North Dakota, Here We Are

First stop this morning was to see a house in Minnesota that was built by Diane's grandmother's half brother. It's now on the National Register of Historic Places!

Believe it or not, I think we made more stops than we did yesterday, although many of them were short.

Minnesota is in love with large animal statues. Along the NCT you can find the world's largest loon, prairie chicken, and turkey. I have pictures of those. Now I've added an otter to the collection. But this one is metal.

It's holding down a fish with one paw.

Next stop was to do a short hike at Maplewood State Park so Diane could get some Minnesota NCT miles.

Then we needed lunch, which was topped off with pie. Pie is picture worthy.

Then we stopped in Pelican Rapids to see, well, the world's largest pelican!

Then it was off for the North Dakota border and Fort Abercrombie. They have recreated the blockhouses of the fort.

We made a couple of short stops to collect scavenger hunt game answers that is part of the Hike Fest. Then it was on to Dead Colt Creek Campground. There are several other people here who are attending Hike Fest.

This day is DONE! Tomorrow starts early enough with a hike, and I think we maxed out this day. We are beat, but happy. View from our campsite.

Hiked 1 mile of NCT in Maplewood State Park, Minnesota.

Miles hiked in 2025: 330.2
Miles hiked on NCT in 2025: 191.2

See People and Places

People and Places

Isn't that the title of one of those grade level readers we had in the 1950s? Well, we were people on the move with places to visit today!

We started with breakfast with our host Lorana and long-time Marquette Chapter volunteer Jan.

Because multiple generations of Diane's family have been firefighters and EMTs, she wanted to stop at the Marquette Fireman's Memorial which is right on the NCT!

Next stop was a little hike to see the new Tyler Forks Bridge where Bill and I waded on the big hike in 2022. It's certainly a unique bridge. There's not another like it anywhere along the NCT. The hardened ford is so a property owner can get access.

Time for quick stop at the Soo Line Station building in Ashland, WI. It had been made into a fancy restaurant (where we were taken to eat long ago), then it burned. The city raised money forever to restore it. We wanted to see how that was going. The first floor is all fixed and has businesses operating. The second floor is still being worked on. It's an amazing building.

That left us just the minutes we needed to get to Kevin and Ellie's house. They hosted Bill and me on the big hike. Murphy in the middle is making sure we all know he's there.

"Come for lunch- we'll just have sandwiches and fruit," said Ellie. It was a lovely smorgasbord!

Another long-time NCT volunteer met us there too-- Peter. He came so I could get his new book A Place on Water, a nice collection of essays about rural Wisconsin. We had a private author reading! I'll share more after we read more of it.

Then we drove some more and are now settled in for the night in Minnesota.

This was not planned, but I was delighted to discover that the campground is on the Mississippi River!

Do we know how to stuff a day or what?

Now it's dark and I can't see they keyboard, but I've said enough for one day anyway.

Hiked 1.6 miles on NCT from WI Rt 169 to the Tyler Forks and back.

Miles hiked in 2025: 329.2
Miles hiked on NCT in 2025: 190.2

See One Last Peep from Paradise

Adventurous Women 6 - Justine Kerfoot

 This post is partly a repeat of a previous one, but I said it all very well back then. I just didn't tell you about the book. The book is Woman of the Boundary Waters, and her name is Justine Kerfoot. She had died before I learned about her, but I did know her son and daughter-in-law.

Justine was born in 1906. She completed college with a degree in zoology with minors in philosophy and chemistry. She played sports. She had planned to become a doctor. In the late 1920s, her mother bought the Gundlint Lodge resort on the Gunflint Trail in the Minnesota Arrowhead from the family who had begun it, and Mae (her mother) and Justine began running the lodge. Justine was captivated with the backwoods life. I think this picture might be the lodge even before 1930.


Justine learned how to do everything- carpentry, canoeing, being an electrician, guiding, plumbing, trapping, fishing, you name it. She wrote a newspaper column and several books. She was friends with the Chippewa and anyone else who needed a friend. Although she was a small woman, people soon learned to respect her knowledge and strength.

