Summer Vacaction 2017 - Voyageur's National Park

Our thinking in planning this trip was that Voyageur's National Park in northern Minnesota would provide some mild summer weather and relief from the oppressive June heat of New Orleans.  We got the relief but also got a lot of rain showers and average temperatures 5-10 degrees below normal.  This limited ideal swimming conditions but we found other ways to spend our time.

Logistically, Voyageur's isn't the simplest trip to plan.  It's close to a five hour drive from Minneapolis and the only way to get around in the park is by boat.  It's possible to fly into International Falls but we didn't see much of an advantage there and decided it would be nice to spend a half day in Minneapolis.  We met Brian at the airport, checked into a hotel, and spent the rest of the day walking  around the riverfront area of downtown.  Living in New Orleans we found it interesting viewing the Mississippi river much closer to its source waters.  We checked out the only true waterfall on the river right in downtown Minneapolis.  St. Anthony Falls were modified by the Army Corps of Engineers to prevent damage from erosion.  Reinforced by concrete, they don't quite appear natural but the location and drop is preserved.

This area was historically a draw for industries, especially flour milling, that used water power from Saint Anthony Falls.  With some of the old infrastructure still in place and some modern additions, downtown Minneapolis was an attractive place to spend our first night.

We got right to business the next morning.  With a quick stop at the local Whole Foods, we did our best to stock up for 7 days on the water without any other chance to re-stock groceries.  A mere five or so hours later we left our rental car for the week and traded up for a 42' houseboat from Ebel's Voyageur Adventures on the Ash River close to where lakes Kabetogama and Namakan come together in Voyageur's National Park.  Along with the houseboat, we also had a dinghy with a 10 h.p. motor, a canoe, and a kayak.  After about an hour or so of training, we were off on our own to start exploring the park.  There are specific mooring sites for houseboats all around the lakes that can be taken on a first-come first-serve basis.  As long as you have a houseboat permit from the park ($10/night), you're good to go.  Once we exited Ash River and Sullivan Bay, we headed east into Namakan Lake and opted for a mooring site on the west side of Kubel Island with a view across the water to islands in Canada taking in the last sunlight of the day.

 

Our plan for day 2 was pretty simple: head north to a mooring site closer to the Kettle Falls area that separates Rainy Lake from Namakan.  It wasn't a long trip as we selected houseboat site N19 at the mouth of Mica Bay.  We decided to moor there for two nights so we could explore Mica Bay and Kettle Falls.  Mandy and I got an early start on day 2, taking the canoe out in the shallow bay area right next to our houseboat.  There was a decent bit of sun in the morning.  The water looks very pretty when the sun shines through it.  It reminds me of some of the tannic waters in south Louisiana and Mississippi but Brian tells me that the tea color in this case comes from oxidized iron in the waters.  In the shallows we could see meandering stems pushing small lily pads to the surface, some with the pads still underwater.  There were countless tadpoles in the shallows.  We also saw a sunning western painted turtle and a common snapper turtle swimming amongst the rocks in deeper waters.

 

A bit later in the day we took the dinghy boat to the end of Mica Bay and hiked a trail up to Beast Lake.  The scenery was wet and beautiful.  We braved the deer flies, mosquitoes, and ticks and made it to a Beast Lake overlook point before heading back.

The motorized dinghy boat is required by law as a safety precaution for people on houseboats.  It turned out to be a very useful way to get around when we wanted to cover some distance.  We spent a relaxing evening on the houseboat, planning for a longer paddle and trip to Kettle Falls the next day.  Mandy and I spotted a family of four river otters cruising around our bay.  They proved a bit too elusive for a decent photo.

We started day 3 by taking an extended paddle with Brian around Mica Bay.  Here is Mandy's attempt at a behind the head action shot of our paddling adventure:

We saw several boats out fishing, including a nice older couple from Arkansas.  We saw at least one loon out and about.  It wasn't our first of the trip but they were proving difficult to photograph.  They spend a lot of time below the surface and you never quite know where they'll pop up next.  We saw a few other water fowl but mostly just enjoyed the peaceful paddling in the calm waters.

One of the real benefits of a houseboat vacation is that it allows for a lot of relaxing leisure time.  We moved the boat once a day at most.  The rest of the time was spent paddling, hiking, or just sitting around.

 

When the weather permitted, we'd sit on top of the boat with our binoculars and enjoy the sights.

