Photos courtesy of Steve Marsh
Cliffs at Crake Lake in the Boundary Waters
Somewhere right around the parking lot of our favorite drive-in, Gordy’s Hi-Hat, you can feel Minnesota start to change. The air up here around Cloquet cools and dampens by a degree or two, and the most direct summer sunlight can’t cut through the state’s boreal mood.
These days, even when my family synchronizes our escape from the Twin Cities, my brother and sister and I usually beat our mom and dad to the marina by an hour or more. The summer days are long enough that even after we’re done unpacking the cars and filling the fridge with a week’s worth of supplies, there’s still time enough to take a sunset cruise on Crane Lake.
Steve Marsh and family
The author (rainbow swimsuit) with mom, sis, and bro
My dad is 75 years old now and long since retired from driving an 18-wheeler. But he carries himself with on-the-road-again swagger when he’s behind the wheel of his 21-foot aluminum Lund, with its 225-horsepower outboard motor. Dad’s Mercury holds more than enough power to zip us at near-highway speeds through this familiar chain of lakes: Crane Lake to Sand Point to Namakan and back again. All these waters lie within the more than 200,000 acres of Voyageurs National Park, straddling the Canadian border, and they’ve served as liquid turnpikes for hundreds of years. Where French Canadian paddlers once moved freight by birchbark canoe, our family has been trading in fossil-fueled recreation for a couple of generations.
Throttling all the way down, we roar by island after island, thick with white pines. Granite faces rise out of the ferrous lake water—water as dark and placid as a punchbowl of wine. The big Merc hurtles greens, blues, and reds at you, one vista after another.
It took our clan a while to hit that speed. My mom’s Polish grandparents homesteaded a farm on the Vermilion River, a few miles outside of Buyck, Minnesota. (They were more familiar with old-school horsepower.) Though my mom grew up in Minneapolis, each summer she would come to Crane Lake with her brother and sister and visit their swashbuckling uncles who remained in the Northwoods. They flew floatplanes and guided walleye fishing expeditions for the minor magnates of Chicago business.
The farm bequeathed to another branch of the family, my siblings and I spent our own childhood summers vacationing in rented resort cabins on the southwestern end of Crane Lake. Ten years ago, my sister, who works as a registered nurse, started cashing in her vacation days to bring her son along. And now after a long period of doing my own summer thing in the Cities, I’ve recommitted to the family tradition—now with my fiancée and our child (read: Blair the standard poodle) in tow.
It’s kind of weird vacationing at the same place over and over, year after year, isn’t it? We still do the same things that we did when I was a kid. We hike the one-and-a-half-mile trail into the Vermilion Gorge, inhaling the scent of the sweet fern in the mist. We catch up on family gossip and take turns scolding Blair as he barks at the other hikers on the trail. At some point, all conversation surrenders to the booming power of the falls. If the wind stays calm, we’ll take the boat on an all-day excursion up to the Kettle Falls Hotel, a remote property that sits near a dam on the Kabetogama Peninsula. We’ll eat cheeseburgers and drink bloody marys on the hotel veranda and retreat to the bar with its crooked floor for a series of futile attempts at knocking dad off the counterintuitively level pool table. After the second or third bloody, I’ll find myself wondering what the room felt like back in Prohibition, when the place served as a flophouse for lumberjacks.
Steve's Dad on motorboat
The captain (a.k.a. dad), on Crane Lake
But most days on dad’s boat, we’re not going anywhere in particular. We may stop off on an island for a shore lunch of hot dogs and s’mores, or we’ll try to find blueberries to pick for pancakes the next morning. We’ll wave at the people on the houseboats trundling in the opposite direction. The days bleed together: sunbathing on the same beaches, hearing the same family lore, getting into the same family squabbles, sometimes even reading the same books. Maybe one of these summers Daisy will finally come back to Gatsby.
It’s easy to get caught up in the sentimentality of hereditary praxis: A lot of families with luck, health, and a little money saved up will go somewhere together in the summer. But as I’ve traveled around the region, it’s become obvious we were especially lucky to establish a tradition in what is, objectively, the most beautiful part of the state by far. And yes, the area’s Northwoods sublimity makes sharing two bathrooms with your family of seven seem like a more restorative practice than it probably actually is. But then a six-hour drive isn’t much of a voyage for rarefied scenery like this. (I mean, just think if you had to paddle a 30-foot canoe full of lousy Frenchmen to get here.)
Embedded in the granite cliff on the east side of the King Williams Narrows is a rock formation that looks enough like a wizened smirk. The locals refer to it as “the face in the rock.” Supposedly, if you salute the face on your last day, you’ll ensure your return. I guess it’s probably more of a resort brochure myth than an authentic local legend.
Me? I always do.
Voyagaire Lodge at Crane Lake
Cabins on Crane homebase
While you're there...
Bunking
Cabins on Crane offers rentals, with access to a private boat launch and a spot on its floating dock. Rates run around $1,575 a week for four people (218-993-2401, cabinsoncrane.com). Houseboat rentals start at $335 a night at Voyagaire Lodge & Houseboats (218-993-2266, voyagaire.com). The most established and upscale resort in the area is Nelson’s (87 years and still going).A cabin that sleeps four starts at $1,725 for the week (800-433-0743, nelsonsresort.com).
Motoring
You’ll want a powerboat for the full Voyageurs National Park experience. Most resorts offer rental packages, but Handberg’s Marina holds the most options, with a 19-foot Starcraft available for $955 a week (218-993-2214, handbergs.com). A perfect day trip starts with walleye fishing at Indian Island on the northeastern end of Crane, followed by an Instagram opportunity at the pictographs in the Namakan Narrows, culminating in an afternoon fish fry at the sandy beach on Namakan’s My Island.
Lakeside Dining
On a calm day, chart a course for the Kettle Falls Hotel (218-240-1724, kettlefallshotel.com). It’s a 75-minute boat ride up from Crane to Sand Point and across Namakan. After you park and check out the falls, make your way to the Lumberjack Saloon. You won’t even need one of its tasty bloody marys to feel tipsy navigating the saloon’s famous crooked floor (but drink one anyway).
