Saturday, August 04, 2007
North Shore and Iron Range
The first two pictures of the North Shore are from Monday. As the pictures show, some rocky portions of the coast are reminiscent of the Oregon coast.
The rest of this installment covers from Tuesday (July 31) through Friday (August 3).
On Tuesday we drove our car north to Grand Portage National Memorial, located just a few miles south of the Canadian border. This is the site of one of the main North West Fur Company trading posts in the United States. The company was active from the 1780s to the 1810s and exported millions of dollars of furs, making its senior partner the richest man in Canada. Between 1811 and 1821, the company was taken over by the Hudson Bay Company, whose hostile take-over tactics included starting rumors about North West, stealing its accounting books, and other mafia-like activities. That evening we had dinner as a group at the Naniboujou Lodge: most of us ordered Walleye, a popular fish which is the house specialty. The Lodge has brightly painted walls and ceilings with Ojibwa colors and symbols.
On Wednesday, we drove the Gunflint Trail which extends about 60 miles northwest from Grand Marais into the Boundary Lakes area – the large system of lakes that roughly follows the U.S. / Canadian border. We saw the results of a forest fire which burned in the area in May of this year. Otherwise the scenery was typical northern woods: nice, but nothing to write home about. We had lunch at the Gunflint Lodge, where we could look across the lake to Canada. That evening we had a final get together (wine and appetizers) before the members of our group go our separate ways.
On Thursday, we drove to our campground in Mountain Iron, a town in the middle of Minnesota’s Iron Range. We ran into an unexpected detour and spent about 45 minutes driving the RV on gravel Forest Service roads, an experience everyone should have. En route, we stopped at Soudan Underground Mine State Park, where we took a tour of the 27th (and last) level of the deepest iron mine in the world. The Soudan mine was closed in 1962, when its operations were no longer financially viable. The 27th level is about 2350 feet below ground and stays at a constant temperature of 52 degrees. We reached the mine reached by about a 3-minute ride in a steel elevator car that descends at about 10 mph.
Friday was a sightseeing day. On our way out of the campground this morning, a wolf crossed the road about 20 yards in front of us. Our first stop was the Iron Man statute in Chisholm. This statue, which commemorates iron miners, is the third largest free standing statue in the world. Next we visited the Minnesota Mine Museum. This little museum features a variety of household and office items from the early 1900s, and a host of mining trucks and other equipment. The size of some of this old equipment is amazing as shown by the pictures in which Carol serves as a benchmark.
Next we drove to neighboring Hibbing, where we toured the Greyhound Bus Museum. Greyhound was the ultimate outgrowth of the first bus service in the country, which was established to carry miners from the town of Hibbing to the nearby iron mine. The museum has buses of all vintages, including one 1946 model which had been converted to an RV by a subsequent owner. We also visited an overlook for the Hull Rust Mahoning Mine, the largest open pit mine in the world. This operational iron mine has a pit that is as much as 3.5 miles long, 1.5 miles wide, and 600 feet deep. The overlook area has some mining equipment, including a mine truck that holds 170 tons of iron ore. The larger trucks currently in use at the mine hold 240 tons.
Tomorrow we plan to make an early start for Bemidji, where we will visit Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi River.
The rest of this installment covers from Tuesday (July 31) through Friday (August 3).
On Tuesday we drove our car north to Grand Portage National Memorial, located just a few miles south of the Canadian border. This is the site of one of the main North West Fur Company trading posts in the United States. The company was active from the 1780s to the 1810s and exported millions of dollars of furs, making its senior partner the richest man in Canada. Between 1811 and 1821, the company was taken over by the Hudson Bay Company, whose hostile take-over tactics included starting rumors about North West, stealing its accounting books, and other mafia-like activities. That evening we had dinner as a group at the Naniboujou Lodge: most of us ordered Walleye, a popular fish which is the house specialty. The Lodge has brightly painted walls and ceilings with Ojibwa colors and symbols.
On Wednesday, we drove the Gunflint Trail which extends about 60 miles northwest from Grand Marais into the Boundary Lakes area – the large system of lakes that roughly follows the U.S. / Canadian border. We saw the results of a forest fire which burned in the area in May of this year. Otherwise the scenery was typical northern woods: nice, but nothing to write home about. We had lunch at the Gunflint Lodge, where we could look across the lake to Canada. That evening we had a final get together (wine and appetizers) before the members of our group go our separate ways.
On Thursday, we drove to our campground in Mountain Iron, a town in the middle of Minnesota’s Iron Range. We ran into an unexpected detour and spent about 45 minutes driving the RV on gravel Forest Service roads, an experience everyone should have. En route, we stopped at Soudan Underground Mine State Park, where we took a tour of the 27th (and last) level of the deepest iron mine in the world. The Soudan mine was closed in 1962, when its operations were no longer financially viable. The 27th level is about 2350 feet below ground and stays at a constant temperature of 52 degrees. We reached the mine reached by about a 3-minute ride in a steel elevator car that descends at about 10 mph.
Friday was a sightseeing day. On our way out of the campground this morning, a wolf crossed the road about 20 yards in front of us. Our first stop was the Iron Man statute in Chisholm. This statue, which commemorates iron miners, is the third largest free standing statue in the world. Next we visited the Minnesota Mine Museum. This little museum features a variety of household and office items from the early 1900s, and a host of mining trucks and other equipment. The size of some of this old equipment is amazing as shown by the pictures in which Carol serves as a benchmark.
Next we drove to neighboring Hibbing, where we toured the Greyhound Bus Museum. Greyhound was the ultimate outgrowth of the first bus service in the country, which was established to carry miners from the town of Hibbing to the nearby iron mine. The museum has buses of all vintages, including one 1946 model which had been converted to an RV by a subsequent owner. We also visited an overlook for the Hull Rust Mahoning Mine, the largest open pit mine in the world. This operational iron mine has a pit that is as much as 3.5 miles long, 1.5 miles wide, and 600 feet deep. The overlook area has some mining equipment, including a mine truck that holds 170 tons of iron ore. The larger trucks currently in use at the mine hold 240 tons.
Tomorrow we plan to make an early start for Bemidji, where we will visit Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi River.
