We are continuing to adventure and continuing to blog about it, but we are no longer in Minnesota and no longer at this web address. Come check out our new site at Fostering Adventure (https://kandpfoster.wordpress.com/), which will have all of our old posts from Colorado and Minnesota as well as all of our new posts from South Carolina and the East Coast. Subscribe to get notification whenever we post a new entry!
Northern Beauty: Canoeing the Boundary Waters
In our final post about our Minnesota adventures, we look back at one of the best experiences we had in the state: canoeing the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The Boundary Waters is a large stretch of land stretching across much of northern Minnesota and it is a complete wilderness. It is over a million acres in area and it contains no towns or buildings and only a few rustic dirt roads for access to the rivers, islands and literally thousands of lakes.
We like day hikes and short paddling trips, but we have never canoed through a wilderness like this. An outfitter recommended a trip involving four portages, which was four more than we had ever done before. Always up for a challenge, we agreed.
We drove into the BWCAW from International Falls and Voyageurs National Park, where we had been hiking the day before. Our little Toyota Corolla was small in comparison to most of the boat-hauling trucks in Voyageurs, but we felt more and more out of place as we drove toward the Boundary Waters. For two hours on the road, we saw no vehicles other than pickups and SUVs. And us.
We stopped at Piragis Northwoods Company outfitters in Ely, MN and they were more than happy to lend us equipment, give us direction and help us strap canoe to our car. It was a kevlar canoe, so while it was significantly longer than our car, it was thin and light.
We then drove another half hour north on dirt roads to an access point where a trail began that led through the forest to South Hegman Lake. We would portage to South Hegman, canoe up it, portage accross to North Hegman and canoe up it to find our destination: the Hegman Lake pictographs.
We took to the portaging and canoeing through the remote lakes more easily than we had imagined. The kevlar canoes were built to be carried upside down by one person, so I carried the canoe over my head while Katie guided the canoe so that I did not run into trees, trip over roots or bang the bottom of the vessel on overhanging branches.
Arriving at the first lake, we marveled at the serenity of the northwoods. The water of the lake shimmered in the morning light and mirrored the uninterrupted line of trees on the lakeshore in its rippling image. The air was not silent, but it felt quiet due to the complete lack of human noise. When we were not talking it was only the dip of our paddles in the water that disturbed the natural hum of the wind, the calls of the birds and the lapping of the water on the rocks.
After a couple portages and a couple lakes, we pulled our canoe over to a rocky bank, hopped out of the canoe (a more difficult process than it sounds), secured our boat and broke out a picnic lunch which we ate on a rocky ledge overlooking the lake.
After lunch, we crossed the lake to our destination: the Hegman Lake pictographs. Etched there on a rocky cliff in brilliant red are images drawn nearly a thousand years ago. The undisturbed images clearly show an image of a man, a moose, another animal (a dog?), several canoes and a few dots. Historians believe that the lake looked nearly identical to how it does now a thousand years ago, so the images were probably drawn by someone climbing on the rock face as a sign post to other people canoeing in the area to let them know about what was in the Hegman Lake area. They were beautiful.
As our canoe made its way through the lakes on our way back, we reflected that this was a thing that could have made a regular part of our lives. The natural beauty was overwhelming and we would have loved to explore more.
We have now left Minnesota and our Adventures in Gopherland are over. They were very different from what we expected, but they were fantastic nonetheless. There were a few things we missed (a Timberwolves game, the Jolly Green Giant statue, the Minnesota Zoo) and a few that we would love to return to (the Minnesota State Fair, the St. Olaf Christmas Festival, the North Shore), but the activity that we would have most liked to make a part of our life was canoeing the Boundary Waters. We will miss Minnesota and, more than that, we will miss our friends from Minnesota, but we look forward to when our lives may bring us back there. And who knows? Maybe we will find ourselves once more gliding along through the serene backwoods wilderness of the Boundary Waters.
Here are some photos:
The Gem of Minnesota: Voyageurs National Park
As we leave Minnesota, I wanted to look back on the two of the best and most quintessentially Minnesotan places we visited. The State Fair, the North Shore and The Defeat of Jesse James Days were all great in their own right, but our trip “Up North” was perhaps the best of all.
