We stayed 1 night at Woodenfrog State Park on Lake Kabetogema (I’ve been practicing how to say that in person ever since). There are a couple small little hikes around it. We saw a mama deer walking around the campground and she startled and walked back into the forest. Later, Ben and I were walking in a different part of the forest and startled a baby deer! It was so camouflaged we never would’ve seen it if it hadn’t stood up and run further away. (Can you see the baby deer in pic 1?) We loved the quiet and remoteness of this area. Voyageurs is really known for and seen by water though.
The Kabetogama visitor center has really limited hours due to Covid and wasn’t open the day we we were camping nearby. The next day we had reservations up at Rainy Lake so went to the Rainy Lake visitor center and did a ranger led interpretive hike in the garden. He discussed the native plants and trees, how indigenous peoples lived near the water during the summer, how they made their canoes with the various trees, etc. It was an excellent talk!
The NPS has several boat tours they typically lead in the summers to show tourists all there is to see in Voyageurs. Unfortunately, the NPS has significantly cut down on the amount of boat tours they’re operating this summer. We weren’t able to book any tour through NPS despite looking several weeks in advance. We were hoping to get a last minute tour by showing up at Rainy Lake visitor center in person but it wasn’t meant to be. Thankfully at check-in at our RV park, I asked the owner if she happened to know anyone doing private tours and she was able to hook us up with a tour with Captain Bill on a sunset cruise that same night! Apparently Captain Bill is super well known in this small community.
Our tour was a sunset chartered boat tour with Captain Bill! The tour was from 5pm to 9pm and took us to Ellsworth Rock Garden, Kettle Falls Hotel, and Steven’s Island. Any one of those destinations would have been a single tour on one of the NPS tours. We felt super lucky to have gotten last minute seats in Bill’s boat. Bill was a Park Ranger (or might still be one?) and has lived in the area since before it was made a national park. He knows the lake and history (and people) better than anyone. It was basically like getting a NPS tour anyway.
Bill was great at pointing our bald eagle nests and young bald eagles nearby them, as well as pelicans, and other various birds. He talked about the history of the park and the different destinations we went to.
Ellsworth Rock Gardens was created by a family at their summer home. The summer home is no longer standing, only the foundation remains, but the rock gardens are still there. The NPS has made attempts recently to preserve and restore the historic houses in the national park.
Kettle Falls hotel fell into disrepair in the 70s but was repaired and now you can stay in it again. The bar was the craziest bar we’ve ever walked into. The floor was so sloped it was basically a built in sobriety test. The door to the bar was simply marked “Bar” in red crayon.
Steven’s Island I can’t remember a lot about but there was a cabin, sauna, and guest house still standing on the island.
We got back to the marina just as the sun was going down.
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