Her son Bruce, and his wife Sue, ran Gunflint Lodge until just a few years ago when it was sold out of the family.

Justine portaged her own canoe until she was 90. She was responsible for a lot of the planning and deveopment of the Gunflint Trail area, serving on local boards. And more. Quite a lady, don't you think? I would love to have met her, but I have met Bruce and Sue, and I have read a biography of her life. The closest I could get to her was to have my picture taken with her portrait in 2009. This picture no longer hangs in the lodge. It probably belonged to the family, and was not sold with the building.

Today was mixed bag. I did an hour of screen time for clients. I prepared for and did three errands and got an oil change. When I got home I ate something and was literally shaking on my feet. Fell in bed like a rock and have basically been there since.

I have to take whatever successes I can get.

See Justine's Meatloaf

North Country Trail Amazing News

 
For over 20 years the North Country Trail has been working to have the route in Minnesota officially (by Congress, as required) to include what has been nicknamed the Minnesota Arrowhead. This extends the trail along the north shore of Lake Superior via the Superior Hiking Trail, then west on the Border Route and the Kekakabic Trail through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and then back down to the center of the state at Grand Rapids, MN. Even the National Park Service has been accepting this route for years, but it still wasn't official.

A few years ago, the Appalachian Trail also finally decided they wanted to connect with the NCT, and this also required Congressional approval.

Last week, the Senate passed a recreation bill which included this "route adjustment" provision. This was the first time EVER the bill had made it through the Senate. For the past few years, the House had passed a version of the bill, but it needed to get through both houses.

Today, the House voted yes on their version, and now it only needs to be signed into law. Seems like this will happen, but we have a tiny bit of finger crossing to do for this last step.

This is HUGE!

Scenes from the included portions. Maine Junction where the NCT will join the Appalachian Trail. This is also part of the Long Trail.



One of the views from the Vermont portion in the Green Mountains.



A view from the Superior Hiking Trail along Lake Superior in Minnesota.



Waterfalls on the SHT and NCT.



Mountain Lake on the Border Route, looking into Canada.



And Agamok Bridge on the Kekakabic Trail.



These will now all officially be part of this great trail experience. Can't have a better quality day than this!

	See The Party's Over, But it's OK
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The Rest of the Story- Finishing Minnesota

 
After our night at the Voyageur Motel, August 17, 2009, we hopped back on my final piece of North Country Trail to finish in Minnesota. This was also part of the Superior Hiking Trail. Over the next six days we hiked an additional 69.2 hilly miles. (For those who may know the SHT- from Finland to Gooseberry Falls.)

This is what a lot of that trail looks like. It's truly gorgeous. Although it was hilly, our daily mileages were shorter and we felt pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

Except one part. This was the wettest we'd ever been on a hike. It rained, really rained, for three days straight. Everything we had finally got totally soaked. That's not necessarily fun. The third night, I was determined to start a fire, and I did manage. But I have to say that even for me, it was a challenge.



I posted quite a few pictures from this hike in other blog entries. I'll list them if you want to revisit any.

• See Closer In and Farther Out for an overview of the scenery
• See Berries! for some colorful botany
• See Makin' Tracks for probable wolf tracks
• See More Tracks for possible cougar tracks
• See The Coffee Clatch...er... Qoffee Quack, Part 1 a funny duck story begun
• See The Coffee Clatch...er... Qoffee Quack, Part 2 a funny duck story finished
• See North Shore Water Features for rivers and waterfalls

This cedar root is one of my favorite shots from that hike.



We had hiked over 250 miles since leaving home, our longest trip ever.

Marie's leg gave her no problems on this piece. Mine was fine for the first four days, then began to hurt again. Although I never had it x-rayed, the diagnosis was "probably a stress fracture." It continued to hurt through September, and I spent serious time sitting around with it elevated, and iced, popping ibuprofen, because I had plans to hike in Ohio in October.

Of course, I did just that. Leg was all better in time, and has never had this problem again even when I did the long mileage pavement days in Ohio this past year.