It started with a trip to the northernmost part of Minnesota through the gardens of St. Cloud, by the headwaters of the Mississippi and passing by the Bemidji Paul Bunyan and Blue Ox statues (as recounted here), continued at Voyageurs National Park (this post) and finished with a trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (the next and final post). We visited Voyageurs during quarantine and it was perfect for that because it would be hard to find many place where people are more naturally isolated and socially distanced.
Voyageurs National Park is a remote region of lakes, rivers, islands and evergreen forests on the border of the United States and Canada. It is most naturally explored by boat, but we would be canoeing the Boundary Waters the next day, so we explored the mainland portion of the park by car and by foot.
While the park is mostly wilderness, there are three areas where there are roads and marked hikes. We visited all three, spending the most time in Ash River area, stopping by Lake Kabetogama and finishing our day in the Rainy Lake area. The other visitors who were there were exclusively there to launch their boats, so we encountered no one else on the half dozen hikes and walks that we took.
The Ash River area had several short hikes, exploring the boreal forest or climbing to overlooks of beaver ponds and glacial lakes. These gave us our first taste of the stately majesty of the northern forests with the towering firs and birches. Our next hike took us through the forest overlooking Lake Kabetogama and down to the edge of the water in Blind Ash Bay. The water below us was a dark and brilliant blue, which combined with the deep greens of the forest to give a subtlety to the majestic scenery.
Heading to the Rainy Lake region of the park meant returning to International Falls where we were staying and coming close enough to the US-Canada border such that we saw the “Welcome to the United States” and “Welcome to Minnesota” signs in our rear view mirror.
We drove along Rainy River (which doubles as the international boundary) to Rainy Lake where we surveyed the lake gleaming in the setting sun. When I originally planned the trip, I had hoped to take a guided boat tour of Rainy Lake but that was cancelled for understandable reasons.
Our exploration of Voyageurs National Park was an unusual one and I would have loved to explore the park more. That said, what we saw was beautiful and I would love to come back and explore it more someday. Here are some of our photos:
Hometown Pride: The Defeat of Jesse James Days
Three horses carrying strangers slowly came into view. The riders eased up the reins and dismounted near the First National Bank. A passer-by paused and looked at the strangers: it was rare that three well-dressed strangers would come to remote Northfield, Minnesota in the year 1876. The men entered the bank and several more strangers approached. The passer-by approached the strangers and asked them their business. They looked uncomfortable. And then we saw their guns.
“Get your guns, boys, they’re robbing the bank” he screamed into the afternoon air.
He dove for cover and all around the street, townsfolk either disappeared into hiding or appeared at their storefronts and upper floor windows with shotguns. In a matter of seconds, Jesse James, Cole Younger and the James-Younger gang were surrounded. Then came the firefight.
Cole Younger banged on the bank door, encouraging his crew to flee. Outside the rest of the crew was taking fire. The men inside the bank had the bank manager at gunpoint, but he had refused to open the vault. Frustrated and out of time, they executed him and ran out of the bank empty-handed.
The air was filled with gunsmoke as they stepped outside and mounted their horses. The gang loaded their wounded onto horses and fled. An impromptu posse of townsfolk jumped on horseback as well and pursued the ruffians. As the smoke cleared, two of the eight gang members lay dead in the street as well as well as one innocent immigrant who did not understand the words being shouted and had not gotten out of the street when the gunfight started.
Sheriffs from nearby cities would join the hunt as they rode for hours across Minnesota. Two more gang members were killed in the hunt and Cole and Bob Younger were taken prisoner. Only Jesse James and his brother Frank survived. Frank James was scared straight by the failed raid, but Jesse James continued his murderous outlaw ways for years to come.
–
144 years later, Katie and I stood in front of that same bank and watched the same scene play out. You see, defeating Jesse James is Northfield’s claim to fame, so they celebrate the Defeat of Jesse James Days every September. The main street is closed for the festival and actors recreate the events exactly outside of the still-standing First National Bank. Festival-goers fill the stands on either side of the street to take in the spectacle.
