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International Falls, MN → Kettle Falls, MN → International Falls, MN 95.0 mi (152.9 km) |
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Let’s boatly go, everyone!
I’ve zig-zagged around the country this year, but I wanted to wrap up Minnesota’s national parks before the snow flew. That’s brought me from Washington to International Falls, the “Icebox of America,” and a main jumping-off point for Voyageurs National Park! My greeter into this lumber and paper producing region was none other than Smokey the Bear, reminding everyone here since October 13, 1954 to prevent forest fires, here and across the country!
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But where I was going, there was likely to be too much water for Mr. Bear to worry. That’s because Voyageurs National Park is mostly made up of lakes and rivers that created the French fur trade network from the late 1600s to about 1820. These French fur traders were called voyageurs, and I’d just experienced a big part of their land-based route last month! Today’s adventure was going to cover some of the watery routes they paddled along Rainy Lake!
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The route to the boat tours was guarded by Big Vic, a larger-than-life Voyageur, who was the opposite of a trailblazer when he was built in the 1970s! After Congress started acquiring land for Voyageurs National Park in 1975, local landowner, Vic David, decided to make things difficult for the Park Service. He split up his land and sold parcels to his friends so there would be more people to buy from, and he commissioned two giant Voyageurs, Big Vic and Big Louie, to be installed on islands in the park, which the Park Service could pay to remove. After the land was finally purchased and park lands cleared of states, Big Vic was moved to his present spot, where he welcomes folks to the park his creator wanted to stall!
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I sure was glad I didn’t have to battle a giant French fur trader, and it was a pretty uneventful motor toward the Rainy Lake visitor center. I was getting here at an awkward time of year, before the leaves had changed but after all the kayak rental facilities had closed for the season. At very least, there had been enough cold nights between Grand Portage and here that the mosquitoes had dropped dramatically in number!
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Additionally, this was one of the last Rainy Lake tours of the season, which meant only 25 out of a maximum 49 passengers were going to be riding the Voyageur to Kettle Falls today! At the helm was wisecracking Captain Joe, and ready to interpret was Ranger Jackie! Everyone got the option to sit up top, which was not usual for this tour! But it made it easy to get everyone on board for an on-time 9:30 AM departure, even though we still ended up departing a little late!
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For two and a half chilly hours, the Voyageur cruised east along Rainy Lake, skirting a super narrow channel of buoys that split the national park waters of the USA and the regular public use waters of Canada (same lake)! It was hard for me to take photos of the most beautiful pieces of the park because of the wind on the boat, so I settled for listening to Ranger Jackie’s history presentation! The Voyageurs who paddled these waters were usually young and needed a very specific personality trait to be hired: they had to be afraid of the water or at least unable to swim so they would take fewer risks with their furs crossing lakes and rivers!
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At last, we meandered our way through a narrow channel until we pulled ashore at Kettle Falls. Everyone had the option to either take a guided walk around or spend our two hours ashore in free wandering. I still had some kind of hope that I could rent a kayak from the hotel, so I opted for the unguided stroll and took off to make the most of this brief stop!
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After a quick box lunch, pre-purchased before the voyage began, I hustled up to see the falls that had given this place its name. By this point, the morning’s clouds had cleared, making the day pretty balmy, and I got a great view from the top of the trail leading to the dam!
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The Kettle Falls dam wasn’t much to look at. Named for naturally eroded kettles in the bedrock, this waterfall used to be where Obijbwe folks would gather to spear sturgeon and where voyageurs would make a treacherous descent from Namakan Lake into Rainy Lake. Since 1914, this dam, stretching across the US-Canada border, has controlled the flow of water between lakes, which was originally important so the paper industry could move logs, but is still important today as a way to keep Rainy Lake’s invasive spiny water fleas and zebra mussels out of Namakan Lake! The zebra mussels’ filtering superpowers have had a major impact on Rainy Lake’s plankton population, which shows up in the lake’s smaller walleye compared to the neighboring lakes that flow into it!
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There are two historic buildings here related to the dam: the 1910 cabin of first damtender, Chris Munson, and the much larger 1945 Boise House, which Mr. Munson also inhabited before turning things over to Herb Williams in 1950. Today, the dam is run by Boise Cascade, which uses the water to generate power!
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But the main attraction here is the Kettle Falls Hotel, built in 1913 by “Big Ed” Rose, partly funded by infamous Madam Nellie Bly, to accommodate fishermen, tourists, and sufferers of hay fever, drawn here by the promise of “Not a Sneeze on the Border!” For its significance in bringing in tourism, which led to this being declared a national park in 1975, this simple 12-room hotel with a sweeping, screened patio laden with a hodgepodge of secondhand seats, is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places!
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Oh! And it’s earned itself a fun nickname: the “Tiltin’ Hilton!” That’s because the clay-rich soil made the entire foundation sink in its first sixty years, causing the hotel to sag! Even though it’s been extensively renovated, the Lumberjack Saloon still has its original slant as a novelty for guests and visitors, hard to photograph but very apparent on the feet!
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Beyond wandering the hotel grounds, there was really very little to do at Kettle Falls in two hours. The boathouse, where I’d hoped to rent a kayak for an hour or so, was closed for the season, so I started a stroll, an amble, and a muse! My first stop, behind the hotel, gave me a splendid view out over Namakan Lake. Namakan is an alteration of the Ojibwe word, Nah-mee, which means “sturgeon!”
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On the south side of the peninsula were the public docks for use by anyone spending a day cruising Namakan or Kabetogama Lakes. There were a few boats moored here, even though the facilities were all closed for the season, but I did get to watch one boat getting towed between the lakes. All boats going between Namakan and Rainy Lakes must be towed by a special authorized pickup truck, and sprayed with very hot water to kill any invasive pests that might be clinging to the hull!
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The most unique feature of the Kettle Falls area, though, is that it’s one of only two places in the whole United States where you can look south into Canada! That’s because of a unique yin-yang overlap between the Kabetogama Peninsula, making up most of the park’s land, and its Canadian Shield counterpart! Like most borders, it didn’t look all that different from one side to the other, but the backlit novelty was not lost on me!
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I spent the last half hour strolling the shore down by the hotel’s cabins, enjoying the fresh air and clean water. I really, really wish I could have paddled out here! Maybe my haste to check off this national park cost me a really immersive experience. Maybe I’ll just have to come back. Either way, from my limited vantage point, I was able to appreciate the tiny beauty of lakeside flowers and the marvelous variety in Rainy Lake’s tree-covered islands!
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The Voyageur cast off at 2:00 PM for a very windy, two-hour return trip. Though no rain fell on Rainy Lake today, I imagined it would have been really tough and super dangerous in the days before motorboats! At very least, this marvelous lake was well dotted with islands for shelter, and I sighed a little imagining an island hopping camping trip. We pulled ashore with one bear sighting (a toy in the captain’s hand) and a lecture on how native wild rice was being restored after being decimated by invasive cattails. There’s so much going on in and around this peaceful landscape, it’s a reminder of the richness to be found on all levels in our national parks! This may be my final park of the year, so I’ll be heading home now to plan out 2025!
Bon voyageur!
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Total Ground Covered: 95.0 mi (152.9 km) |
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