7/22/2015 Duluth, Ely and the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota

Boundary Waters near Ely

One might ask, why the heck are they going to the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota.  John lived in Minnetonka, outside Minneapolis MN in high school and still has family there. Having never had the chance to visit this land of 10,000 lakes (there are actually many thousand more than that) along the Canadian boarder, now was the time. Looking on a map there is more water per square mile up here than there is land and much of it is connected. Ely became a destination when a fellow camper in Bar Harbor mentioned that the International Wolf Center was there.

Glensheen Estate Gardens on Lake Superior

After a long days drive, we stop in the large industrial city of Duluth for the night. In the morning we have a nice walk along the lake front sculpture garden and tour nearby Glensheen Estate.  This beautiful mansion was built in 1908 by the nouveau riche Congdon family.  Chester Congdon was a school teacher who taught himself law and while working for an iron ore company, make a couple of very good investments. These were wonderful people who treated their help almost like family and even put cork floors in the stables to protect their livestock's hooves!  

Bear, Dog, Wolf, Fox & Raccoon Are Close Relations

Two hours northwest is Ely where the remote national and state campgrounds take no reservations and have few if any spots for a 30 foot camper. With the truck acting up again we decide to pay the big bucks and make a reservation at HooDoo Point on Lake Vermilion so we don't have to drive all over this back country looking for a place to settle for a few days.  Visiting the International Wolf Center was worth the trip.  This modern education center has wonderful photos and interactive exhibits about wolves all over the world.  Four wolves live at the center and although viewed behind a large glass wall, they were pretty active exhibiting several different wolf behaviors. 

This is very different from our experience with the kids 5 or so years ago while visiting Zoe who was living in Denver. We rented an RV and drove SW to Mission Wolf, a mountain reserve housing 34 rescued wolves and wolf/dog breeds. In addition to observing them in their huge fenced in compounds, we also sat with about 6 of their "tamed" ones while they sniffed and licked us and tried to take our phones/cameras.  In the wild, they are as afraid of us as we are of them!  We even pet them as they ran around playing with each other.  SOOOOOO COOOOL.  We parked the RV at the Mission for the night and could hear them howling at dusk and dawn. The next day we  trucked further south and hiked around the 800 foot sand dunes (yes, you heard me right) in Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park pictured here against 14,000 foot mountains.  Another national treasure that is a must visit!  

Now back to our current trip.  Just down the road from the Wolf Center is the North American Bear Center.  This is another huge, modern education center filled with great exhibits and several live bears living there under pretty good conditions.

 Speaking of

Zoe & 3 Month Old Grizzly Cub

bears... Zoe's roommate is researching the nutrition of grizzly bears for her PhD at the WSU Grizzly Lab.  Part of her roommates work is to raise the newborn cubs in her house to get them used to humans so they will be easier to work with for future research. As you can see, Zoe loves the opportunity to get up close and personal with these now sweet little teddy bears.







Another interesting camper option was found at our Indian Point Campground in Duluth.  A group of 'our age' motorcyclists were there with this pretty neat pop-up style camper that they towed behind the bike.