Getting a Glimpse of Canada

We are going to be at our campsite at Voyageurs National Park for a week, so we have the time to see all that the park has to offer. We've been to two of the visitor centers, so today we're exploring the area around the third one at Rainy Lake--very close to the Canadian border. We have heard that over 60 moose make their home inside the park, and we're hoping to see one. But we might have to settle for this stuffed guy inside the Rainy Lake visitor center. Standing next to one, you realize how big they are!

We took the ranger-led tour of the gardens outside, and found that it included a nursery for monarch butterflies.

The monarch caterpillars have voracious appetites, eating up as many milkweed leaves as possible. This is their favorite meal, and it just so happens that it make them taste bad to their predators.

The ranger was trying to educate us on the different trees and flowers, and the medicinal and practical uses each had for the Ojibwe Indians that lived in this area. But Denisa was taking pictures of things like butterflies and flowers. Obviously a few of those caterpillars made it into the pretty monarch butterflies that are hanging out in the garden too.

Denisa is a sucker for a pretty flower, and these must be particularly tasty to the resident bees.

The bees were so enjoying the pollen from these sweet blossoms, that they didn't mind a tourist with a camera zooming in on their buzz-iness. (Denisa apologizes for the pun, but remember she lives with a punny guy like Mark.)

Just to show that we did listen and learn on our tour, we took a picture of the unusual tepee in the Indian village portion of the garden. This tribe not only used the birchwood for canoes, but they also found it made a fine home as well.

Another ranger had told us about the non-native cattails that are taking over many inlets on the big northern lakes in Voyageurs National Park.  These cattails are such aggressive growers that they smother the native plants that should be thriving here. So the national park has brought in very specialized equipment to get rid of this aggressive species. This is the "Swamp Devil." With giant propeller blades at the helm, it is tearing the bad cattails into tiny chunks.

Then the aquatic harvester vacuums up the cattail chunks and hauls it away. It sure is a big job to get rid of something that should never have been introduced to this area in the first place.

We are 30 miles away from our motor home, but still inside Voyageurs National Park. This is a big park! Just outside the visitor center, we looked over Rainy Lake and decided it was just too cool to do any kayaking today. Isn't that crazy that it's too cold in July to want to get in the water? We were wishing we had worn jeans, as it was a little nippy in shorts today. It's hard to reprogram ourselves that July does not mean wearing shorts every day.

Since we weren't kayaking, we drove into the town of International Falls to look around. We just had to stop for a picture at Smoky Bear Park. You might notice that Smoky has on his personal flotation device since we are surrounded by water. We hear he dawns a Santa suit in December.

Just as you might suspect, International Falls includes a crossing point into Canada. We decided not to take the time to go through customs to cross the border, especially since we could still get a glimpse of it from where we were standing in the United States. We were looking over the river at the white tent that was in Canada. We watched as the bass boats were hurrying in to meet the 4 p.m. deadline for the Canadian Bass Championship competition. The boaters we talked to reported that the fishing was really good!

We could also see Canada as we sat on the dock eating ice cream in the little fishing village of Rainier.

We were disappointed not to see moose, but we spotted two vicious bears on that same dock right next to the ice cream parlor.

Denisa was sad to miss the Minnesota welcome sign when we entered this state on its southern border. So she insisted on a picture at this northern border entry point. After living here for several weeks, we finally feel properly welcomed! After writing about the voracious bugs we encountered at Itasca State Park, we should note that we really haven't been bothered with bugs as much as we thought we would here in Minnesota. For example, we're enjoying today outside with no insect spray. Nice!

We found that the main industries of this town have to do with all things lumber. We saw long piles of logs stacked high along the highway, ready for the saw mill. We could also smell the paper mill that was using the piles of saw dust to make packaging materials.

We had a good day checking out another town in our neighborhood and getting a glimpse of Canada. The real reason we made the trip was to do some grocery shopping. This is our closest grocery store option, and we were out of milk and (gasp!) ice cream. We can do without some things while we are living in remote areas, but obviously ice cream is not one of them!