North Shore Journal

20 June

It had been a notorious north shore day of rain and lingering fog – Grand Marais, although quite bustling in attendance for the annual Summer Solstice Festival, was damp, and folks crowded more in small cafes than the Folk House for the boats or the shore for free schooner rides.  We trekked further north, toward Grand Portage, to see if the pictures of the famous Naniboujou Club at Arrowhead could

hold up to being there.  It certainly did: the old Ojibwe native colors lined the arch walls in celebration of native culture, as if entering into an enormous jeweled hut of sorts, overlooking the crashing north shore whose very rocks piled artfully to the largest handmade fireplace in the state.

We assumed hikes might be out of the question on this day and so passed the Judge Magney Forest across highway 61, back down through Grand Marais – a quick stop to see the Voyageur Brewing Company – and on back to Lutsen.  Yet something stopped us at Cascade Falls, maybe it was the easy access to the trail and a sign that said the falls itself was no more than 300 feet from the road…whatever it was, we stopped and began an hour long climb up one of the more majestic trails we've ever been on.

The roar of the Cascade River could be heard from the trail all the way up, small unofficial trails meandered down onto pine needle beds where rock birch climbed out of the rock standing, as if set on purpose, for the sake of holding onto to enjoy a better view of the dramatically stepped river roaring below.

The blurring of the fog and the near glow of the pine forest allowed for an imaginative step back in time, where one might be able to see the Voyageurs of old carrying the birchbark over the shoulder knowing that the violence of this patch of rapids would be too much for the nimble craft to handle, portaging along these same banks awaiting the ease of descent down to the shores of the great lake below.