Voyageurs National Park, MN (08-25-12)

First of all, what the heck is this?  It’s still August, people! The locals do tell us that the leaves start to change in late August around here, and the mornings now have that crispness in the air, just like we used to have on the first day of school when we were kids. I love the summer, but it is kind of nice when autumn starts to roll in.  

Voyageurs National Park was named a national park in the 1970s and is unique in that 40% of the park is water. It’s located in Minnesota, on the Canadian border. It is named for the French Canadian boatmen (called Voyageurs)  who, in the 1700-1800s,  were hired to paddle through these waters carrying beaver pelts and other goods for trading.  They traveled 3000 miles every summer in canoes, rowing an average of 15 hours a day.  There were several places where they had no choice but to port the boats over rough terrain, or around dangerous rapids.  Each man was required to carry over 500 lbs of goods, (100-300 lbs at a time) so these guys would do just about anything, and take any risk to avoid a portage.  So, one of the requirements for becoming a Voyageur is that you can’t know how to swim.  Say what??  The theory behind that was that the Voyageurs hated portage so much they would take unnecessary risks with the cargo, as long as they felt they themselves would survive and be able to swim ashore.  Without the ability to swim, they were more cautious about riding the more dangerous rapids, thereby keeping the cargo safe. 

After hearing horror stories of people getting lost in the hundreds of lakes here, we had pretty much decided to leave the boat piloting to someone else, and booked a 5 hour ranger led tour on Lakes Kabetogama,and Namakan to Kettle Falls Hotel, where we ate lunch at the hotel restaurant.   Before we left the dock, the ranger gave us pointers on searching for Bald Eagles. Basically she said that pine trees branches look like this:

And Pine tree branches with a Bald Eagle sitting on them look like this:



young bald eagle



It turns out that’s a very simple, but effective way of spotting eagles sitting in the trees.



adolescent bald eagle soaring



On the way to lunch, we stopped at 5 eagles nests, and zigzagged all over the lake every time someone spotted a bird.  It was a fun two hours, and we saw well over a dozen eagles, including some adolescent ones.  The head and tail of a bald eagle don’t turn white until the bird is about 5 years old.

We learned that many of the eaglets are banded for tracking purposes, when they are still in the nest, before they are able to fly.  Scientists wait until the talons have reached their full size, so the bird won’t be injured by the tag. The researchers literally climb up the tree, and into the nest, which is no mean feat. Eagles nests are 5-9 feet wide and can weigh up to two tons.

 

Once there, they put the baby birds in a bag to carry them down the tree.  What are the parents doing right about now?  They take off. Literally.  After all, you can always have more chicks, so they abandon the babies to fend for themselves.  After the birds are weighed, measured, and have had some blood tests, they are returned to the nest-no harm done.

30 years ago there were only 5 nesting pairs of eagles in the park and now there are over 50- that’s quite a comeback!  We were lucky enough to find one pair of eagles while they were sitting in the nest:



mature eagles on the nest

  
I was very happy with how the pictures came out, given that we were in a moving boat the whole time I was taking them!

 
If you look at the background on the pictures, you’ll be able to tell easily which ones were taken on the way to the hotel, and which ones were taken on the way back, when the weather took a turn for the worse.  The wind picked up and the clouds came in.  The water was a little rough, but we enjoyed it.  I also enjoyed my new Puma jacket (thanks Ray!)

I’ve been looking for a wind breaker type jacket, but one with a lining, and I finally found it at Puma (my brother works for Puma). The cuffs are a great elastic and it has an awesome hood, which was a bonus.  It is perfect!

The hiking in Voyageurs National Park leaves much to be desired.  People come here to be on the water, not to hike, so the trails are few, and the maintenance non-existent. Oh, and if the trail name is “Beaver Pond overlook” or “Kabetogama Lake Overlook” it does NOT mean there will actually be an overlook.  Maybe there was at one time, but not anymore.  We had planned a unique hike, but weren’t able to do it.  We were going to boat out to a remote peninsula, hike two miles, pick up a canoe that we rented from the Park, then canoe on one of the smaller lakes, before turning around and heading back.  It sounded like a lot of fun, but we were stumped. We needed a water taxi to get us to the peninsula, and they are all too busy to commit to such a small request.  So instead, we hiked a few miles, then went back to the RV park.  It’s on a river and has canoes that are free for us to use.  We canoed 3 miles down the river to a waterfall, then canoed back.  No pictures.  The canoe was tippy (ask Paul) and I didn’t want to risk any electronics.