Grand Portage - Land of the Anishinaabe**

It finally happened – I had a Black Tank Catastrophe!!!! I had my RV in to Hilltop Trailers (where I have always had excellent service) to fix my leaky black tank and gray tank valves. For those not in the know – Black Tank contains everything that goes down the toilet drain – Gray Tank contains everything that goes down the sinks and shower drains. My Black Tank valve had been leaking so I had put on a secondary valve as a second line of defense. Evidently – when I got my Black Tank valve serviced, the technicians failed to secure the secondary valve. I pulled the Black Tank valve and the secondary valve fell off causing sewage to run all over the ground. With my lightening reflexes, I closed the valve, but the damage had already been done. I won't go into the sensory details but let's just say that the air was ripe. After cleaning up the mess and checking to make sure all connections were in place and secure, I finished dumping. From what I hear, something like this will eventually happen to everybody in the RV world – I'm glad that I finally got this out of the way. Should be clear sailing from this point forward. Right?.......Right?

But onward to more genteel subjects. We traveled up the North Shore to the Grand Portage Lodge and Marina. The campground had full hookups which meant long slow showers. Always nice when that happens. We were in the middle of a field, but you could see Lake Superior off in the distance. It was one of those wild, windy, crazy weather weeks which always makes you feel like you are totally alive, battling the elements. I love weather like this.

On our way up the North Shore, we stopped at Naniboujou Club Lodge.  This lodge building was begun in the late twenties but the depression caused their grand schemes to be aborted.  They serve high tea here in the afternoon, but we just weren't up for cucumber sandwiches at the time, so we passed.  The main dining room has a ceiling which has been called a "psychedelic marriage of Art Deco and traditional Cree Indian patterns"

Besides Naniboujou, we came up here for two reasons. The first was to visit the Grand Portage National Monument. From Wiki:

The Grand Portage trail is an 8.5-mile (13.7 km) trail connecting Grand Portage with Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. Voyageurs from the interior of Canada would carry their furs by canoe to Fort Charlotte, and portage the bundles of fur to Grand Portage. There they met traders from Montreal, and exchanged the furs for trade goods and supplies. Each canoe "brigade" then returned to its starting place. The fur traders built Fort Charlotte as a trading fort at Grand Portage. There they built the Grand Hall in the French colonial style, which housed their meetings, a general store, and other facilities.[2]

What was rather unique about this National Monument is that they had Voyageurs enactors that would demonstrate or tell you about the Voyageurs lifestyle. I spent a lot of time speaking with a woman who was getting ready to bake bread in a old stone oven in the middle of the yard. Evidently bread was a luxury back in the day. It took four hours just to get the oven warm enough to bake bread. There was also an Ojibwa village where you could learn finger weaving or canoe building. Miko also got to play in Lake Superior and practice her wave catching skills.

The Grand Hall is on the right

They had a display of animal pelts in there - everything from a giant moose pelt to little tiny ermine pelts

Looking over Lake Superior

We also journeyed as far up the North Shore as you can go in the United States to the Grand Portage State Park. Actually, when you turn into the state park entrance, you can see the US border crossing into Canada. We had to come to this particular state park because it is the home of Minnesota's tallest waterfall at a height of about 120 feet. There is a nice gentle path and boardwalk that leads to the top of the falls. As you walk along, you can hear the falls, but then all of a sudden, you come upon them. It was almost as if they just leapt out and surprised you. I found that I liked these falls much more than the Wisconsin Tallest Waterfall that we had visited a few days earlier. It was probably because it seemed like there was so much more water or something.  Being the rather obsessive person that I am, I think that I may just have to visit the tallest/largest waterfall in every state now. 

High Falls on the Pigeon River

We could have made it home in one day's drive but why? We stopped in Cloquet Minnesota at the Spafford City Park Campground. This is a nice little campground located on an island in the middle of the St. Louis River. There were only a couple of campsites that had a river view which we did not get. Also on the island is the USG Corporation which is a 24/7 manufacturing plant. There was a constant hum from the factory but after a while it became sort of like white noise. More troubling was the fact that about 100 feet behind our campsite (hidden by trees and brush) was a train yard where they were constantly moving cars around. Once I fell asleep, I didn't hear anything but occasionally during the day, you would have thought that you were hanging out on the tracks about ready to get smooshed. On the positive side, there was a walking trail that crossed a bridge off of the island and was a wonderful place to walk Miko.  There was also a Frank Lloyd Wright designed gas station.  That man sure did get around.

Look - they have one of those cords that ding inside the building when you drive over it.

 I wonder if they actually come out and pump your gas for you.  Wouldn't that be a novel idea?

It's been awhile since you've seen Miko not look at the camera

**Anishinaabe - means the First People.  Anishinaabe are also called Ojibwa or the more current term is Chippewa.