David & LaVerne - On the Oregon Trail - 2010: North Shore of Lake Superior

On Thursday, August 26, we left Lake Bemidji State Park and drove a little over 225 miles to Silver bay on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. We followed US Hwy 2 to Duluth. We think we were traveling through the southern portion of Minnesota’s Great North Woods, and there were a couple of National Forests that we passed through, but the rest of the terrain was young growth forest - mostly pines, with a few hardwoods along. Very few farms. Timber is a big industry in these parts, thus the adolescent woodlands.

In Duluth we took Hwy 53, then Hwy 61 north to the North Shore of Lake Superior and got a campsite in a State Forest campground.

Lake Superior is the largest of the Great lakes - but how much larger than the others is probably not well known. Lake Superior is 350 miles long, 160 miles wide, and with a shore line of 2725 miles, is 31,820 square miles - roughly the size of South Carolina. The average depth is 482 feet with a maximum depth of 1132 feet. The average temp in summer is 40 degrees - pretty chilly. From the information we read, it could contain the volume of all the other Great Lakes plus 3 additional Lake Eries.

Friday was a day of sightseeing on the North Shore. We stopped at Tettegouche State Park where the Baptism River enters Lake Superior. We walked a trail to the mouth of the river. At the mouth of the river is a huge “gravel bar” (like a sand bar, but covered with rocks).

We were really surprised at the shore line in all of this area. I guess we were expecting a gradual sloping terrain with maybe sandy shores, but the shore is very rugged with high cliffs at the waters edge. Not much sunbathing going on around here. However, it is very beautiful and scenic.

We also visited Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. From the picnic area of the park we found a trail that allowed us to get out far enough on the rocks to get a really good view of the lighthouse.

In the community of Beaver Bay LaVerne spied a flea market that had the whole front yard full of tables filled with all kinds of glassware. She had to stop and check it all out. They did have a lot of really beautiful stuff, but their prices were very high.

Saturday we moved about 40 miles south back down Hwy 61 to the town of Two Harbors. Got a nice campsite in a municipal park campground. This afternoon after church we did some riding on the North Shore in the Two Harbors area. The town gets it name from the two harbors divided by a rocky point - Burlington Bay where our campground is and Agate Bay. From the picture below you can see that the shore is still real rocky, but it is not the high cliffs like it is farther north. The Two Harbors Lighthouse is the oldest working lighthouse in Minnesota and has guarded the point between the two harbors since 1892.