Aug 20, Monday
Lake Bemidji State Park
We arrive at Lake Bemidji State Park around noon. We had site #51E, a nice, mostly shady, flat dirt back-in site that was deep and wide enough to park my truck beside or in front of the trailer. We only had electricity, so we had to fill it with water at the dump station before pulling into our campsite.
After we set up, we drove down to the picnic and beach area and had lunch overlooking the lake. Lisa left one of the painted rocks that she had found on one of the cute carved bears we found there.
Bemidji
After lunch, we drove over to Bemidji and parked at Paul Bunyan Park to get pictures of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox.
Bemidji bills itself as the “First City on the Mississippi” as well as the birthplace of the legendary lumberjack. The headwaters of the Mississippi are about 60 miles upstream, so Bemidji is the first city along the river.
Bemidji also has the oldest surviving shrine to Paul Bunyan. Overly broad-shouldered and boxy, the 18-foot-tall, 7.5-ton Paul was built of steel and concrete in January 1937. His companion Babe the Blue Ox was once on wheels and trucked around to Minnesota carnivals for a few years before joining Paul permanently in 1939. Both were conceived as a tribute to the lumber industry, Bemidji’s principal employer at the time.
The statues were in a nice park near the lake, so we took a short stroll down a paved path enjoying the view when we found a metal statue of a dancing Native American labeled appropriately Niiemii – “He Dances.”
Across the street from Paul Bunyan, in front of an Indian handicraft store, was a tall statue of an Indian with an outstretched arm. According to local legend, this is Naniboujou who beat Paul Bunyan to death with a fish after several weeks of fighting to stop him from chopping down all the trees. Naniboujou stands frozen in a perpetual salute to a Bunyan statue across the street to pay for his crime.
Across the street from the park, we spied Big River Ice Cream and ran over there for some ice cream. Lisa also bought a couple of postcards to send to the family.
When we returned to the park, I went into the visitors center to see if they could recommend a place that served wild rice. We see it everywhere for sale, especially in souvenir shops, so I thought I needed to try it out. Though they probably called a dozen restaurants in town, they were unsuccessful in finding anyone who served it. Inside the tourist center, they had the “Fireplace of the States,” made of rocks from all 50 states, and a display case with oversized clothing and objects they claimed belonged to Paul Bunyan.
Itasca State Park
Since it was still early, we decided to drive up to Lake Itasca State Park and check out the beginning of the Mississippi River. When we reached the park, we stopped at the Visitor Center, which had a small but really nice nature museum that had several displays, including one that explained how they determined the source of the Mississippi River was Lake Itasca. Since there are lots of bodies of water that feed into the Mississippi and the river flows north from Lake Itasca into Lake Bemidji and then back out again, this was a confusing and highly debated topic for many years.
When we left the Visitor Center, we had to drive several miles to another parking lot, where we took a paved walkway to the headwaters. Since it was late afternoon, it was not very crowded. The river was very shallow here, and Lake Itasca looked like a big shallow swamp. We walked across the stepping stones that marked where the Mississippi River began, and then we both walked across a wood log that spanned the river.
We then returned to the parking lot on a boardwalk that followed the river.
Countryside Restaurant
On the way back we stopped at the Countryside Restaurant for dinner. We picked this place based on Google reviews, and when we arrived, we were surprised to find it attached to a gas station. It was getting too late to change our mind so we stayed and found the food and service good.
We got back to the camper at about 7 pm.
Aug 21, Tuesday
We left the camper a little after 9 am and headed out to check out the roadside attractions southeast of us.
Forestedge Winery
As we headed south, we found a sign advertising an Art Fair at the Forestedge Winery so we decided to stop. We walked through all the approximately 30 vendor tents that were there while listening to live music. The winery had a booth that was selling wine but it was still early. It was a fun, unexpected stop.
World’s Largest Paul Bunyan
Our next stop was Akeley.
