Minnesota Sampler, Grand Portage

This is the actual trail the voyageurs walked!

Part of the reason for the side trip up the North Shore was to visit friends, Barb and Bern, who spend summers at the Grand Portage National Monument. Bern is a seasonal employee who does interpretive work being a voyageur or Northwest Company agent. Barb volunteers and usually works in the library. Our visit coincided with their day off so we were treated to a personal tour of the new visitor center and the reconstructed fort, Ojibwe camp, and voyageur camp. We saw how birchbark canoes are made, though the resident canoe builder was off in the Boundary Waters on a 1,000 journey with one of his creations. We even learned how to start a fire with flint and steel. Barb and Bern took us to lunch at the local senior center and then for a hike to High Falls, where the other side of the Pigeon River was Canada. Along the way Bern could tell us the name of every plant. Wow.

It was a wonderful, sunny and warm day. Visibility was good and we could see Isle Royale in the distance from several viewpoints. The Park Service does a wonderful job with reenactments and many locals are hired for interpretive work including teenagers in a great program. It is off the beaten path for many tourists but a delight to visit with no crowds and plenty of opportunities to get questions answered and learn about the area's history.

When we left Grand Portage it was in the low 80s and we never glanced at our car thermometer but as soon as we opened our doors there was a noticeable difference. It was about 20-25 degrees colder with a real nip to the breeze even though the sky was still a clear blue. Huh? Good, old NPR came through with as short feature story about the unusual weather for the day. Apparently, it was warmer on the North Shore than in the Twin Cities, a rare occurrence due to the wind patterns. Then, in less than an hour, the temperature dropped 25 degrees and things were back to normal. That temperature drop had happened to us during the 35 minute drive and we never realized it. I'm quite happy that the unusual weather was NOT some ice storm or snowstorm in July!