We went to the downtown area yesterday to see what July 4th
looked like in a small town. (Our small towns at home are so close to
Asheville it really doesn’t count. The nearest town to International
Falls of any size is Duluth which is 160 miles away.) We just missed the
parade but things were still going on at the park……a short row of vendors
selling mainly junk but with a couple of excellent woodworkers, a little kids
train, and a whole lot of food vendors with lines stretched out for at least
100 feet for every one of them. By the looks of things, eating is the
biggest part of the festivities.
Kiddie train made from plastic 55-gallon drums pulled by a
golf cart. Very clever.
Band shell at the park. We stayed just long enough to
hear them play the Canadian and U.S. national anthems. They got an A for
effort but a D- for music. In their defense, at least they were out there
trying. The crowd, on the other hand, got an F for anthem etiquette as
they were oblivious to it and continued doing whatever they were doing.
Maybe that was because the band was playing so badly they either couldn’t
recognize it or had tuned the band out.
Smokey Bear statue at the entrance to his namesake park.
We didn’t go to the downtown fireworks but were astounded at
how long they lasted. They went on for well over two hours with what
sounded like at least two finales. Fireworks shows are expensive so the
town must have gone all out for it. The noise was ricocheting off a large
building near us so we got a double dose of it. I didn’t realize it was
fireworks and got so irritated by the noise I went out to tell the neighboring
kids to cut it out when I found out what it was. No kids in sight. They were no doubt downtown where the action was. It finally stopped
about 11:30. This place takes its 4th of July seriously.
Today we went on our second boat tour at Voyageurs National
Park. This time it was on Kabetogama Lake (pronounced Kab-eh-TOE-gah-mah
in case anyone’s wondering) which runs parallel to Rainy Lake on the south
side. (It’s an Ojibwe word meaning “lake that runs parallel to the big
lake.”) There isn’t nearly as much boat traffic on this lake, probably
because it is entirely within the national park unlike Rainy Lake which is the
northern edge of the park. Most of the boats we saw were fishing
craft…..only one water-skier and no jet skis.
Kabetogama has a two-channel outlet to Rainy Lake at the
eastern end which was blocked by two dams about 100 years ago. The reason
for the dams wasn’t to create power as is most often the case, but to get
timber down the rapids from Kabetogama to Rainy Lake without log jams at the
rapids. Moving the logs through the sluices at the dams was still very dangerous
work but at least they didn’t end up in massive jams. Once down the
ten-foot drop to Rainy Lake the logs were moved west to the sawmill and paper
mills at International Falls and Fort Frances, Ontario.
Kettle Falls Dam at Kettle Falls between Kabetogama and
Rainy lakes. Squirrel Falls is the other dam but it’s on the Canadian
side so we couldn’t get to it. It probably looks just like this one
anyway.
Outflow into Rainy Lake from the dam.
Kettle Falls has a historic 100-yr-old hotel which is now
owned by the Park Service and operated by a concessionaire. We had a very
good lunch there before walking the half mile to the dam.
The Kettle Falls Hotel, refurbished to look like it
originally did with the aid of old photographs.
The famous sloping bar floor in the hotel. Note the
base of the pool table which is level and the people at the table on the right
who are not. When the hotel was refurbished they fixed all the uneven
floors except this one. There was an outcry to leave this room as it was
because it had developed such a reputation. It was stabilized underneath
for safety but it is still severely sloped in every direction with a dome in the
middle from the boulder it bent around. The room is called the “Tiltin’
Hilton.”
The highlight of the day was the birds……loons, cormorants,
pelicans and around ten bald eagles.
Cormorants and pelicans on a rocky island. The
pelicans return to the Gulf Coast for winter. We didn’t ask the
cormorants where they went for winter but they certainly can’t stay here with no
fishing.
Bald eagle chick in its nest.
Its parent hanging out at the next tree. The chicks
will leave in September for their first migration. The parents leave in
October or November depending on weather. They can leave later because
they know where they’re going. The chicks have to figure it out as they
go.
These lakes were carved out by glaciers during the last ice
age 10,000 years ago. These were glaciers on steroids, not today’s tame
variety. The rock is 2.6 billion years old, part of the southern end of
the Canadian Shield, bedrock of the continent. According to one of our
tour guides, it’s the oldest rock on the planet that is easily accessible.
The Canada/U.S. border, which runs along the middle of Rainy Lake,
follows the route the French-Canadian voyageurs took for the 200 to 300 years
they traveled these waters with their cargoes of furs and trade goods.
Voyageurs National Park is a gorgeous place which we’ve thoroughly enjoyed
visiting.
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