Grand Forks, ND through Bemidji to Grand Rapids, MN

When we traveled from the North Dakota border to Bemidji, MN we were following the Great River Road of Minnesota. At the Bemidji rest area on Rt. 2 we found ourselves at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We had become so accustomed to rivers getting their start as snow melt high in the mountains, we were rather surprised to find that the mighty Mississippi gets its start in a rather unimpressive lake on the prairies. Who would have guessed! We knew we had arrived in logging country when we spotted Paul Bunyon with Babe the Blue Ox in downtown Bemidji. The city of Bangor, Maine has huge statues of the same two logging icons. Both areas can certainly claim that woods operations played a big part in their history, but how do two states so far apart come to share the same folklore? We traveled on to the Cohasset/Grand Rapids area where we spent the afternoon at the Forest History Center. Inside an attractive, spacious building were exhibits that told the story of various people's interaction with the forests of the region from the earliest recorded history to modern times. Wally loved operating the timber harvester. Outside and down a walkway was the guided living history tour of an 80-man logging camp where the date was Dec. 15,1900. Darcy's favorite part was getting up close and personal with Queenie and Patty, the Percheron draft horses that pull the sled loaded with white pine logs. We chatted with the clerk, the camp cook, the filer of all those cross-cut saw blades, the blacksmith and the teamster. We followed that with a climb to the top of a 100 ft. tall fire tower with the Forest Service Ranger. Those interpreters really make history come alive!