.  She had gained a reputation as the place to buy cold root beer, which she had been buying and transporting in.   The government also put an end to that, because she couldn't sell  it on National Forest Land.  So, she began bottling root beer in old bottles people had left behind, and taking donations, which brought in more money than when she had been selling it.
Everyone raised such a ruckus when the government tried to evict her that they reached an agreement for her to stay.  One day at age 83, she didn't respond to the radio she'd been given.  She had had a heart  attack while chopping wood.  She was the last person living in the Boundary Waters.   Her friends made arrangements to dismantle the cabin and transport it via sled to Ely, where it has been reconstructed and turned into a museum.

On the recommendations of the Ranger, we did end up taking Route 116, and it was great!

Wild roses along the way.

Everything is marshy, boggy, lots of water.

I don't know if you can spot this duck and about 8 babies.  They were well camouflaged against the lilly pads and reflections of the sky.

There is a second park here, the Voyageurs  Park. It is accessible only by water.   While the Boundary Waters are for canoes, Voyageur is a series of large lakes where motors are permitted and people take houseboats.  We stayed at the Ash River Campground.  We took a beautiful evening walk along the river.  The temperature dropped so it was a cool night for sleeping.  Sunset was at 9:19, sunrise at 5:11.

There seemed to be a lot of cabins where there were multi generations of people.  This is on the outskirts of Voyageur.   These two boys were fishing while their grandmother looked on with pride.