Be more safe, have more fun: North Shore guide services

Looking for a great new North Shore experience? Why not go out with a certified professional and try some exciting new sport on the cliffs or waves of this mighty country?

Here's my list of guides and organizations that can help you have an unforgettable (and safe) adventure:

Sea kayaking
Positive Energy Outdoors
Sawtooth Adventures
North Shore Expeditions
UMD Recreational Sports and Outdoor Program

Rock climbing
UMD Recreational Sports and Outdoor Program
Positive Energy Outdoors
Minnesota DNR I Can Climb!


Surfing, Stand Up Paddleboarding
Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply
UMD Recreational Sports and Outdoor Program

Sea kayak the Tettegouche shoreline

This morning I was out in a small boat on big Lake Superior. It had been way too long since I took a sea kayak down to the rocky North Shore and paddled along those cliffs and beaches. 


At Tettegouche State Park, I drove in just past the visitor center to a small parking lot by the Baptism River. From there, I carried my boat about 150 yards down to the mouth of the Baptism (Funny, last time I did that 20 years ago it was a whole lot easier).


Once I squeezed myself through the hatch and into the boat, I floated with the Baptism current out into the open lake. What an amazing treat to round the bend and see the cliffs rise up before me. Palisade Head loomed in the distance, big even from a mile away. 

It's a good thing it was such a calm and warm day. I wasn't wearing a wetsuit, I have no bilge pump, and I am not able to do the Eskimo roll. And I was alone. My only safety back-up was to stay close to shore and watch for beaches I could quickly swim to and get out of the water.


Along the short stretch of shoreline within the state park, there were three larger beaches and four or five more tiny little coves reachable only by water. The rocky points range from dark, smooth black basalt to funky, angular red rhyolite. Here and there, the swells found small hollows to thump inside. Two modern dwellings loom high over the shoreline, and then there is one intact fish camp right on the water's edge.  


It was a short paddle west along the shore to Palisade Head, where I tucked into one of the sea caves. How cool that was, to be covered by rock and cradled by water. 


Gosh, I've got to do this more often!

It's not THAT warm

After a lovely late winter snowfall and a fine Tour Duluth cross country ski experience, record warm temps rolled into the North Shore area and have thrown local folks in a tizzy. Last weekend, spring-hungry Duluthians were out doing the bizarre. Out past the ice piles left by the Leap Day Blizzard, two guys in a canoe drift alongside the Park Point beach, right where one year ago the ice volcanoes were still blowing. It's not THAT warm.

Although about half the Park Point beach is still covered in blue-ice boulders, there was enough sand for at least one person to stroll barefoot. It's not THAT warm.

 This was a little more like it. Duluth's Lakewalk was full of strollers enjoying the sunshine. Maybe it WAS that warm; I sure enjoyed my walk.

Just to remind us here on the North Shore how long we've got to go before it's really spring here, there's been a poof of wind off the lake the last few days. Lake Superior water is about 38 degrees, so it's a cool poof. And as the Twin Cities reaches freaky high temps in the 80s, we are still a pleasant 45 here.So even if it is THAT warm somewhere else, it sure isn't here.

Resolve to explore the shore

Need a fun resolution for the New Year? How about resolving to take a new North Shore adventure? Resolve to hike or ski or paddle somewhere you haven't been.

There are so many great trails on the North Shore, for hiking, skiing, even for paddling. After twenty-five years of exploring the North Shore, I still haven't done it all.  Here are a few things I RESOLVE to do in 2011.

I resolve to ski the whole Picnic Loop in one outing. The Picnic Loop runs through the heart of the amazinging terrific Sugarbush trail system, and is either 23 or 25 kilometers long depending on where you start. Back before skate skiing and machine trail grooming, it would take the average skier half a day to do the loop, requiring a picnic lunch. 

The map above is from our fine book, Skiing the North Shore. Nowadays skate skiers do the 24 kilometer loop in under two hours, putting the whole "picnic" concept aside. But as a pokey classic skier, I'll need at least four hours to do the loop, complete with the "classic" lunch break.

This summer, I resolve to paddle my sea kayak on the North Shore three times. I've kayaked the Apostle Islands, Pukaskwa National Park, and Nipigon Bay, but for the last eight years my sea kayak has sat in the back yard gathering spiders and sand. I need to take it out again. It's too late to paddle through the sea arch at Tettegouche, but that rugged shoreline will be one of my day trips, for sure. 