The celebration is one of the biggest local celebrations in the whole Midwest, so shops go all in with one bakery making doughnuts shaped like feet (“Da Feet of Jesse James”) and other shops hosting special music for the occasion. There are art exhibits, carnival games, a rodeo, run/walk races and almost as much food on sticks as at the state fair. For one brief moment every year, Northfield changes from the out-of-the-way hamlet whose slogan is “Colleges. Cows. Contentment.” into the most celebrated town in the Midwest.
It is important to note in any post about something like this that there can be political overtones that do not belong in such a celebration. Yes, everyday townsfolk saved the bank and caught the villains because they had weapons and the moral compass to use them to save their town. It has been a century and a half, however, and I certainly hope that we no longer live in the same kind of society as the Wild West where justice is little more than vigilantism. Even back then, it is important to remember that an innocent non-combatant died in the crossfire that day. The defeated raid is a historical event to be celebrated, but not an example to be followed or emulated.
When all is said and done, though, it is satisfying to think that we Northfielders defeated Jesse James.
A Three-Hour Tour: Sightseeing in the Porkies and the Apostle Islands
“So that’s the boat?”
“Yeah, we get on board and then they take us on a three-hour boat tour of the Apostle Islands.”
“A three-hour tour? Seriously?”
“Yeah, the captain said they have had no complaints. He sounded trustworthy. Name of G-something.”
**glaring**
“At least the boat isn’t called the Minnow?”
–
We depart Minnesota at the end of July, so we went on a trip earlier this month to see a few last things in the northern Midwest. We started by exploring the St. Croix River and then explored Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Finally, we made our way around the lake and explored the South Shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan.
We started this leg of our trip by travelling all the way across Wisconsin to the U.P. of Michigan where lie the Porcupine Mountains. Known as the Porkies, these mountains are lush and breath-taking. I grew up visiting the other end of the Upper Peninsula every summer and hearing friends tell stories of the beauty of the Porkies. They weren’t wrong.
In the Porkies, we stopped at Lake of the Clouds, a serene mountain lake just inland from the shore of Superior. A short drive into Porcupine Mountains State Park leads you to the Lake of the Clouds escarpment, where a boardwalk leads to the much-photographed view of the deep blue lake ringed in dark green forests. The mountain lake stretches 1.4 miles and covers 133 acres, but it can be viewed from an almost birds-eye view because the escarpment towers 500 feet over the lake below.
After Lake of the Clouds, we had to deviate slightly from our plans as we had traveled hours through remote Michigan without finding a gas station and we needed to fuel up. We rerouted our trajectory to find a gas station, but that meant that the rest of our journey through the Porcupine Mountains was beautiful but had no more scenic overlooks.
That night we stayed on the border of Michigan and Wisconsin and the next morning we continued west along Superior to the northernmost point in Wisconsin. There the port of Bayfield looks out on 23 islands that extend northward into the Great Lake. Known as the Apostle Islands, they are only accessible by boat. One of them, Madeline Island, is commercially developed while the other 22 are federally protected as a part of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
I had reserved ahead of time a boat tour of the Apostle Islands. On the three hour tour we would travel 55 miles, wending our way through the islands and seeing old fishing camps, lighthouses and sea caves and, unlike Gilligan’s crew, we would safely arrive back at the dock on time.
As we were still in line to board the boat, we were nervous about social distancing. We were masked and the boat was at half capacity, but there were still a lot of people. Thankfully, over 90% of the visitors headed to the upper deck, meaning that our lower deck was virtually empty and very socially distanced. Our captain and guide gave a running audio commentary over the loudspeakers as the catamaran took off.
Our route took us near all 23 islands of the Apostle Islands, though only 22 of them were visible as the final one is the smallest and is quite flat. They are all uninhabited, so most of the stories the captain told of old quarries, logging camps, fishermen and rustic mansions were all historical and now abandoned.
He also told of the geologic history of the Islands. Mostly made of Chequamegon sandstone, the Apostle Islands also feature a unique variant of the formation called Devil’s Island sandstone. Chief among the islands to feature this sandstone is the Devil’s Island for which the stone is named. The stone is softer with thinner layers and is subject to erosion, which gives rise to magnificent sea caves.
