Voyageurs National Park

Meet Grandpa Bob.  Grandpa Bob is really the grandpa of our neighbors up the hill, and he’s a great friend of Dr. Peds.  They frequently go out to lunch together and make canoe paddles together.  Grandpa Bob is an extremely nice man, with incredible patience, who knows a lot about everything.  He’s one of the most experienced people I’ve ever met.  He worked as a lawyer, plays the clarinet, paints, has read a ton of books, knows how to fix all sorts of stuff, and many years ago he built a cabin in what is now Voyageurs National Park.  Once it became a national park, he had to leave his cabin behind, which was very sad.  When Dr. Peds decided we should take a mini-trip to Voyageurs, he suggested that we ask  Grandpa Bob come along because he knows the area so well.  I truthfully couldn’t really imagine anyone vacationing with the chaos that is our family when we travel, but I said, “Sure!” And Grandpa Bob said he’d love to come.

We really didn’t have a good mental picture of what Voyageurs is like, so it was really great to have Grandpa Bob there for some guidance.  We stayed at kind of a fishing lodge on the Canadian side of the border right across from where Grandpa Bob’s old cabin was. I’m not sure, actually if there even are places to stay on the American side.  I suspect not, unless you are camping.   The only access through Voyageurs is by boat, and since the area is big, motor boat works best.  The owner of the lodge, who Bob knew well since he was just across the water from the lodge when his cabin was in operation, came and taxied us to the place we were staying.  We had a little motorized fishing boat to zip around in while we were there, and I was very happy that Grandpa Bob was along to navigate because I was incredibly disorientated as far as directions were concerned the whole time!

I didn’t really manage to document the experience well, actually.  It was just a tricky trip to photograph because we were in a car, in boats and I just wasn’t always really ready with my camera to capture details and people.   There were boat rides, and the daily limit of fish was caught by Dr. Peds, Grandpa Bob , The Banana and Mr. SP. Mr. TOF had the best time playing outside ever, watching all the motor boats come in for gas and supplies, and spotting houseboats on the water and airplanes taking off and landing at Canadian customs around the bend.

YaYa had fun catching turtles, and there was a tiny sand beach to play on.  We also had lots of time to read books and relax.

We had chartered a boat to take us up to Kettle Falls to see the historic hotel and all the sights along the way, but unfortunately 1/3 of the way through our trip there, the boat had a motor problem and broke down, so we had to be rescued on the water after a radio call.  It was exciting!  The owners of the lodge came to get us in a different boat and then we towed the charter boat (actually they were identical boats) until the husband of the lady driving the boat — they owned a marina– came to tow her back to her home.  It was a little crazy, and it was a little sad we didn’t get to see the historic hotel, but the kidlets did a terrific job being flexible.  I was really looking forward to the trip to Kettle Falls because I had just read Frozen by Mary Cassanova, and a big part of the novel was set at the Kettle Falls Hotel.  In the end, though, we had a relaxing, restful afternoon, complete with big naps and small boat rides around the area we were staying.

YaYa had fun at the front of the boat.

The scenery was gorgeous!  There were all sorts of little islands in the water, and we’d drive through passages called “narrows” where rocks would be rising out of the water.  The forest was beautiful, with all sorts of mixed trees, and it smelled SO great!  I just wanted to bottle up the smell!

There were many wonderful things about having Grandpa Bob with us on our trip, but my FAVORITE part was a boat ride he took me in one evening near sunset.  It had been a cloudy day, but just as the sun was setting the clouds began to break up.  The wind was still, and the bugs were BAD.  Bob said to me, “I’ll take you on a boat ride and then you won’t have to swat at those black flies all night.”  I had been doing a lot of swatting.  Those flies really liked me and Mr. TOF, and they are the nastiest little bugs ever, just vicious.  They bite and literally take a chunk of your flesh bigger than their little body.  Blood just drips down, and you are left with a welt the size of Alaska.  Anyway, I’d had enough of flies, so I hopped in the boat with Bob, and off we went.  Not only does Bob know all the great secret places to go, but he also paints, and he totally understands light and the golden hour.  Just as we got to an amazing cliff on Grassy Bay, the sun popped out in all of it’s golden hour glory, and I got to take these pictures:

As usual, my scenic pictures really don’t do the scenery justice.  These cliffs were big, and the rocks had so many nooks and crannies.

On the way home, I also took these:

The kidlets loved this trip.  They wanted to stay longer and said over and over what a great time they were having.  I loved how they entertained themselves and had a great time relaxing.  Mr. TOF was pretty apprehensive of the boat rides, but by the end he was getting the hang of it, and he’s been talking and talking about what he saw and did on our trip since we came home.  It was a fun way to start out summer vacation for  the big kidlets, since they finished school on Thursday and we left the very next morning.