Day 123, May 28, Voyageur's National Park

To visit Voyageur's National Park, one must seek it out and travel some distance; one doesn't simply stumble upon it.  Voyageur's, named after the French-Canadian trappers/traders who plied these waters in birch canoes trading beaver pelts, is exquisitely beautiful and also rather remote.  The vast majority of visitors are fishermen in small private boats on any number of lakes dotting the area.  A mixture of conifers and deciduous trees comprise what is not water; the trees are not yet quite out in full leaf and the ice-bound lakes have just now fully thawed.  Record flooding has caused quite a bit of damage and prevented us from getting into the campground I reserved months ago.  But even though it is Memorial Day weekend, I was able to scramble and find another spot for Bambi because so few people travel to Voyageur's.  In fact, the visitors centers opened for the season just today; we were their first customers.  Voyageur's sits in extreme northern Minnesota abutting the Canadian border, and our closest building for church tomorrow is just across the border.

Wooded, remote, full of water and stocked with friendly folk everywhere, Voyageur's is absolutely gorgeous.  We spent the day scoping out the kayak adventures we'd like to take as well as exploring the area on foot, which is minimal as most of the park is comprised of four vast lakes and myriad islands on them.  Two things concern us as we plot kayak trails:  wind (the bane of every kayaker) and the poor weather forecast.  But we will adjust and perhaps spend more time in the lovely forest than on the water.  We shall see.

Three amazing things:

#1- The hikes we took through the newly budding forests along the Blind Ash Bay Loop, the Beaver Dam Loop, and the Sullivan Bay Trail were delightful:  flat, lush, full of  all kinds of birdsong, we even glimpsed the rear end of a black bear loping down the trail in front of us.  Because the park sees so few visitors and because most of those are fishing on the water, we encountered only a handful of other tourists and on only one trail.  The feeling of remoteness is quite refreshing.  

#2- The flooding here is quite extensive.  Passing through some small hamlets, we saw The Red Cross as well as the Army National Guard at work bagging sand, placing sandbags to protect homes and businesses, and aiding locals extract furniture, boats, and other belongings from piers, boat houses and fish houses under water.  Sadly, the forecast calls for continued flood levels to rise for another couple of weeks.

  

#3-Walleye is one of Aaron's favorite fish dishes, and the quaint wee restaurant in the town of Orr where we are camped served it up in splendid fashion.  He learned to love walleye when he visited Minnesota periodically while working for Marvin Windows years ago.  The Dam Restaurant provided a lovely, romantic, and intimate dining experience, but you'd never have known that from the outside appearance of the shack.  Eating out is a real treat for Aaron as we do it so rarely.

Good deed:  While at dinner, we surveyed the few other patrons all speaking in private hushed tones and picked out a couple about our age to treat; we paid for their meal as a surprise.  I think Aaron enjoyed the surprise as much or more so than did the woman.  She was quite delighted and glanced around the dining room with joyful sparkling eyes; almost made Aaron cry.  He's so tender and is quite delights in making others happy.