Wednesday July 22, 2020 Voyageurs National Park - Lake Kabetogama

This morning on my run I took some pictures of the bridge that goes over to Canada.  It was pretty cool to run right by the river that separates the two countries.  If the border wasn't closed I might have tried to run over to Canada:)))                                                                                     

Today we explored Voyageurs Nation park.  Little did I know that this NP is HUGE.  It consists of mostly lakes and water ways.  But it does have a lot of land for hiking in the summer and cross country skiing in the winter.  We visited one of the lakes that makes up the park - Lake Kabetogama.  I have no idea how to say that.  Your guess is as good as mine.  This NP is meant to be explored by water.  You should leave your car behind, get on some kind of boat and go explore.  We rented kayaks.  We had a blast exploring the lake and the little islands on it.  We saw loons, pelicans, fish, seagulls, turtles, leaches, and lots of bird poop.  We rented our kayaks out from a resort called Arrowhead Lodge and Resort.  They had a little dock that we took off from and returned to.  

                                                                            I read up on Voyageurs NP and in a nut shell, the whole NP is part of a huge water system that hunters and traders used since the early 1800's.  They say that "Voyageurs" rowed up to 17 hours a day up and down these water ways, trapping and trading.  The park became a park in 1975 but was first proposed to be a park back in 1891.  They finally made it a NP to save it from encroaching industries.                                                                                                                                                                  Does anyone from Simi recognize this guy??? Here we are so far away from Simi and we meet Bobby Dantona.  He lived in Simi forever and is living here now running the resort that we rented our kayaks from.  How random is that???  We got a kick out of the fact that we are both from Simi.                                                                                         

Hands on hips 

Pepper got tired at one point so Asher tied his kayak to Peppers and pulled her a long way.  He made her yell "Protein"  to keep him going:))) We were all dying laughing.  

"Protein"

We pulled over on an island for lunch.  The kids were more interested in hitting each other with sticks then they were to eat. 

After we were all kayaked out, we drove home.  Taj saw a park and yelled, "park" so loud that I decided to stop and let the kids play.   It was right next to the town hall.                                                                                          

Some how they started playing a game called ring around Pepper.  They were throwing tubes at her trying to ring her.  I was dying laughing when the tube hit them in the faces.  I had to video it in slow motion.