Akeley declared itself the Birthplace of Paul Bunyan in 1949 and unveiled an oversized wooden baby cradle in a park beneath a little roofed shelter. But this did not get the town the recognition it wanted, so Dean Krotzer built a Bunyan worthy of his birthplace. With the help of his six grown sons and a son-in-law, Krotzer spent months working on Paul, using rebar, fiberglass, and 4.5 tons of welded steel. Paul’s suspenders are lumber mill machinery belts; his hair and beard are made of more than a mile of resin-soaked twine. To get the proportions right, the Krotzers — all big men — built Paul to be “eight times the size of the average Krotzer.” Instead of towering over the people below it, they built this woodsman as “mighty, but gentle” in a kneeling position with a warm grin and an outstretched hand. He was even positioned at an angle so photographers wouldn’t have to stand in the middle of the highway to take his picture. The statue was dedicated in 1985 during Akeley’s annual Paul Bunyan Days. The baby’s cradle is still there behind his ax. There is a small Paul Bunyan Historical Museum in the park, but it was closed when we were there.
We took a picture of each of us standing on Paul Bunyan’s hand.
Lucette, Paul Bunyan’s girlfriend in Hackensack
We then headed over to Hackensack to see the 17-foot fiberglass statue of Paul Bunyan’s sweetheart, Lucette Diana Kensack, which was erected in the early 1950s. A local contest chose the name since her name was not stated in any literature. A miniature Paul Bunyan Jr. that once stood next to Lucette is now located at the entrance to the park.
Home of Bigfoot in Remer
We then drove through the town of Remer, known as the home of Bigfoot, because of the large number of Bigfoot sightings in the area as far back as the 1800s. I was a little disappointed that we found little evidence of this claim, though. We did find a silhouette of Bigfoot and a small yellow sign next to the town entrance sign. We stopped at the local gas station called Bigfoot Gas and Gifts, which had some Bigfoot cutouts inside and outside the station, a Bigfoot statue inside, and plaster castings of “actual” Bigfoot prints found in the area. On their walls, they displayed some signed items from the cast of the TV show “Finding Bigfoot,” which was filmed here.
While driving around the town we also found a giant 10-foot eagle statue in the city park overlooking the main highway.
Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids
Next, we headed over to Grand Rapids and the Judy Garland Museum,, home to the world’s largest Judy Garland and Wizard of Oz collection. The museum also has the restored home where she lived during the first four years of her life.
Besides the displays and artifacts about Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm, and her accomplishments as an actress, the museum also had a lot of displays and artifacts about the Gumm Sisters. The Gumm Sisters were a vaudeville group that consisted of Judy and her two older sisters, who also achieved some fame.
In the museum, there were a few unique Oz items, such as a carriage, a spear, and the ruby slippers that were used in the movie. The house did not have any original furnishings, but the docent did help us imagine how the family may have used the landing of the staircase as a stage to practice their acts.
Forest History Center
Not far from the museum was the Forest History Center, which was managed by the Minnesota Historical Society. It consisted of a museum and a recreated logging camp. The museum had some films and displays about the logging business and a nice multimedia theater about the Cloquet Lake fire.
We then walked through the recreated logging camp, which was well done. They also did live demonstrations there, but we missed their last one.
We then walked down by the lake, where they had a replica Wanigan, which is a floating cook shack and supply store for the loggers. We were fascinated by the lily pads that had taken over the lake.
We then walked over to the fire observation tower. A staff member first showed us the cabin where the fire lookout stayed. Then she unlocked the gate so that I could climb the tower. The top gave me great views of the Mississippi River and the surrounding area.
As we were walking around, we found some of the trails blocked off, and there were a lot of damaged trees. When we asked a staff member about this, they said it was caused by a big wind storm earlier that year.
Big Fish Supper Club
We then drove over to the Big Fish Supper Club.
The building next door to the Big Fish Supper Club was built in the 1950s to look like a giant muskie in order to attract people to the drive-in restaurant where people could order food from a walk-up window in the muskie’s belly or enter through a door in its mouth and eat inside. The drive-in was never successful, though.
You can no longer eat inside the fish, but we decided to eat at the Big Fish Supper Club next door. We had to wait about 30 minutes after arriving because it did not open until 5 pm. We were lucky that we were there early, though, because it did not take long for it to fill up after it opened. We enjoyed a German Blonde Ale from the Bemidji Brewing Company while we ate our dinners.
We were back at the camper a little after 6 pm.
Aug 22, Wednesday
Today we left about 10 am to explore the lake region of western Minnesota.