Devil’s Island is the outermost of the Apostle Islands and is thus unprotected from the fierce gales and breakers of the Great Lake. The waves crash into the sandstone and erode it at the level of the surface of the lake, hollowing out giant caverns under the rest of the island. When the wind is right, waves cause giant echoing booms to shake the island, seemingly emanating from the bowels of the Earth. These sounds are the reason for Devil’s Island’s name.
Our boat explored the area around these sea caves. Perched on top of the caves, we could see the Devil’s Island lighthouse which guides boats in the Great Lakes still today. Later we would also see Raspberry Island lighthouse, closer to the mainland and more picturesquely perched on the cliffside of Raspberry Island, helping boats navigate through the islands themselves.
As the tour ended, the captain made sure to recommend we try fresh caught whitefish livers and fresh picked strawberries before we left Bayfield. This was excellent advice as the whitefish livers we had with lunch (well, that I had with lunch) were some of the best livers I have tasted and the strawberry shortcake we had for dessert was absolutely perfect.
We drove home, hugging the southern coast of Superior until we ran out of lake in Duluth. We had see beautiful sights on Lake Superior coasts, both North and South, and had gotten a chance to experience part of the northern Midwest that we almost missed out on. Here are pictures from our trip:
Lighthouses, Waterfalls and Fur Traders: The North Shore
Our exploration of the North Shore of Lake Superior could easily be six posts, but Katie and I have a limited time left in the state, so here are our adventures in one, long blog entry.
–
We depart Minnesota at the end of July, so we went on a trip earlier this month to see a few last things in the northern Midwest. The first part of the trip took us up the St. Croix River. We then continued on to Minnesota and the North Shore of Lake Superior.
The shape of Minnesota has a curious feature as there is a section of land that sticks out in the Northeast corner of the state. This area that borders Canada is lies north of Lake Superior and is thus known as “The North Shore”. It is the site of some of the most beautiful places in Minnesota. Over a day and a half we visited six places along the lakeshore, as recounted here.
We ended our St. Croix day by travelling north through Duluth (which we had previously visited) and halfway up the North Shore. The next day we woke up and headed further up the coast to Grand Portage National Monument, just five miles from the Canadian border. Here is where there was a British Trading Company settlement through which was run one of the most extensive trade networks of its time. The Pigeon River separates the US and Canada and following the Pigeon River upstream leads to a vast network of rivers and lakes covering a large portion of North America. Traders wanted to access these lands where they could trade European goods for beaver pelts and other furs, but waterfalls along the Pigeon River meant that the traders needed to dock at Grand Portage and hike nine miles to an accessible point on the river, portaging their trade goods.
When we arrived at the National Monument, we were surprised to see it fully staffed with living history interpreters, both explaining the British Trading Post and the Ojibwe village that existed right outside the palisade fence of the British Trading Company encampment. The guides showed us what living, eating and transportation would have looked like there at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most surprising thing I learned was that the vast majority of the European goods traded to the Native people were textiles, not the trinkets, guns and alcohol that I had previously understood.
From Grand Portage National Monument, we traveled five miles north to the international border itself where sits Grand Portage State Park. In the State Park, we hiked back along the Pigeon River from its mouth to the giant waterfall which made the Grand Portage necessary. July is far from the most impressive time to view a waterfall, but it was nevertheless massive.
From there we headed back south along the coast, occasionally stopping to take in the sights. We made our way down to Temperance River State Park, where we rendezvoused with our friends Michelle and Andrew.
Temperance River State Park protects the river gorge of the Temperance River as it finds its way down to Lake Superior (Allegedly the river was named for the fact that it it has no (sand) bar at its mouth). We followed the river gorge upstream and were soon surrounded by walls of rock. The Pigeon River had been wide and flat, but this fast-flowing river had cut through the basalt bedrock to form the fissure through which we walked. It reminded me in many ways of the gorges of upstate New York, though the rock formations of igneous basalt were notably different than those of sedimentary shale.
Our path took us up the river gorge, then away from the river and finally down to the rocky lakeshore where we sat and gazed out across the inland sea. The waters of Lake Superior lapped over my feet and it was startling how much colder it was than the water of Lake Michigan that we had experienced recently.
