Sunday, June 4-Tuesday, June 6                                                                                       Wooden Frog State Campground, Lake Kabetogama

Here is another park that we almost skipped.  When I investigated the camping options, we learned that camp sites are accessible by boat only, and it wasn’t clear how much of the park we could actually see by land.  Andy really wanted to go, so we found a state campground right outside the park and took a chance.  Wouldn’t you know it, this place turned out to be one of our favorites!  The campground was great.

This is what we saw right behind our tent.

The park straddles the border of Minnesota and Canada.  There are 4 main lakes; Rainy, Kabetogama, Namakan, and Sand Point.  In the early 1700s, European demand for beaver pelts brought fur traders into the region. These voyageurs paddled large birch bark canoes carrying trade goods and furs between the Canadian northwest and Montreal.
Our campground is on the shore of Kabetogama.

This was taken at a nearby market.  We had never eaten walleye; it’s really good. Kind of like our haddock; it’s the local catch.

The Voyageurs visitor center is accessible by car.  There were 3 young women working there and they seemed very glad to see us. Business is pretty slow this time of year, apparently.  They encouraged us to find a way to get on the lakes and see the park.  We thought we might rent kayaks from the lodge we noticed next to the campground.  We got up the next morning and drove over there. We saw a pontoon boat leaving the dock, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around except these white pelicans.

We did finally find a guy inside the main building.  We asked about kayaks and he said he could probably hook us up.  Andy asked about the boat we had seen leaving the dock and it turned out to be a tour boat. “I can call the captain and see if he’ll come back and get you,” the guy said.  That sounded like a plan, and sure enough, it was only a few minutes before the boat pulled up and we got on.

There were two other couples in addition to the captain.  Both couples were long time campers and national park junkies, and we got along great.  The trip lasted all day and took us on 2 lakes, Kabetogama and Namakan. We went to 3 park destinations, all of which were established before this area became a national park about 40 years ago.

The first place we went was a resort that was owned for many years by a family who built and maintained several cottages, a main house where meals were served, and (my favorite part), an ice house.  The ice house was designed so that it could keep ice cut from the lake for up to 2 years.

The cabins have been preserved by the park service but are not available to rent. The grounds are available for day use, though.  It must have been a lot of fun to come here in the 50s and 60s to fish, swim, and relax.

We went to the Kettle Falls Hotel.  This hotel was built in 1913 as lodging for men working in the lumbering industry. It was sold a few years later for $1000 and a few barrels of whiskey.  Due to its proximity to the Canadian border, the hotel undoubtedly had a role in illegal activities during Prohibition. Our guide told us that many famous people stayed there, including Charles Lindbergh and John D. Rockefeller.  It is still open for business as a hotel and restaurant.  We had lunch on the screen porch (walleye, of course) and enjoyed the bar specialty, some kind of spiked pink lemonade.

 

All day we passed campsites only accessible by boat, some on islands and others on the shoreline of the many peninsulas in the lakes.  Each one has a bear box, a table, and a fire pit, and from what we saw, all of them have amazing views.

Our last stop was the Ellsworth Rock Garden. This beautiful and whimsical place was created in the 1940s by Jack Ellsworth, a carpenter from Chicago.  For twenty years the family summered on this property while Ellsworth built a terraced garden on the rocky outcrop. He planted 13,000 lilies and built hundreds of abstract rock sculptures.  After his death the garden was neglected and some of the sculptures fell into disrepair, but the park service, with the help of local volunteers, has been hard at work to bring everything back to its original splendor. Unfortunately, the lilies weren’t blooming during our visit, but the place is still amazing.

There are over 40 pairs of eagles that return to the same nests here each year.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful evening, too.  Voyageurs makes the list as the most pleasant surprise of the trip.  Thank you Andy, for following your instincts and making the decision to come here. Our guide told us he’d be happy to take us out to an island campsite if we come back.  We’ve got his telephone number and we will definitely see him again!!

I felt a little sad as we packed up to leave the last national park we’ll see for awhile. Not a single park disappointed us; we could have stayed longer at every one of them. And we haven’t seen half of them yet!