The Lake Superior Water Trail runs from Duluth to Grand Marais and beyond, using a combination of public access points and designated campsites. The Minnesota DNR is the best source of information about paddling on the North Shore; be sure to check out their excellent maps. 


What are your North Shore resolutions??

Thanks to the bloggers at the Salt Lake Tribune for this idea...and good luck to them!

"Seattle Style" canoeing: one trend to avoid

A couple of beginning canoe paddlers capsized off of Cove Point Lodge on the North Shore this week. They learned the hard way on Lake Superior. I just hope they weren't following the latest trend out of the Pacific Northwest.

While Duluth was under siege this last week by the Tall Ships, I was in the Pacific Northwest. We had a lovely few days in Seattle, then a great five days out in the San Juan Islands.

In Seattle, my friend Paul took us to a few out-of-the-way places along the shores of the city's beautiful lakes Union and Washington. We had our lunch of Vietnamese sandwiches by a public canoe dock. As seasoned canoe paddlers, we could barely watch as one paddler after another headed out from the dock without any clue how to maneuver their boats. Or how to sit in them: facing each other seemed most popular.



We soon came to call this "Seattle Style" canoeing:



Now, I know a lot of trends start in Seattle and work their way east. Grunge hardly made a dent in already-grungy Duluth. We did finally get a Starbucks here four or five years ago. And I can hardly wait for those tasty Vietnamese sandwiches to make it to Duluth.

But Seattle Style canoeing can stay right where it is. Canoe 64, with the boy and his mom, capsized out in the open water. Everyone was fine, and mom, child and the canoe got a free trip back to shore with the rescue boat.



Like we learned from the cautionary tale of Seattle's Kurt Cobain or a Microsoft stock crash, a trend out of Seattle can lead to disaster. Let's just hope that couple at Cove Point weren't blindly following the Seattle Style canoeing trend.

What washes up

I fear Lake Superior. More so, I fear what it might bring me. We live right at the end of 350 miles of open Lake Superior water and anything could wash up here.

This morning, in one of Lake Superior's lighthearted moments, it was a beer can. From Istanbul. Efes Pilsener. Imagine the Turkish sailor out at anchor tossing his empty over the rails.



After a big blow in October, some local artist had a good time with the debris that washed up on the shore here, taking some fisherman's gloves and a smelter's boot and making installation art on the dune of old driftwood.



But the lake brings real gruesome things, not just foreign beer and art material.

Nine years ago this fall, Tomasz Wlodarcyk, a 34-year-old Polish sailor, disappeared from his ship in the Duluth harbor. The following April, the body washed up on this beach.

Back in July 1885, the body of Louis Foucalt, a French-Canadian who'd written his name on his arm, was found on this beach by a little girl playing in the sand.

Darn that historical research. I know too much.

When Douglas Winter disappeared from the North Shore in October and his sea kayak washed up at Twin Points, I feared that he, or actually his body, would wash up here on Park Point. After his lifejacket came to shore a few days after he disappeared, I was even more afraid.

For the last month, when I'd take the dog for a walk on the beach, I'd hesitantly look up the shoreline, half-sure I would see Winter's limp corpse. Fortunately for me, the gales of November never really hit this year. Big Lake Superior storms, with their raging east winds, bring all sorts of things to our beach.

Winter's body surfaced and came to shore maybe ten miles away from where he died. The body had headed this way, but only made it to Two Harbors. Winter, it turns out, had shot himself out on the lake, shortly after calling his girlfriend on his cellphone to report increasing waves.

He wanted to disappear. I feared he would un-disappear, right onto my beach.

I know too much. It's a big, beautiful lake. With just the occasional unpleasant surprise.

Nothing finer

There is nothing finer than a Lake Superior sunset.

Well, actually...

There is nothing finer than paddling a canoe with my life partner, as we've done across boundary lakes and wilderness desert rivers. Our first big date was a 10-day trip across the Quetico and our one big wedding present was a 17-foot Old Town Penobscot canoe.

Plus, the sunset gets a little finer when it's got a sun dog glowing rainbow colors off to the side.

And it's mighty fine to have all this in our backyard. Instead of reading the latest Time magazine last night, I went out for a paddle with Sally.

So here's the truth: There is nothing finer than a Lake Superior sunset and sundog viewed with my wife from our canoe just out our back door.

