We spent Sunday exploring some of the sites around the Grand Portage area.
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We were woken up before 6 am on Sunday by the high pitched buzzing of yet another mosquito. We got up and turned on all the lights, but couldn't find her anywhere. Back in bed again, she buzzed us again 20 minutes later but we still couldn't find her. Exhausted, we finally got back in bed, pulled the covers over our heads, and fell back asleep.
Later that morning, Tom saw something flying around just as Christine was about to leave for her morning walk. Some quick action with the electronic fly swatter netted one of the plumpest mosquitoes yet; it popped like a ripe grape when squished, having been filled with full with someone's (odds are: Tom's) blood.
After our morning routine and some household chores, we dumped and filled at the site's full hookups while being swarmed by insects. Mosquito netting over a hooded sweatshirt seemed to work fairly well at protecting Tom during the procedure, but we unfortunately had no way of preventing a fair number of bugs from getting trapped between the rear screen and the doors when we closed them (one of the the downsides of our van's design of having the water inlets inside the rear doors instead of outside).
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We drove northeast 7 miles to Grand Portage State Park, just south of the Canadian border - as in: "if you miss the turn into the state park, you'll wind up in Canada".
We started our visit by browsing the displays in the Visitor Center, where we learned that the Grand Portage area was (and still is) owned by Chippewa (Ojibwe) Native Americans.
Then we hiked the mile round-trip path out to High Falls. High Falls is the reason the Grand Portage exists: at ~120’ it’s an impassible waterfall on the Pigeon River making the river unusable for transporting goods; therefore goods had to be transported over land (portaged) the 8.5 miles from Fort Charlotte to Fort George on Lake Superior.
The Pigeon River forms the U.S. / Canada border, and from the observation platform closest to the falls on the U.S. side you can look across the river and see the Canadian's observation platform.
The second viewing platform provided a more direct / frontal view of the falls.
"We could
swim to Canada from here!" 😜
We drove 9 miles southwest back to the Grand Portage National Monument Heritage Center. We started our visit there by exploring the museum, where we learned about the voyageurs and fur trade, watched the 23 minute orientation movie, . . .
. . . and finally managed to get a photo "with a moose" (since we hadn't seen any at Isle Royale yesterday) 😉.
And in case you were thinking that moose were just hunted for their fur - or have always been curious what moose tastes like:
("Mmmmm...moose snout." And in case you were wondering: no, they do
not sell canned moose snout in the gift shop. Not that we checked. 😜)
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After lunch we headed across the road to the reconstructed Northwest Company Depot. The path winds through a re-created Ojibwe village . . .
. . . and past the Warehouse / Canoe Storage Building . . .
. . . before reaching the Depot gate.
Our first stop once inside was a tour of the Kitchen.
Next we toured the Great Hall. The main room of the Hall was set up for dining, as it was in the old days.
The four "partners' bedrooms" off to the side have been set up with different exhibits. One is still configured as a period bedroom.
Another had a display describing the process of turning a beaver pelt into a hat - explaining where the expression "mad as a hatter" came from originally. 😬
One was dressed as a trading post. We found the "Beaver Skin Exchange" rate list particularly interesting (even though it only shows how much a moose
fur is worth relative to beaver skin - but doesn't mention how much a tasty moose
snout would cost in beaver pelts 😜).
The last room was dressed as a London street with stores selling products derived from fur bearers.
After exiting the Great Hall, we explored the rest of the Depot grounds.
We drove another 44 miles southwest, backtracking along the shoreline, to Cascade River State Park where we'd be staying the night. Along the way, we passed by numerous small patches of really pretty lupines (?).
We were a little concerned after arrival to find this sign posted by the bathrooms, warning of Total Coliform Bacteria in the drinking water system. But according to the Camp Host it was an old sign and everything was fine now. We put a call in to the number provided to try to get more info/confirmation, but just got voicemail (not overly surprising, given that it was almost 7 pm) so left a message.
We decided to do the mile round-trip hike to the The Cascades before dinner.
The dimming evening light made for some nice "dreamy waterfall" exposures.
After dinner, Tom finally found the time to finish stitching his trash can. After putting a small plastic bag inside to act as a liner, he hung it on its new home on the gear shift lever.
Tomorrow we'd be leaving the Grand Portage area for good, and heading south again on our way to new adventures...
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