I began my life on this planet close to the shores of Lake Superior. For the first 18 years of my life, this lake was always close to me. As a kid I’ve walked on the rocks near Paradise, MI, the sand dunes at Grand Marais, MI. I’ve swam among the rocks near Marquette. Standing on its shores the water is big, really big. Looking straight across from most locations on the lake, there is no land visible on the horizon. It is easy to look at this lake and think it is an inland sea. I’ve seen the lake when the surface was like glass, covered in ice, and I’ve been close to the shore and watched as 10 foot (3 m) waves throw chunks of ice 10 feet in the air. It is truly Gichi-gami.
In 1622 two Frenchmen were the first Europeans to see the vast waters of Lake Superior. But long before these two Frenchmen arrived on the scene, Native Americans had been living along the shores for thousands of years. To the Native Americans this was gichi-gama, big water. Henry Wadsroth Longfellow popularized this Native American name in his famous “Song of Hiawatha” poem in 1855.
In my travels I have seen to much of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Lake Superior shoreline. I’ve been to Isle Royal National Park and hiked many of its trails. But in all my years I had never been along the north shore of Lake Superior between Duluth, Minnesota and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. As seen on the map below, I had only visited perhaps a third of the lake shore, that is until the summer of 2023.
While I’ve visited most of the Lake Superior shore of Michigan and Wisconsin, this post is about the summer of 2023 when we traversed the north shore of Lake Superior from Duluth, Minnesota to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Wawa, Ontario, and Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario and Michigan). I’ll write about the remainder of this trip to Munising, Marquette, and Big Bay, Michigan (where I watched the Perseid Meteors over Lake Superior) in a future post.
When planning for this trip I had a few things in mind. Waterfalls in Minnesota, Rocks along the shoreline, and staying in a few historic hotels in some of the small towns along our path. In addition to the sites I knew about, I was open to discovering anything unique along the way. This trip did not disappoint.
The north shore of Lake Superior through Minnesota is filled with waterfalls, none spectacular like Niagara, Yosemite, or any other big name waterfall. But wonderful places just the same. Northeast of Two Harbors, MN sits the GooseBerry Falls State Park. Very pretty, and popular. On a warm summer day this was not the spot for a photographer who enjoys pictures without people. In fact, while setting up and taking a few pictures, my wife was so concerned she was going to witness a person falling from the rocks, she had to leave. People were scrambling everywhere. We didn’t witness a fall, and I did manage to get a picture without people, but it took some effort.
We spent two nights in Tofte, Minnesota about half way between Duluth and the Canadian border. Here is an observation, the further one gets from Duluth, the fewer people are found on the road, and at the waterfalls. Just a bit northeast of Gooseberry Falls are the Beaver Falls on the Beaver River near Silver Bay, Minnesota. The falls here are deep in a ravine next to a small roadside turn out. It takes some effort to get down to the river. Thus, few people visit this falls.
And one afternoon we found a wonderful spot up the Onion River. A nice large rest area, a wonderful trail, and nobody on the trail. What made this spot so nice was the solitude found within just a few thousand feet (a few hundred meters) of the highway. In this section of the north coast, each river or stream cuts a deep gorge through the rock as the water empties into Lake Superior. Being close to the main highway, traffic noise is heard in all of these river valleys. But walking up the Onion River just a thousand feet (300 meters) or so left the highway sound behind. Being early August with minimal rain in the previous few days, the water was very low making walking up the rocky stream bed very easy.
The images below are from the Onion River hike. The minimal stream bed, the flowers, the ripe fruit of late summer, the solitude. Our walk up this little stream bed was complete relaxation. Not a sound, other than the gurgling of water flowing down the rocks to the lake.
While traversing around Lake Superior I do want to point out two unique places to stay. The first one mentioned below, the second one will appear in my next post. Over the years I’ve slept in all sort of places. Great hotels, great motels, cheap motels, under the stars on the tops of mountains, under a hay wagon in a farmers yard on a rainy night, on a trail used by illegal immigrants next to the Mexican border, in airports, in train stations, the list goes on and on. On this trip we stayed (among other places) in the Lakeview Hotel in Wawa, Ontario. An old hotel from days when Wawa was in its prime. We could have stayed at any of the new hotels on the outskirts of town, but this seemed like a better choice. Friendly people, clean rooms, much more character than in a plain room that if it weren’t for a window, could be anywhere in the world. Not this place, this is the Lakeview Hotel in Wawa, a nice bar/restaurant on the first floor, nice rooms, and a great price.
When we left Wawa, Ontario on our way back to Michigan, there was an informational road sign I did not expect to see. After passing the sign, I quickly pulled to the side of the road, turned around and headed in the direction the sign pointed. Over the years I have spent a lot of time in the desert southwest of Utah, Arizona, and Colorado. I have seen lots of ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and pictographs. The sign that caught my attention was directing those who paid attention to the Agawa Rock Pictographs. I was not expecting pictographs in Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior.
After turning off the main highway, it was a 1 mile (1.6 km) drive to a parking area. From the parking area it was a .3 mile (.5 km) walk down a sometimes steep rocky path to the waters edge. The trail drops 150 feet (45 m) from parking area to waters edge. Once at the waters edge it was an 80 foot (25 m) walk along rocks that sloped into Lake Superior. This walk is not for the faint of heart. The day I was there the waves were only a few inches high. Waves higher than a foot or so would mean you have a high risk of being washed into the lake. But fear not, there is a life preserver and rope to grab onto should you become one with the lake. My wife chose not to take this hike along the waters edge.
What was more amazing to me was that these pictographs were only about 10 ft (3 m) above the level of the lake when I was there. I thought for sure Lake Superior storms would send waves crashing onto these rocks erasing all signs of these pictographs in short order. But there they were, plainly visible for all who dared to walk along the rocks to see them. An estimated 150 to 400 years old. That is a lot of Lake Superior storms to endure. You can learn more about this rock art from the greatlakes.guide web site. For anyone wishing to visit this site (or any indigenous historical site), please give it the respect it deserves. Nature will eventually reclaim this site, please do not touch or otherwise harm these priceless pieces that art.
Our wondering around Lake Superior continued from here, past Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario, and Michigan), to Munising, Marquette, and Big Bay, Michigan. I’ve already made this post long enough so I’ll pause here and continue with another post shortly.
If you have any comments, thoughts, criticism, questions, I’d love to hear from you. Did you know there are pictographs on the shore of Lake Superior?
I had no idea there were pictographs in the Lake Superior area! Nice photos and travelog.