Except maybe that kiss on the beach afterwards.

Throw me in the water

I dove into the lake this weekend. Big old cold Lake Superior. Air temps had climbed into the 90s, suffocating the marathon runners. The lake water warmed up from unswimmable cold, maybe the 50 degree range, to tolerable, maybe 60 degrees. I didn't want to go at first, but with a flat-out dive I was in the water. Oh, and it felt good.

Something about going out against my will, something about how it all turned out all right, brought me back to a bittersweet memory of summer camp. Summer camps are notorious for their traditions, for good and for evil. I could spend weeks on this blog analyzing my summer camp experiences and how they made me what I am today. That would get really boring. So I'll just do this once.



I spent most of my summers at Camp Koochiching, on Rainy Lake up by International Falls. Unbelievably, I'd go away for 5 or 8 weeks at the age my sons are now. The camp sessions were half in camp, on Deer Island, doing traditional camp things like sailing or riflery or woodcraft, and half on trail going to some deep wilderness lakes and rivers in the Quetico and in the crownlands north of there.

One goofy tradition at Koochiching was randomly throwing people in the lake. A mob would gather around some popular boy or some irritating boy, grab him fully clothed, then march him squirming spread-eagle down to the dock, chanting "IN THE LAKE! IN THE LAKE!" And in they'd go, with a huge splash and cascades of laughter from the throwers and the one who got tossed.

Here's the dock at the camp area for 11-12 year olds:



I was so afraid of being the next victim that I dug into my own emotional trench. I would not be that popular boy whose charisma demanded being taken down a few notches with a good wetting. I would not be that nerdy boy who would make a good victim with squeeling and cries of injustice. Six summers at Koochiching, and I never got the toss. I perfected the art of the middle path, to neither boast nor to irritate.

But since when was going into the lake such an awful thing? Sure, you'd get wet, along with your clothes. Clothes dry in an hour, kids even more quickly. Tossing the nerdy kid just because he'd squeel was cruel, I'll admit. And when the mob tossed your mattress in, too, that was taking it way too far.

Maybe it's nostalgia for youth and the path not taken, but I'm wishing now I'd been tossed a few times. I want to be "out there." I want people to respond to me, to react to me. Sure I'd put up a little fight, but I'd let you win. Get a good swing going as you send me over the dock edge, okay? And if you toss my mattress in, too, I'll get you back.

"See, I told ya you get ice cream."

Minnesota DNR teams with Dairy Queen to reward safe young boaters

Minnesota kids wearing life jackets while boating this summer will not only be staying safe, but also could be rewarded with an ice cream treat.

The DNR has partnered with Dairy Queen to provide a PFD Panda Award certificate to youngsters who are observed by conservation officers wearing a life jacket while boating. The certificate includes a tear-off coupon that entitles the child to a free cone or cheeseburger from participating Dairy Queen restaurants.

“We at International Dairy Queen are excited with the idea,” said Ryan Hassebroek, regional marketing manager for the Minnesota-based company. “We thought this was a great way to encourage children to wear their life jackets and we hope that safe boating behavior continues right through adulthood.”

DNR COs report that children have called them over to their family’s boat so they can earn the life jacket award. One child said to his friend who had come along, “See, I told ya you get ice cream for wearing your life jacket.”

(Released June 15, 2009)

More fun, middle-age style

Having just posted to this blog yesterday morning whining about how kids today are having all the fun, I got a calm but needy call from Erik Simula. This is the gentleman paddling his 13-foot birch bark canoe around Minnesota's Arrowhead. The canoe has about an inch of freeboard, so just a little wave will roll over the gunnels. He'd completed the entire Minnesota North Shore, with ten days windbound.

As detailed in today's Duluth News Tribune, Erik got swamped by the wild waves coming through the Duluth Ship Canal. No small craft should be in that canal, ever. A crew from the Duluth Fire Department came out and rescued him, his dog Kitigan, and his boat, sort of in that order.

Erik needed a place to dry off and to regain his senses. He remembered that I'd offered him a stopping place and, through a mutual friend, called me up.

We got his clothes in the dryer, got some coffee and turkey sandwiches in him, swapped some tales, then sent him on his way.

