Exploring The Northwoods A Guide to the wonderous Delights of Paul Bunyan’s Land By Matt Goshko

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It’s 6:30 a.m. in Manhattan, and the wind is screaming down Ninth Avenue. The high-rise buildings on either side of the street create an artificial canyon. The streets are noticeably empty this morning.
I check my watch. Five minutes to get a bagel and coffee from the Greek bakery and reach the top of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I sink into my seat, unwrap the bagel and fold back the coffee lid. Breakfast in New York City. Soggy home fries instead of crisp hash browns. Tiny servings of greasy, under cooked bacon. Everything a la carte. Eat fast. Move. Start the day. New York is a tough morning town for a person who has spent a great deal of time in the north country of the Midwest.
Breakfast there is epitomized by Lonnie’s Village Restaurant just east of downtown Lake Nebagamon in the northwest corner of Wisconsin. There, the breakfast is hot, well-cooked, plentiful, cheap and it arrives in its own sweet time. The menu gives you fair warning. “Here in Lake Nebagamon we’re north of the hurry line…” It’s worth the wait.
At Lonnie’s, a few miles south of US Highway 2, you’re in the center of the Midwest’s North Country. Highway 2 acts as a spine for the three states of this region, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and along the way are wondrous assortment of wilderness sites for every type of outdoors enthusiast.
Start at the Pictured Rocks National Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. About an hour north of Hwy. 2, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore stretches between the towns of Grand Marais in the east and Munising in the west.
There is some up and down to the route, which crosses spectacular beaches and climbs to the tops of 200-foot cliffs. The trail is well-maintained and the entire length of the park can be easily hiked in four or five days. What the park lacks in grueling self tests of machismo it more than makes up for in beauty.
The eastern section begins with the tremendous sand dunes at Au Sable Point. The dunes tower over Lake Superior, descending into the water at an impossible slant. Sand dunes are fragile things, even giant ones. There are no beach fences or grasses to hold the sand in place, no beach-front property owners to tell you to stop trashing the area. So behave yourself. Erosion is forever.
Miles of beach and low lying forest segue into a broken series of highlands that eventually turn into the Pictured Rocks’ sandstone cliffs for which the park is named. The trail meanders along the cliffs’ edge, giving spectacular views of the lake and the bluffs themselves. Another wonderful oddity are the sky beaches. Stunning, white sand beaches dot the western half of the trail, 200 or so feet above the shore.
Sylvania Lakes National Park is the next stop on the UP. The tiny park just outside Watersmeet offers a lot to the laid back canoeist and hiker. It’s easy to get away from, or to, any point within the park. Forgot your tackle box? Running low on Bourbon? Worried that you’ve left your car lights on? Not a problem. Your car is probably only an hour or two away from wherever you are in the park.
And yet the lakes off the main routes offer a good deal of solitude. Campsites are assigned and set back into the woods, away from the water’s edge. If you pull your canoes up a few feet, no one will even know that you’re there. Up until recently the park was privately owned. It has never been logged and consequently is one of the few areas in the Northland where you can see genuine stands of old growth trees. The trees are huge and spaced well apart. Sunlight filters through the canopy and sprinkles onto a forest floor alternately springy with pine needles or slick from the tatter of birch, aspen and sugar maple leaves. It is a good place to see how the forests of the North Country evolved.
Heading west along Hwy. 2 you’ll pass by the Porcupine Mountains, or “Porkies” as they’re commonly known, before entering Wisconsin. Don’t miss the Lake of the Clouds and be extra wary of the black bears. They won’t harm you, but you’ll certainly go hungry if you’re not careful to hang your food bag. This area also features some of the Midwest’s best ski resorts.

Northern Wisconsin offers an abundance of easily accessible, user-friendly wilderness to explore. The Chequamegon Forest is littered with small lakes and hiking trails that are ideal for family car camping, easy hiking and beautiful biking. The Fat Tire Festival for mountain bike enthusiasts each fall and the grueling cross-country ski race, The Birkenbeiner, are held in the southern end, just outside of Hayward (also the home of the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame).
Winter is a great time to visit this area. One of my fondest memories of northern Wisconsin is of driving into the Chequamegon at three in the morning with a friend to go howling for wolves. We bushwhacked into the frost on a clear, freezing night and serenaded the full moon. Absolute stillness rushed in every time we stopped to listen for a response. The Northland at night is always something special, but in winter it has a spiritual element which has to be experienced. If you’ve breathed it, you know what I’m talking about, but a word doesn’t exist for it.
Further north is the town of Bayfield on the shore of Superior. Extremely picturesque, the town houses a thriving artist colony, two great inns, countless Friday night fish boils, The Big Top Chautauqua and the adjacent Apostle Islands. Stay at either the Rittenhouse Inn or the Ritten Boat Yard. Both offer beautiful rooms and great restaurants. Charter boats are available for sports fisherman who want to chase lake trout and sailboats can be chartered for day or weekend cruises through the Apostle Islands.
Madeline Island is the most famous of the Apostles and there is a year-round colony that lives there. A great place for golf, boutiques, bicycling, camping and wind surfing, the Island is connected to Bayfield by ferry service.
Stockton Island, also reached by ferry, has a campground that offers a wilderness setting with white sand beaches and large blueberry patches. A hiking trail leads to an abandoned quarry. If you’re looking for a place to blissfully do nothing for a few days, Stockton Island is ideal.