Worlds Largest Turkey, Frazee
Our first quirky destination was the World’s Largest Turkey outside Frazee. The town is known as the “Turkey Capital of the World” due to its large turkey industry and has hosted a Turkey Days festival since 1954. A giant turkey named Turkey Tom sits at the entrance to the public park billed as “The Best Lions Park by a Dam Site,” which references the dam on the river next to the park. This 22-foot turkey, three-ton turkey, has 4,000 individual fiberglass feathers. It was installed in 1986 but was replaced by a bigger turkey in 1988 when the previous turkey was accidentally burned down during repairs. Just to the west is a large turkey farming operation.
World’s Largest Loon, Vergas
Our next destination was to see the world’s largest loon. This statue of Minnesota’s state bird is 20-foot tall and sits in a beach area along Long Lake. It was built in the early 1960s, paid for by the Vergas Fire Department, and dedicated to a deceased town postmaster. Vergas calls itself “Home of the Loon” and holds a “Looney Daze” festival each August.
Pelican Pete, Pelican Rapids
Our next destination was to see Pelican Pete, the world’s largest pelican, in Pelican Rapids.
Pelican Pete was built in 1957, stands more than 15 feet high, and is made of plaster on a steel frame. The sculpture is a 5:1 scale model of a mounted stuffed pelican which is located in the Old City Hall nearby.
When we first arrived in Pelican Rapids, we saw a lot of decorated pelican statues in front of the various businesses in town, but we had trouble locating Pelican Pete. After parking and walking around, we finally found him at the base of a nasty-looking pond and dam.
Hjemkomst Center, Moorhead
There were more silly attractions on my list, but it was getting late, and we were still a distance away from an attraction I really wanted to see, so we headed directly to Moorhead and the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead, South Dakota.
Hjemkomst, which means Homecoming in Norwegian, and the Hjemkomst Center is home to the Hjemkomst Viking Ship and Hopperstad Stave Church replica.
In order to see the Hopperstad Stave Church replica, we had to take a guided tour. This church is a full-scale replica of the 12th-century Hopperstad Stave Church in Vik, Norway. The church was built in 1998 by Guy Paulson and was constructed of cedar, redwood, and pine as a tribute to the Scandinavian heritage in the Red River Valley.
After touring the church, we went to the center’s main exhibit, the Hjemkomst Viking ship. The Hjemkomst is a full-scale replica of the Gokstad Viking ship discovered in Norway in 1880. Robert Asp, a guidance counselor at Moorhead Junior High School, began construction of the replica in 1974 at a potato warehouse in Hawley, Minnesota, the same year that he was diagnosed with leukemia. With the help of volunteers, he finished the ship in 1980 and captained the ship around Lake Superior until he died four months later. In 1982, Asp’s three sons and daughter, along with eight others, sailed the Hjemkomst to Norway, which was Asp’s original dream. Surrounding the ship were exhibits that told the story of the creation and the journey of the Hjemkomst.
We also saw the temporary exhibit called “Forced to Flee” which consisted of 36 art quilts that illustrated the global challenges arising from the current refugee crisis impacting countries across the globe. It was a very powerful exhibit.
Dinner
After we left the museum, we headed directly back across the flat farming country of western Minnesota.
We stopped at Mi Ranchos in Bemidji for dinner, which was a nice change of pace.
After dinner, we saw a small rainbow on the way back to the camper which I hoped meant the end to the rain. We were back at the camper a little after 7 pm.
Aug 23, Thursday
Last Forty
Weft at 8:30 to go to the Last Forty which was about 40 miles away. The Lost 40 is a fascinating area within the Chippewa National Forest. This unique forest owes its existence to a surveying error in 1882, when loggers mistakenly mapped the area as part of Coddington Lake, leaving it untouched. As a result, the Lost 40 contains old-growth red and white pines around 300-400 years old. The area spans about 144 acres and is a rare glimpse into Minnesota’s natural landscape before extensive logging.
We walked the one-mile, self-guided trail that winds through the towering pines. Because of all the logging in the Great Lake Region, we enjoyed seeing what a forest would look like untouched by man.
Left Lake Bemidji State Park for Lindberg State Park around noon.