Vagabond Tracks — by Paul & Amy

We were dismayed to discover (thanks to Rich’s alertness) that two lug nuts were missing from one of the wheels of our camper!  We were able to get spare lug nuts at a local auto parts store Saturday evening, but because one of the studs had broken off, we didn’t dare to resume traveling before we could get it repaired.  Several phone calls in the morning failed to turn up any repair places open on a Sunday, so we stayed an extra day at Ann & Floyd’s.  Until the camper was fixed, we had extra time to explore a couple of nearby bike paths, one along the Black River on Sunday and the other along the Rocky River on Monday.  Both were thoroughly enjoyable.  We finally headed for Michigan a day and a half later than planned, but feeling very fortunate that we didn’t have a wheel fall off at highway speed!

On the Upper Peninsula of Michigan we stayed with friends Doug and Marjory for two nights.  At their place they have created a great network of walking/cross country skiing trails in their fields and woods—great for bird watching.  They took us on a hike on a section of the North Country Trail that they maintain in the Ottawa National Forest through a mix of young and old forest.  Then we hiked a loop at Silver Mountain, past the base of a sheer basalt cliff popular with local rock climbers and scrambled up onto the ridge top above the cliff, where Doug showed us an impressive set of glacial striations.  The mountain was named for a former silver mine at the base of the cliff that is now gated to protect it as a bat hibernaculum.

We camped with Amy’s college friends Ann & Gary at Jay Cooke State Park, with its rugged slate and greywacke formations in the St. Louis River, then spent the next day sight-seeing in Duluth.

The maritime museum displays on the origin of the Great Lakes, historical ships and shipwrecks, and methods of handling cargos such as iron ore shipped from Duluth in today’s huge ships were very well done.

Ann & Gary treated us to a lunch of pistachio-crusted walleye sandwiches at a favorite restaurant of theirs.  At the aquarium we saw some nice large Lake Sturgeon, Lake Trout, Burbot, and other Great Lakes fishes in the large tank, as well as displays on a wide variety of both local and exotic freshwater and marine life.  We topped the day off with ice cream at one of the shops in the lively waterfront area.

Extending northeast of Duluth along the north shore of Lake Superior toward the Canadian border there is a long distance hiking trail (the Superior Hiking Trail) and a paved bike path (the Gitchi-Gami State Trail), and we sampled both in one day.  The five-mile loop hike up one bank of the Split Rock River and down the other bank on the SHT is one we highly recommend, with many views of waterfalls, cliffs, and cascades.

The Gitchi-Gami trail is close to the L. Superior shore, with some nice lake views, as it passes through Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.  The bike path is moderately hilly and curvy in this section and mostly out of sight of the nearby highway.

A short hike up to the top of Day Hill provided an excellent panorama of Lake Superior’s north shore.

An easy half day’s drive through northern Minnesota gave us a chance to learn more about the iron mining industry in one of the world’s most important iron-producing areas, the Mesabi Range.  From a highway overlook we peered down into a lake occupying a former open-pit iron mine (the mining waste is not toxic and the Biwabik aquifer filled the depression with clean water).

We then spent most of the afternoon at the Minnesota Discovery Center, with its very interesting museum and other attractions.  The highlight for Amy was talking at length with a woman demonstrating weaving on a couple of large Scandinavian looms built over 100 years ago (Amy got to weave on one loom for a while).

The museum also had excellent exhibits on Minnesota geology, local history, and iron mining methods over the years.

Bemidji in north central Minnesota (home of Bemidji State University) is the first city reached by the young Mississippi River.  We strolled along a waterfront park past a statue of Paul Bunyan, another of the Chippewa chief for whom the city was named, and a family of mergansers swimming by (the chicks riding on Mom’s back).  The Chippewa tribe (also known as Ojibwe) had moved westward into the area that is now northern Minnesota (previously occupied by the Dakota tribe).  The honorable Shaynowishkung, known as Chief Bemidji to the white settlers, promoted peace, but sadly he and his people had to endure many broken promises by the U.S. government.

After a light breakfast at a coffee shop with free internet, we went biking on the Paul Bunyan State Trail and the Bemidji State Park bike path.  After a very pleasant ride, Amy found a woolen outlet to get some more scraps for her rug hooking project.

