October 2001 at Bearskin

In 2001 I headed up to Bearskin as I wanted to try and make this a yearly event. I tried to make this trip near my birthday which was around the Columbus Day holiday so that was an extra day to spend up at the cabin. Dave could not go up that year so I took my girlfriend at the time.



On this trip we had a new visitor at the cabin. He was a duck we named George. He would come right up to us with his buddies when we were sitting out on the dock looking for a meal. We would feed him bread crumbs as he liked that a lot.



After that first day, every morning he would be waiting for us at the bottom of the steps just staring at us like "well let's go, I don't have all day."





This year we decided to bring some pumpkins up and carve out on the dock. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I just love the Indian Summer Days of Fall.





We decided to drive the whole length of the Gunflint Trail one day and were hoping to get a chance to see some moose. This was the rutting season for them, so there was a good chance to see at least one. I have never seen one in person before besides on tv or a magazine. On our drive to the end of the trail, we saw a red fox, but no moose. On our way back is when we had our chance. We saw a car pulled over so we slowed down and there they were right off the trail in a boggy area that we could see from the car. It was a bull and a cow right out in the open near the water. I was pretty impressed at how big they looked in person. So we stood there for about 15 minutes just watching.



Another highlight of the trip was driving up to the Canadian border in the town of Grand Portage. We were looking for a day hike and I found one in my guide book that looked like a good trail with good views of Lake Superior. We chose the Mt. Josephine Trail. The book said it was a short but steep hike. I was ready for a bit of a challenge. My girlfriend at the time.....not so much.


It was roughly a half mile up to the summit and yeah, it was a very steep climb. After about 10 minutes on the trail she was cursing me out the whole way to the top. She said she wanted to go for a hike, not climb a mountain! We had no idea there were hills like this in northern Minnesota. They are called the Sawtooth Mountains. They are nothing like out west, but I would call them big hills.


After finally reaching the top and avoiding getting beaten, the view was well worth the effort. We just sat and watched big Lake Superior for about an hour before heading back. We could also see Isle Royale from here and little did I know then, that Isle Royale would end up becoming one of my favorite places for hiking, canoeing and kayaking.