We finished the day there and the next morning we headed to three of the most popular state parks in Minnesota: Tettegouche, Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse. Our stop at Tettegouche was brief, but we drove out to Palisade Head where you can stand atop a giant cliff with a sheer drop to Lake Superior 932 feet below. The view was breathtaking and terrifying.
We stayed longer at Gooseberry Falls, where we walked around three waterfalls that are located near the mouth of the Gooseberry River where it, like the Pigeon and Temperance Rivers, descends to the shore of Lake Superior. These waterfalls were different in that they were wider, shorter and slower. You could climb along the waterfalls and see them from every angle.
Split Rock Lighthouse State Park was our final stop. The park protects a lighthouse built to steer ships navigating through the unforgiving waters of Superior, along with the surrounding coast. A normal visit would have featured a tour of the lighthouse if not for the current pandemic, but as it was we walked out to the shore and looked up at the lighthouse perched on its cliff.
The North Shore is a beautiful place worthy of its own entire blog, but our visit was limited by our timeframe and the pandemic. Having seen these six beautiful sites, we left the North Shore and followed the coast of Superior through Duluth and onto the South Shore of Superior, the Porcupine Mountains and the Apostle Islands.
Here are pictures from our adventures:
Grand Portage National Monument
Grand Portage State Park
Temperance River State Park
Palisade Head
Gooseberry Falls
Split Rock Lighthouse
Exploring St. Croix: Canoeing the Namekagon River
The canoe glided forward, closer to the deer standing in the river. The deer continued chewing as it looked at the approaching canoe. Then, determining the canoe posed no risk, the deer plunged its head back under the surface of the water. It rummaged around at the bottom of the river for a good part of a minute before surfacing again with a mouth full of weeds from the bottom of the river. It seemed we were on a collision course with the deer as we stared at one another, us with rapt enjoyment and it with calm indifference.
–
We depart Minnesota at the end of July, so we went on a trip earlier this month to see a few last things in the northern Midwest. The first part of the trip took us up the St. Croix River to Wisconsin.
St. Croix National Scenic River is a National Park site that follows the path of the St. Croix River and its tributary, the Namekagon. Because the St. Croix River defines the boundary of Minnesota and Wisconsin for a stretch, there are parts of the National Scenic River in both states. Our first stop in our exploration of the river was along this stretch at Interstate State Park, where one bank of the river is a Minnesota State Park and the other is a Wisconsin State Park.
Interstate State Park is known for its glacial potholes. Essentially, melting glaciers cascaded down the St. Croix River Valley and the turbulent flow created eddies in the current. Glacial debris in these fast-moving eddies ground down the rock below and acted like a drill boring circular holes deep into the bedrock. Millennia later the holes still exist with some six feet in diameter and others forty feet in diameter.
We wandered among the glacial potholes on the Minnesota bank of the St. Croix and then climbed back in the car to cross over to Wisconsin and follow the river further upstream. Where the Namekagon and St. Croix split we continued with the Namekagon River until it brought us to the town of Hayward, WI.
In Hayward, there is a museum that is the town’s pride and joy. It is the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and it contains the names of fishermen who caught record-setting fish in competitions all around North America, along with some of the taxidermied fish themselves. Most notably, the museum also showcases giant fish sculptures including a 143-foot-long, multiple-story-tall leaping musky that you can climb up inside and look out through its mouth.
We explored the river, then headed just down the river from Hayward to Trego. There we rented a canoe to paddle down the Namekagon River. In the past year, we have canoed on lakes, kayaked on river inlets and paddled on bayous, but we have not canoed down a flowing river. Here we were shuttled upriver, dropped off and then paddled downriver eight miles to reach our destination.
The strong current under our canoe was a welcome sensation as we steered our way down the river. It was as if the canoe knew where to go and was eager to show us the new and exciting river ahead. We passed several visitors on inner tubes on our way who were simply following the current and going with the flow.
The Namekagon River is wild and remote, so we saw very little civilization along the river. The forests were wild and we were mostly alone on the river apart from the hawks high above and occasional families of ducks or geese. Once we saw a turtle sunning itself on a log and another time we saw a heron on the edge of the water.