Cast beneath a giant blue and white circus tent, The Big Top features both local and nationally known Chautauqua musicians. Notables have included Taj Mahal, The Lost Nation String Band, Richie Havens and Paul Gunderson. The season also features plays, many of which deal with the history of the area, the land and the people. They also do fabulous bratwursts which can be washed down with a very satisfying Augsberger Dark beer.
Wisconsin is also ideal for cycling tours. Riding down Hwy. 2 is a good way to get killed, but there are an endless network of county and state roads that wind through national forests, picturesque farms and state parks. Highly recommended is Highway 13, which hugs the shores of Lake Superior north of Hwy. 2. You can head out from Superior or Lake Nebagamon or any small town in between and travel east (Cont. from pg. 63) along 13 toward Bayfield. There are many municipal, state and private camp sites along the way, located on either the Brule and Amnicon rivers or the Lake Superior shore.
The Brule River is an important river historically and offers good fly fishing. You can also rent kayaks, spend the day running mini rapids and shooting a series of ledges near the end of your run. Amnicon Falls State Park offers magnificent scenery and the chance to swim through waterfalls.
Just past Amnicon, Hwy. 2 merges with 53 and they continue on into the city of Superior. Right at the town’s outskirts is the turn for Wisconsin Point, one half of the protective sand barrier that helps to form the Harbor of the Twin Ports.
The Wisconsin side is a great place for picnics, barbecues and stargazing. Duluth can be seen across the bay and I’ve seen the northern lights from this beach several times.
Superior is a great place to visit but it’s definitely a bit more Lilliputian than its neighbor across the bridge, Duluth, Minn. The city of Duluth has reinvented much of itself in order to overcome its economic woes. Still the largest fresh water port in the world, Duluth has also recast itself as a tourist and convention center, but a little exploration of the city will open up its nostalgic side to you.
The quickest route from Duluth to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Quetico is 53 to Ely but, the ride is duller than Lethal Weapon 3. Instead take London Road and follow it to Highway 61 (of Bob Dylan fame), an integral part of the adventure.
Drive slowly. Highway 61 is both a very beautiful road and a very dangerous one. The lake often appears in stunning vistas to the east and the surrounding forests are fantastic. The most beautiful portions of the road take you over high hills covered in thin birch and forests.
The first stop and if you don’t stop you’re making a mistake is at Betty’s Pies, just past Two Harbors. There are those out there who insist that Betty’s can’t hold a candle to the Norse Nook in Osseo, Wis. They are mistaken. Both are good, but only Betty’s has the famed Five-Layer Chocolate Pie.
Numerous state parks either border 61 or are easily accessible. Gooseberry Falls tends to be crowded, but the falls are amazing and you can follow the park’s river all the way to an agate-rich beach of Lake Superior. Manitou is much more isolated and offers beautiful views and pleasant hiking. Split Rock presents plentiful birch forests, a black pebble beach in a protected cove of the lake, and the historic Split Rock Lighthouse.
Take your time exploring the North Shore. At some point though, it’s time to take one of the many trails that lead to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The Gunflint Trail, running out of Grand Marais, is the most heavily traveled and takes you past many lodges and outfitters, giving you access to the Border Lakes, which once served as a watery highway for the early trappers and traders who opened up this country. Other trails include Sawbill, Caribou and Arrow.
Whether you come to camp or fish, you will not be disappointed by the canoe country. The land offers hundreds of lakes (some so large that you can’t see across them from end to end), rivers, swamps and marshes of puzzle grass and wild rice.
Imagine waters so clean that you can dip a cup over the side of your canoe and drink from them. Silence so profound that a tiny stream at night sounds like a river. Raspberries crowd around portage trails like groupies. Pine trees form natural cathedrals and point with reverence to brilliant night skies, undampened by the glow of neon and traffic lights. The Northern Lights dance across the skies in sheets and ribbons of color.
And then there are the loons, the water fowl of the northern summers, and their primitive calls. Each night they chat socially from bay to bay and lake to lake, an experience, like so many in the North Country, that has to be experienced to be understood.
If you travel quietly enough, you may also see black bears, beavers, otters, minks, deer, moose, groundhogs, porcupines and grouses. If you are extremely lucky, you may hear wolves at night.
There are several ways to travel the BWCA. Portions of it are open to small power boats and there are some very good hiking trails in the park. But as the name implies, the primary mode of transport here is the canoe. To get everywhere, and especially away, you must have a canoe.
Many of the lakes in the BWCA run east to west, while the lakes of the Quetico tend to run north to south. This is the legacy of two glaciers, one of which moved down the continent, and the second which came across it. The fertile prairie was created some 10,000 years ago when these icy juggernauts, two miles or so in height, raked and shoved the topsoil of the country south and west.
The glaciers left behind bare rock which over the centuries was covered by lichens creating the initial topsoil that allowed other vegetation to take root. There are many spots that have still only managed to develop a sparse beard of lichen. This is what the Northland looked like just after the glaciers receded.
You can see how the land evolved where cedar trees seem to be growing out of bare rock, their roots snaking across the granite in search of any crevice where a patch of soil has remained. Thin stretches of pasture pop up between lakes and rivers where the vegetation is creating new land.
Welcome back to Eden.