It's been fun for me to review this trail time. Tomorrow I'll be back to local, normal stuff.

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Mesabi Hike - Madden Creek to Kekakabic Trailhead

 
Saturday, August 16, 2009. This was a gold star day for us. All of our legs were working pretty well, and we finished a major connection known as "the back of the arrowhead."

Every scene just screamed "north country." And those weren't the only reasons we were happy. It was also our shortest hiking day.



It was still all road walks, but it's hard to complain about it being too civilized. I liked this tree a lot, along Fernberg Road. North Country Trail enthusiasts know this road name well. It's the only way to connect from the Kekakabic Trail (the Kek) to Ely.


And here we are at the Kek. This is where, just three months earlier. Five of us hiked through from the east to end that hike at this very same location. Lots more green stuff in August.





And the next stop was also the same on both hikes- the Chocolate Moose in Ely. Talk about good food!



After that we had a date with a big guy. A really big guy. At the Voyageur Motel.



We had to get things washed and sorted and repacked, because this hike was not over. Yes, we finished this section of the trail, but my goal was to complete all my unfinished North Country Trail miles in Minnesota. This meant a drive back to the north shore of Lake Superior, and a switch to backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail/NCT.

I did do a number of blog posts about that hike, so I think tomorrow I'll just give an overview of those next few days and direct you back to those other posts if you want to see them. I showed a lot of pictures, but didn't give much continuity, so I'll focus on providing that.

"Back of the Arrowhead" completed: Chippewa National Forest to Kekekabic Trail, 8.8 miles that day, 182.2 total.

	See Ely to Madden Creek
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Mesabi Hike - Ely to Madden Creek

 
What we really wanted to do was hike the entire remaining 22 miles all in one day, but there was no way that was happening. Marie's leg was pretty much all better, and mine was a lot better. We were still icing it all the time I wasn't walking on it, and that was doing the trick.



There was also the issue of enough sleep. If you've read North Country Cache you already know that encounters with people in group campsites on weekends led to problems with alarming (I think) frequency. We added yet another to our collection. Some time during the night the people in the tent just below us (the campground was on a hillside) started yelling at each other and starting up their truck and yelling and... We really are tired of this. Marie was so mad she tried to get us a refund, since their behavior was clearly against the rules.

We did enjoy the dirt roads instead of pavement, and the rocky outcrops demonstrate how near the surface the bedrock lies.



Saturday, August 15, 2009, 13.2 miles for a total so far this trip of 173.4 miles.

	See Babbitt to Ely
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Mesabi Hike - Babbitt to Ely

 
This wasn't the last day of this hike, but it felt as if it should be. That's because our goal for the day was Ely, Minnesota. Ely is a major destination/stopping/starting point for many outdoor recreational activities in northern Minnesota and Canada. It's a jumping-off place for the Superior National Forest, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs Provincial Park.

For sure, we felt as if we were finally "getting there" even though we knew Ely wasn't really the end of the hike. When we passed this sign we practically cheered. Oh wait, I think I did cheer. Out loud.



We also encountered the northern end of the Taconite Trail, the alternate route I had considered hiking (a snowmobile trail). This particular place looks like it would have been a fine dry hike, but my decision to not take that route was based on reports from people who know more than what one intersection looks like. Perhaps in the future a non-paved and off-road route for the North Country Trail can follow that corridor.



The scenery began to look REALLY northern with rocky wetlands and spruce trees. I was smiling more and more.



And then we arrived in Ely. It's sort of shocking to find such an up-scale small city out in the middle of nowhere, but it has many amenities for campers and canoeists who want outfitters, lodging and places to celebrate when they return from their adventures. (Foreshadowing.... we were not immune to its charms.)



And, we moved our campsite again. This time to Fall Lake, a Superior National Forest campground. But the weekend was beginning... more foreshadowing.



August 14, 2009, Babbitt to Ely 15.5 miles, for a total so far this hike of 160.2 miles.

	See Embarrass to Babbitt
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