We also saw the deer, standing in the middle of the stream. We saw it early enough for us to slowly guide our canoe near but not too near the graceful animal who was too busy eating to care about the silently approaching vessel. As we passed, the deer just stared at us and blinked.
It was a serene trip down the river and we saw the scenic part of the National Scenic River in a way we could not have otherwise. We returned the boats and headed northwest out of Wisconsin to Duluth, MN and the North Shore of Lake Superior (more on that later). Here are pictures from our trip:
Interstate State Park
Freshwater Fishing Musuem
Namekagon River
A Beach Holiday: Lake Michigan with my Family
A few week ago, we travelled to Michigan and met up with my family who came from New York State. We wanted to see one another but not be vectors of any virus, so we quarantined before and afterwards. In Michigan we mainly stayed at a vacation home that my dad found.
Our week was a relaxing one, cooking for one another, watching movies and playing board games. Right outside our door was a beautiful private beach on the coast of Lake Michigan. It was dazzlingly beautiful, particularly every evening as the sun would set over the water.
On a few occasions we ventured forth to explore the area. Our biggest excursion was down to northern Indiana to America’s newest national park, Indiana Dunes National Park. The land has been protected by the National Park Service for over fifty years, but until 2019 the park was known as Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
The dunes are hills of sand which slowly go through the process of dune progression where hearty grass grow on the sand, their roots solidify the surface of the sand and, when the grasses die, they form a thin soil layer called a paleosol. This layer thickens with each generation of grass and eventually becomes thick enough to support more complicated and diverse plant life.
We went on two hikes in Indiana Dunes National Park, one called Dune Ridge Trail on a forested dune a large marsh inland from the Great Lake and another called the Dune Succession Trail which started on the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan, moved on to a young dune (less than 100 years old) which was kept in place by marram grass and then onto taller older dunes further inland where the boardwalk path navigated through a hardwood forest. The forest looked like any other forest except for the fact that there were paths through the forest where animals or rebellious tourists had walked and along these paths the paleosol eroded to reveal sand just an inch or two below the surface.
In addition to the dunes, we also went on an excursion to Windmill Island, a garden in Holland designed around an old Dutch windmill given to the United States in gratitude after World War II. Our band of masked individuals admired the gardens (famous for their tulips) and the windmill as we listened to music performed on a steam-powered street organ.
On our final day, we also went canoeing in Lloyd’s Bayou. Previous to planning the trip, I though bayous were exclusive to Louisiana, but they are not. We were near the mouth of the Grand River and Lloyd’s Bayou was one marshy area that qualifies as a northern bayou. We paddled around the bayou, up an inlet stream and down to a bridge separating the bayou from the rest of the river. Katie and I are really loving canoeing as will be witnesses by two upcoming posts about canoe trips we have done during quarantine.
It was good to join our family and be able to with them see beautiful things that still can be seen and experienced despite the crazy state of the world.
Indiana Dunes
Windmill Island
Lloyd’s Bayou
State of Hockey: The Minnesota Whitecaps
If we had a bucket list for what we wanted to do while we lived in Minnesota, it would include attending a live game for every major sports team. The Twin Cities have an MLB team, an NFL team, an NBA team and an NHL team. In fact, it appeared in early March like we would succeed in watching the Minnesota team in all four leagues. After all, we had been to a Twins game, a Vikings game, and a Wild game and we had tickets in hand for a Timberwolves game. We did not know then that Timberwolves game would never be played.
Still, those four leagues are not the only professional leagues in their respective sports: they are only the male versions of their sports. The Minnesota WNBA team, the Lynx, is better than the Timberwolves in the NBA and the Minnesota NWHL team, the Whitecaps, are the reigning national champions while the Wild are near the bottom of the rankings in the NHL. I had hoped to see both teams play along with the Aussie Peppers, a National Professional Fastpitch women’s softball team from Southern Minnesota. Coronavirus prevented most of these plans too.