On back to back days we biked on delightful bike paths near two rivers flowing to two different oceans.  The Mississippi River begins its long course to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic at the outlet of Lake Itasca Lake in northern Minnesota, and the Red River forms the boundary between Minnesota and North Dakota on its way north to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean.  All four bike paths we rode on in Minnesota were paved, very scenic, and well maintained.  While hiking in Itasca State Park we saw a bobcat.

The drive between Itasca Lake and the Red River was a transition between wooded country of very tall white and red pine trees to pancake-flat open country.  After the railroads reached Grand Forks in the early 1890s, wheat farming became big in the region.  The huge flood of 1997 devastated downtown Grand Forks (N.D.) and East Grand Forks (Minn.) on the opposite banks of the Red River.  The cities removed whole neighborhoods from the flood zone, replaced them with a beautiful greenway (parks, bike paths, and pedestrian bridges over the river), and built flood levees and flood walls outside the greenway.  The loops in our campground were former city residential streets.  The grassy slope in the background of the photo of our camper is the flood levee.  Amy is standing next to an obelisk showing the height of the 1997 flood water in one photo, and the next photo from across the river shows how high the obelisk is above the normal water level.

Grand Forks, North Dakota, might not be on everyone’s list of vacation destinations, but we spent a very pleasant day there, including breakfast at a bakery/coffee shop with free internet; a bike ride to the southern end of the beautiful Red River Greenway and back; an hour and a half tour of “The Ralph”; a walk around the downtown area rebuilt after the 1997 flood; time to relax in the shade of a towering oak at our campsite; and a stroll to a nearby restaurant for ice cream after supper.

“The Ralph” is the Ralph Engelstad Arena, home to the University of North Dakota men’s ice hockey program.  Much more than just an ice rink, we could easily see why North Dakotans consider it to be the premier college hockey facility in the country.  Completed in 2001 at a cost of $104 million donated by Engelstad, the spectator areas are plush and the athletic training facilities are state-of-the-art.  All 11,640 seats for hockey games are padded leather.  The main concourse floors are polished white and red granite from Italy and India.  The 10,000-square-foot weight room is used exclusively by the men’s and women’s hockey teams.  There is an underwater treadmill for rehab.  The adjoining Betty Engelstad Sioux Center was added on to house the UND basketball and volleyball programs.  It also has an Olympic-size practice ice rink.  In addition to UND games, the combined REA and BESC complex hosts various tournaments, training camps, concerts, weddings, etc.

Our drive from Grand Forks west to Lake Sakakawea across 2/3 of North Dakota was more scenic than we expected.  Pretty flat, certainly, but there were occasional hills and trees, a variety of crops, and much more surface water than we had imagined.  Along our route were many small ponds and wetlands (“prairie potholes” and “sloughs”).  Particularly stunning were the vast fields covered with vibrant yellow blossoms of mustard and canola.

The broad vistas were fresh and green, thanks to good rain this year.  Somewhere along the way we crossed from the Red River (Arctic) watershed into the Missouri River (Atlantic) watershed at elevation 1619 feet (if I remember correctly).  Since we live so far from the Arctic Ocean, it’s hard to think of any other continental divide besides the dramatic Atlantic/Pacific divide running along the chain of the Rocky Mountains.  The three North American divides (Atlantic/Pacific, Atlantic/Arctic, and Pacific/Arctic) meet at Triple Divide Peak in Montana’s Glacier National Park.

Camped at Lake Sakakawea (a dammed section of the Missouri River), we hiked a bit of the western end of the North Country National Scenic Trail (we had hiked a small section earlier in Michigan).  Crews have been working over the past few years to restore some of the native prairie plants to the fields in Lake Sakakawea State Park.

Teenagers in our campground were impressed that we were baking cookies with our Pizzazz.

South of Lake Sakakawea we visited the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.  The visitor center displays and video, the replica earthlodge, and the actual sites of the Hidatsa villages were all very interesting.

The Hidatsa lived close to the Mandan people along the Missouri River and its tributaries.  Both tribes lived in established villages, where corn, beans, squash, and sunflower crops were important components of their diet along with fish and game.  Dried corn, beans, and squash were stored for winter in cache pits dug into the ground.

The 30 to 40-foot diameter earthlodges built on terraces near the river were relatively permanent summer homes, lasting about 10 years.  In winter they moved to forested areas for protection against winter winds and built cruder lodges, seldom used for more than one winter.  The depressions left behind when the villages were abandoned over 100 years ago are still visible.

One village site we walked through near the visitor center is believed to be the home of Sakakawea, guide to the Lewis & Clark expedition.