His canoe was at the Coast Guard station, which is just two blocks from our house. Here he is, with Kitigan, getting ready to take off again after some canoe repair:



Erik is MY AGE. He's 44. He's not some young punk. He's not putting his trip in YouTube. He needs that extra time to apply more pitch to the seams of his canoe.

Fair winds, Erik...enjoy it, old man!

They're having more fun

You know you're middle aged when you think other people are having more fun than you are, just because they're younger.

After my mighty-fine hike up and around the Cascade River the other day, I found this cute little busy car in the parking lot. The license plate said North Carolina, the big plastic containers in the back said "Road Trip," and the kayak on top said "Fun fun fun." Sure my Honda CRV was tricked out with, mmm, a Holiday Store refillable coffee mug. But in a battle for the coolest, I lost before I even began.

Was it a couple of whitewater dudes here to check out our extreme "creek boating" in the spring run-off? Was it a young couple on an adventure road trip/date? Maybe it was just one guy in a lonely pursuit of the perfect wave.

I love hiking and camping and skiing the North Shore. But I'm guessing whoever was driving this car was having a lot more "yee-hahs!" than I was. They were probably taking videos for YouTube too, like this one below. Punks. Kids today.



Someday they'll be middle-aged, too.

'Tweens in the Wilderness

Slim Lake, off of the North Arm Road off of the Echo Trail north of Ely, has been a great introduction to the BWCA Wilderness for our family and our friends. Our first tentative half-hour canoe outings were here. The portage in is short and easy, and the lake is beautiful. After a short canoe paddle, or even during it, there are high rock outcrops to climb, like Hans and his friend Albert in the picture above.

However, it's been hard to impress the boys with the importance of the Wilderness or the boundary they cross when we enter it. How do you impress a jaded kid with what isn't there? No motors, no houses, no tangible signs of humans. It's all about what is not there. Even the definition in the 1964 Wilderness Act is a negative: untrammeled.

What marks the Wilderness? Sometime in the last ten years the classic wooden sign at the wilderness boundary has disappeared, so you don't get that dramatic moment of stepping into the BWCAW. Instead, we filled out the day permit at the parking lot and talked just a bit about the rules and regs. Later, on a shore excursion to climb a nice hunk of granite, in a a fine moment of boy energy well-spent, we dismantled an illegal firepit and chucked the smoke-stained boulders into the lake with ginormous splooshes. The firepit had two of those plastic BWCA-legal beer bottles, which was ironic given the illegality of the campsite.

But I still don't think they got it. Twelve-year-olds maybe can't grasp the bigger concept...I didn't when I was canoeing the BWCA and Quetico at that age. And that's fine.

Wilderness is a great place to climb the rocks and make goofy faces and be with your buddy. And that's as true for a 12-year-old as a 44-year-old.

New North Shore nook

McQuade Harbor, about halfway between Duluth and Two Harbors along Old Highway 61, celebrated its grand opening today. After decades of planning for North Shore harbors, and after some intense civic disputes in the last ten years, the finished product is there, very solid, large and real.

I walked away from the big white tent with all the muckity-mucks and the speechifying to tour the site. There is serious engineering at McQuade... not only does the boat ramp go under Old 61, there's also a pedestrian tunnel under the road. The parking lot is huge and was nearly full today with cars for the big event. The bathrooms even have running water.

I'm not a boater. I opposed this project in print when I used to do a monthly environmental column. But now that it's here, how can a non-motorboater make the most of it?

Two guys I knew were already out in sea kayaks...those are my people. Dudley said the kayak launch was a little rough and he was glad they had plastic boats. But there was a ramp just for walk-down launches like kayaks. I recall that the kayaking along this stretch is rather unspectacular, with mostly low beaches and mini-cliffs. For me, it's a nice stretch to paddle close to shore.

A walkway rings the eastern half of the harbor, out past some docks and then out into the breakwall. Not a hike, but not a bad place to get out of the car before hitting Lakeview Castle, Nokomis or the Scenic Cafe for dinner.

The tunnel under Old 61 reminds me of the underpass in the Harry Potter movie "Order of the Phoenix" where the dementors came after Harry and Dudley. Just needed some flickering lights, and a good cold depressing fog off the lake.

So it's a nice spot for a stop on your way up the shore. There are cool cement benches along the outside of breakwall for shorecasting that could be spectacular (and very wet) in a good northeast blow. But it's worth a stop on a sunny or stormy day to see the lake from another perspective. Check it out!