We did, however, get to see the Minnesota Whitecaps professional women’s hockey team play. I was in the process of buying tickets to a regular season game when I saw they had just clinched a first round bye in the playoffs, meaning that they would host a semifinal matchup in St. Paul. I stopped buying the other game and secured good tickets to the semifinal game.
I had been following the team’s win-loss record as I kept track of the team during the season, but they games are not televised so we had not seen them play. They were quite obviously the second best team in the WNHL with a significant lead over team #3, the Metropolitan Riveters, and a significant lag behind the virtually perfect Boston Pride. In this playoff game they were facing off against the Riveters.
We arrived early to the game to get our seats and get food and were startled to realize that no one was there. At that point the majority of people milling around were women in hockey T-shirts kicking around hackey-sacks and soccer balls. We would later realize these were the NWHL players themselves. Right before the game began, the fans flooded in. It was clear that several rows in different parts of the stands were bought by local girl’s hockey teams and their families.
The game began and we were off to the races. We had watched a Wild match not long before and it was easy to see that gameplay was practically very different. For one, this game was much faster. There was less time spent contemplating where to shoot and more time skating, passing and shooting. And the Whitecaps were really fast! Secondly, there were fewer body checks. There was still plenty of fighting, but the puck would be passed to a teammate before a situation escalated to body checks. Thirdly, the game was three-dimensional. For some reason, the puck kept being passed through the air and then trapped and set back on the ice. It made quite the spectacle.
The game proceeded with the Whitecaps dominating time of play and shots on goal, but the two goalies were good enough to force an overtime with the score still 0 – 0. Finally, well into overtime, a Whitecaps player got the puck the goalie had just saved and shot it again and scored, meaning Minnesota won!
With the Whitecaps victory, they secured their place in the championship scheduled just five days later. It would be in Boston, so we figured out a way to stream the game online and were prepared to see our Whitecaps look to defend their title.
They never got the chance. Four days later, on the day before the championship game, the game was postponed as concerns of coronavirus had just hit Boston. Within two days all upcoming sports games were cancelled. A few days after that, everything began to shut down.
We were soon in quarantine, but it was good to know that we had the memories of a thrilling NWHL playoff win.
Is this Heaven? Our Trip to Iowa
We went to Iowa last February for vacation. When I told people in Minnesota ahead of time, people were incredulous. “Why would you ever want to do that?” asked one person from Iowa, “There is nothing to see there.” Even while we were there, people tended to assume that we were either locals or we were passing through on a much longer trip. No one, it seems, just visits Iowa. Other than us, that is.
I planned our trip to Iowa out for months, figuring out the best areas to explore and the best things to see. Many potential tourist destinations in Iowa were closed in February, so I had to get creative. In the end, I decided that we would go to four destinations all in the Iowa City area: the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, the National Czech and Slovak Museum, the Old State Capitol Museum and the Amana Colonies.
We live over four hours away from the Iowa City area, so our day started with a long drive. Partway along the drive, we stopped at Iowa’s Largest Frying Pan in Brandon, Iowa. Looking at it, I had to respect the humility of the creators who, when crafting a larger-than-human-sized frying pan, had the modesty to not attempt to make the largest of its kind in the world, but were content settling for the more pedestrian feat of “Iowa’s Largest” and still erected the pan proudly by their fire station as their town’s chief claim to fame.
We continued on and after stopping for lunch we arrived in West Branch, the birthplace of Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States. In West Branch, the tiny hovel where Hoover was born has been protected and made into a National Historic Site, along with the surrounding lands where his father’s blacksmith shop, the local church and the local schoolhouse have been relocated. We explored the tiny historical buildings and then headed next door to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.
I know Hoover best as the president who was running the country when the stock market crashed in 1929 kicking off the Great Depression. By exploring his home and the museum attached to the presidential library, I grew to appreciate Hoover much more. He grew up a sickly brainy poor kid in West Branch until he eventually won a scholarship to Stanford where he spent most of his time studying geology, his major, and finance, an interest that got him elected student body treasurer.