We still had one goal for day 3 and that was a visit to the historic Kettle Falls area.  Besides the falls, a main attraction is the hotel that is the only lodging in Voyageur's National Park and is only accessible by boat.  This place enjoyed its heyday in the early 1900's during the construction of the dam and serves as the portage site between Namakan Lake and Rainy Lake to the north.  Only smaller boats that can be towed by truck can be portaged, not houseboats.  I was a bit surprised to find out that the falls flow from Namakan to Rainy Lake.  I would have guessed the opposite direction of north to south.   We took the dinghy and about 30 minutes later we were walking around Kettle Falls.

 
After checking out the falls, we spent some time at the hotel's bar and wrapped things up for the evening with a meal at the hotel restaurant.  Apparently there were some foundation issues with the building at some point and they decided to preserve the slanted floors during renovations to keep some unique character.  The wood floors must have been redone though as the curvature is very smooth.  Brian and I re-lived some of our grad school glory days with a few games of pool like at the old Showdown Saloon on the drag in Austin.

We spent the evening back on top of the houseboat and saw our first beaver along with some other water fowl that I'm sure Mandy can ID.

After two nights at Mica Bay, we were ready to explore another part of the lake on day 4.  Mandy and I were completely off the modern communications grid but Brian had a decent cell signal that he used to download reading materials (he forgot his Kindle in the seat pocket of the car) and check weather forecasts.  It was looking like day 4 would provide the most sun so we had a bit of a dilemma.  We wanted to make it much further to the east in Namakan Lake and then slowly work our way back over the next few days.  But instead we opted to take advantage of the sunlight and just go to McManus Island site N17 six miles to the south.   Mooring here was a bit more difficult, at least for me.  I turned the wheel over to Brian.  He couldn't quite straighten us out either after my clumsy approach so we just used the ropes to yank the boat around into a more straight on position.

 

After getting our first decent loon photo and relaxing a bit, we took the dinghy out for a little tour of Junction Bay, including the gentle falls at the end of the Johnson River.

We ended the day relaxing back at the boat.  I took advantage of the sunlight and went for a swim.  We then grilled some food and took in our first direct view of a sunset.

That small lump on the water is me

There's nothing more manly than grilling veggie burgers and drinking rosé.

Day 5 took us west to Lost Bay in Kabetogama Lake.  We abandoned our hopes of exploring further east, reasoning that we'd be spending too much time covering long distances on slow houseboat commutes.  Lost Bay promised some decent hiking options, as well as the multi-fingered Long Slough that looked good for paddling.  We chose houseboat site K18 and set out to explore the slough.

 

We saw a couple more beavers and their characteristic mounds of branches and logs.  We watched one beaver for a bit swimming away from us, trying to figure out if it had its eyes closed.  Shortly after we looked away we heard a loud WHACK!! and noticed only a circular wake where the beaver had been.  It started to drizzle gently but Mandy and I decided to check out one more branch of the slough.  This proved worthwhile as we stumbled across another family of otters and followed them along for awhile before they got annoyed and picked up their pace.

Beaver before its loud whack and dive

Two of the river otters

Landscape and wildlife viewing from the top of the boat was excellent this evening.  One loon kept us entertained for a good couple of hours, diving and popping up all over the place.  I spotted a turtle scrambling down from a rocky shore well after sunset, suggesting it was biding its time in the bushes above, waiting on a preferred foraging time.  A bald eagle flew over the bay and landed in a pine tree across the water and about 15 minutes later its mate did the same.  With only around seven hours of darkness here at this time of year, we'd often read in bed and gaze periodically out of the windows.  On this evening we spotted a family of ducks and also a white pelican, a bird species we had previously associated with coastal waters.

This was the first night that we were a bit bothered by the acoustics of some gentle wake under the boat.  These sounds were enhanced by a slight wind from the west, which was our most unsheltered side.  To start day 6, we enjoyed an early morning paddle before moving onto our next site.

 

With the expectation of more western winds, we moved a bit further into Lost Bay and selected houseboat site K40.  This brought us closer to the trailhead we planned to dinghy over to and I spotted my first (and only) snake of the trip, an eastern gartersnake.

The gartersnake was too elusive for a full-body shot

 At this point we were looking forward to stretching our legs on the trails north of Lost Bay.  There were a couple of loop options that we could potentially combine to get some mileage in.  We dinghied over to the far east dock leading to the trailhead closest to Agnes Lake.  From there we hiked the lower loop clockwise with a short detour to an Ek Lake overlook.  The views of Lost Bay were fantastic along the way. 

