One of their past members was a carver-extraordinaire, and he made the lectern in the picture above, as well as the beautiful altar and candelabra pictured below.
Herman Melheim lived right down the road from the church, and his work is featured in museums around the state. But we found them right at church! The congregation was especially proud of the baptimal font, made of a single log.
It was a beautiful weather day, so shortly after we got home from church we headed out on the waters of Lake Kabetogama. We launched the kayak a mile or so from home at Wooden Frog Campground, because that put a chain of islands right in front of us.
We knew it was going to be a great day when we looked up to see this bald eagle watching over us from his perch on a big white pine tree.
Next, a mother duck and her line of ducklings swam right in front of our kayak. The little ones still had their baby fuzz, and they were intent on keeping up with mom.
We have to include another picture of those baby ducks before we head on down the lake.
We picked this route because it was dotted with islands all the way across the lake. Even though we would end up rowing over ten miles today, we always had an island destination close enough to keep us entertained. Occasionally we would stop to stretch our legs on one of those islands.
Sometimes those islands offered special treats, like a whole thicket of wild raspberry bushes.
These berries are bigger than some we have harvested, and if you don't mind all the seeds, they make a nice snack.
As we passed close to another island, we saw movement among the rocks. That's when we saw this critter watching us.
We think this is a mink. He seemed to enjoy watching us, as much as we wanted to see him. We saw another in the water, but he was harder to photograph.
Sorry for all the photographs, but it was fun to take pictures as he kept popping up in different rock openings. Think of it like "Whack-a-mole" with a camera. We also saw two different otters, but they didn't stay above water long enough to get a picture.
Some of these islands aren't very big, but we saw deer more than once today. A doe and her two fawns were on the beach, and our silent kayak got quite close.
This fawn didn't seem to mind us watching, as he walked slowly into the brush.
We stopped for a picnic on one of the islands. Not a bad view for lunch, huh?
Our destination today was the far north side of our lake. We were glad to have the GPS to help find the entry into the Gold River channel.
Instead of being in the open water of a huge lake, now we're in a protected channel with rock walls.
Such a beautifully serene scene with mirror-like water couldn't possibly be dangerous.
But the sign on the left was an indicator of things to come. We had been warned by the ranger not to fall for the calm water, as this is the place where boaters are required to leave the water and portage their boat if they want to continue down the river.
We would rather ride in a boat than carry it, so we turned around and headed back out of Gold River.
As we headed back towards home, we were blessed with other animal sightings. This loon was out for a Sunday afternoon paddle around the lake--just like us.
We are falling in love with the call of the loons. We sometimes hear them in the evening as they call to their friends across the lake. We have only seen lone loons, but we are still watching for a mother and her babies. We've heard that the mother carries them on her back when they are young.
Voyageurs National Park has over 500 islands, so we took a different route home to explore more of them. A few days ago we found a bumper crop of blueberries on the very first island we checked out. Since then, we have found very few blueberries. Today we struck out completely!
Even though they don't satisfy Denisa's appetite for fruit, we are finding other interesting things around these islands. It's fun to find a big eagle nest . . .
. . . and we usually find an eagle perched close by.
Our best eagle find of the day was a pair of bald eagles and their baby perched in the same tree. But our camera had quite a workout today, and the batteries were completely dead by that time. In fact, they ran down as we watched a beaver making his way from land to water on another island. The only picture we got was of the beaver trying to ignore us from his spot in the grass.
It was getting late by the time we made our return trip back to the dock. But we felt like we had been doubly blessed today. We had worshiped God and his creation both indoors and outdoors as we wandered through his wonders here at Lake Kabetogama.
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