After college, he used these two skills to get hired by mining companies as a geologist. This work took him all over the world consulting for different companies in Australia, China, England and elsewhere. He gained an international reputation and eventually a personal fortune. When World War I broke out, Hoover used his international contacts, private wealth and Quaker sensibilities to become chief motivating force for organizing the relief effort in Europe. The people of Belguim called him the Savior of Belgium and the rest of the West called him The Great Humanitarian, partially for his insistence that relief to not be tied to any political criteria. He was then an incredibly popular and well-liked figure before being elected to the presidency in 1928. Then the stock market crashed in 1929 and everything changed. It was interesting to see such a vilified figure through so different a lens. The museum obviously depicts a very charitable view of Hoover, but learning more about the man certainly justifies a more careful look at a complex man who did a lot of good in his life.
Before leaving the presidential library, the lady at the front desk gave us information about other presidential libraries. Based on how much we enjoyed the library, we set our plans to see more of the fourteen presidential libraries, excitedly noting that there were several more that we could visit in the following months while we were still living in the Midwest. Little did we know that all of them would close a few weeks later not reopen until after we moved.
We returned to the car and drove to the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids. The museum is dedicated to the experience of Czech and Slovak citizens in the twentieth century and their immigration to the United States. The general theme of the museum asked visitors to contemplate how they would respond to oppression. Artifacts from local Czech-Americans and Slovak-Americans illustrated the stories of Nazi oppression, Soviet oppression, Czech / Slovak tensions and the Velvet Revolution. In the small museum filled with old artifacts from poor refugees, my eye was drawn to an elaborate vase that felt completely out of place. It turns out it was a personal gift from Vaclav Havel for the museum’s opening.
The museum was closing while we were there, but I still took a few minutes to explore their library that was filled with books by Czech authors with walls covered in historical maps of the region and posters about Czech and Slovak scientists. Neither Katie nor I have any known Czech heritage, but we nonetheless found it a very interesting place and I recommend visiting it.
We returned to our car and headed to downtown Iowa City where we walked onto the Pentacrest of the University of Iowa campus to the Old Iowa State Capitol. I would not have thought to do this, but my mom is a University of Iowa alumnus and she shared it with me years ago. On a hill in downtown Iowa City are located five old college buildings with the centerpiece being the capitol building from before the state capitol moved from Iowa City to Des Moines in 1855. The building is now a free public museum with rooms decorated to be the governor’s office, the comptroller’s office, the university president’s office, the state courtroom and more. The best part is that the view front doorstep looks over the entire city and a large part of the flat state.
After checking out the old capitol we were mostly finished with our tour of the Iowa City area, but we had one more stop: the Amana Colonies. Settled by an utopian religious organization in 1714 Germany and moved to Iowa, the village still lives, works and worships communally as one of the longest-running religious communes. They have visitors centers to explain themselves to tourists like us, but they are closed in the winter. Instead, we came to one of their restaurants to have a family-style meal.
It was only six thirty, but the Sun had already set by the time we arrived and we were shocked to drive through empty streets that were perfectly dark as there were no electric lights anywhere we could see. We had driven through multiple pitch-black blocks of the main village without seeing any humans or vehicles when we turned into the dark parking lot of the restaurant. In the large lot, there were two other cars and there a faint light in the window of the restaurant, so I tentatively approached the door and knocked.
We were welcomed into a room with twenty small tables with blue and white checked tablecloths. One other family was eating there, but they got the check and left as we sat down. It was hard to shake the impression that we were doing something wrong and shouldn’t be there, though it wasn’t clear why. The waitress arrived at our table and was very cheerful as she took our order. After taking our order, she returned quickly with some food. She stayed at our table an awkwardly long time, but it was weirder when she left. There was no background music or any sounds of other diners. We were alone in a large room in dead silence and it felt like every word we spoke echoed through the building. The food was excellent, but it was hard to enjoy given the strange atmosphere. As we were finishing, two more couple came in to dine and suddenly the atmosphere relaxed significantly. We finished our meal, thanked the staff and left.
We had a long drive home and we arrived home late after a very full day. We had spent the whole day as tourists in the Iowa City area and it was a place well worth exploring, despite what anyone, Iowan or otherwise, might say.
Iowa’s Largest Frying Pan
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site
National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library
Old Iowa State Capitol Musuem
The Amana Colonies
Adventures in Gopherland 