Lost Bay

Ek Lake

At the western junction with the upper loop, we decided to add some more distance to the hike by merging the two and doing an outer loop.  Unfortunately, we did not make it very far as the upper loop was not well maintained and we lost evidence of a trail within a mile.  We hiked back to the lower loop and continued clockwise back to the dock.  At the eastern junction with the upper loop, the trail went over what showed as the thin part of a lake on the map.  Instead it was the land between two lakes because of some impressive beaver dam engineering separating the upper body of water to our left from the lower body to our right.  There was an impressive difference of around 10 ft or so in the water levels and the park service must have been confident enough in the dam to add a permanent wooden path over the boggy area just below the dam.

Some beaver handiwork

Evidence of the Corps of Beaver Engineers

At Agnes lake we spotted a large deer with a nice set of antlers.  He stared at us for awhile but started to take off before I could get the camera set for much of a shot.

There's a deer in there if you look closely

At this point we'd just about finished the loop.  A wood frog hopped off the trail just before we got back to the dock. 

This wouldn't be an honest account of our hike without some mention of our trials and tribulations with dipterans and arachnids, specifically mosquitoes, deer flies, and ticks.  The deer flies were surprisingly polite, mostly hovering safe distances from our heads, too shy to ask for permission to land.  When I held the camera out for photos they were quick to land on my hands.  The ones we have in Louisiana are much more aggressive.  The mosquitoes were also ubiquitous but moving at a quick pace mostly kept them at bay.  The ticks, however, attacked us relentlessly.  Note the human behavior in the beaver dam photo above: Mandy is shielding her face from dipterans and Brian is removing ticks.

We knew what we were getting into from our last hike and prepared accordingly.  I tucked my pant legs into my socks and shirt into my pants so their first taste of flesh wouldn't come until they climbed to my collar.  Just for fun, I decided to count how many I pulled off my clothing over the course of the hike.  The person leading the way always gets the most ticks.  Brian took the lead at the beginning and was the one to solve the mystery of where the ticks hide out waiting for their mammalian rides.  At first we thought it might be the ferns that could be up to waist high.  We didn't see any ticks on fern leaves though.  Instead it was blades of grass, mostly ankle to knee high.  They just sit there on the ends with a couple of their hook-like legs lifted up, waiting to catch a moving snag.  From there they slowly make their way up the clothing or into any crevice they can find like the tongues of shoes or where pant legs are tucked into socks.  With a bit of vigilance it's not too difficult for aware humans to keep them from getting their blood meals.  I imagine they do better on some of the more furry mammals though.  So, I promise this is not an exaggeration, my final count was 280 ticks!! The last 40+ of those I did not find until we were back at the dock or later.  They were hidden in my shoes, between pant legs and socks, or in mesh breathing cavities of my hiking pants that were evidently designed to keep me cooler but without a thought in mind of how they make great tick hidey-holes.

This cluster of ticks was trying to get in between pant legs and socks

The day was warm enough with sufficient sunlight that I was able to go for another swim back at the boat.  We ended this day much like the others, enjoying views from the houseboat during another prolonged summer dusk.

 

Day 7 was the last full day for our Voyageur's adventure.  We needed to move to a mooring site closer to the entrance to Ash River so we could be back to Ebel's base before 9 AM on day 8.  We chose site K32, a bit to the east of Sullivan Bay, the gateway to Ash River.  Up to this point, beyond the undisturbed natural beauty of this place, we had seen very little evidence that we actually were in a US National Park.  So today we decided to dinghy over to the Ash River Visitor Center and hike the Blind Ash Bay Trail.  There wasn't much to the visitor center.  We had joked that we'd need to raid a vending machine there to make sure we had enough food for our last night.  But there was no vending machine there.  Instead, there were a few books and gift items, and some educational exhibits.  We'd have to make do with the scraps of food we had left.  The trail was very nice, affording good views of Blind Ash Bay.  We weren't much troubled by dipterans or arachnids this time.  We only had to remove a few ticks.  It seems that frequently walked trails help thin those little buggers out.

 

We spotted a leopard frog in a boggy area around the houseboat and spent our last evening enjoying natural scenery much like our previous nights, minus the wine since we were all out.  I guess that was as good a sign as any that it was time for our trip to come to an end.

All that was left was to enjoy one more night's sleep in our houseboat and then allow the ebullient Ebel's worker to gently guide us alongside the dock back at Ebel's base on the Ash River.

We had flights later in the day from Minneapolis back to New Orleans for us and Austin for Brian.  We stopped in downtown St. Paul for some pizza before heading to the airport to bring the trip to its end.