By: Matt
Voyageurs National Park lies on the boundary waters between northern Minnesota and southern Ontario. It is named after the French Canadian trappers that used these waters for the beaver fur trade. The park itself only has 8 miles of paved roads, and all of the campsites are only accessible by water, so seeing the park by car is not possible. I thought to myself, perfect, I’ll just bring the family out by boat! Thus began another dad-venture.
I found an outfitter than rented houseboats on Crane Lake, which is one of the lakes that connects to the waterways of Voyageurs. We arrived at the Voyagaire Lodge at about 2:30 pm to pick up “Island Hopper.” Island Hopper is a 36 foot houseboat, complete with water slide, refrigerator, microwave, BBQ, head, and shower. Samantha was very happy that she was going to have a real toilet and shower on the boat. It didn’t really matter to her that she would be showering in with lake water. Compared to the pop-up, this thing was a mansion, and everybody was excited. I guess after 4 weeks in a pop-up, expectations had been set so low that we felt like we were cruising in style! So far, the dad-venture was going to plan.
Each night, the houseboats scramble to tie up to designated houseboat campsites. Some of these are maintained by the National Park Service, while others are informal, and can only be identified by stone fire-rings on shore. Since we arrived in the afternoon, we made a short steam to the upper reaches of Grassy Bay on Sand Point Lake. We found an unofficial site perched on a granite bolder surrounded by dense Minnesota woods. The place was idyllic. Downed logs in the water, lily pads, soaring eagles above, and a warm afternoon sun. Once we tied up the boat, we grilled some hamburgers on the deck and enjoyed dinner overlooking the water. Since the sun sets so late (~9pm), Eli and I decided to try our luck at fishing from the 16 foot aluminum boat that comes with each houseboat. With a 15 hp motor, it got on a plane quickly and skimmed across the smooth water. Eli really liked driving it. In about an hour we landed 4 smallmouth bass and 1 northern pike. Not too bad for not trying very hard. We got back for sunset and hung around the fire. I couldn’t believe how nice it was! We looked forward to star-gazing as the last bit of daylight receded. That’s when it started. What seemed like at first a few stray mosquitos turned into a squadron of combat trained mosquito ninjas. The air was alive with the high-pitch whirring of blood sucking vampires. We looked toward the houseboat for refuge, but that too was coated with bugs trying to get to the lights inside the boat. We dashed in the door, only letting in a few hundred of the hoarding millions. The next hour was a full on “swat to the death” as we mercilessly exterminated all insects. After that the lake water shower was nice way to wash off the bloody mosquito carcasses.
The next morning, the bugs had vanished. We steamed north to Namakan Lake to explore the islands. We found a nice swimming hole and used the houseboat slide to its fullest potential. There were some storm clouds to our north, so we turned south again into Sand Point Lake. We had read that the more rocky campsites had fewer bugs, so we made our way to an island that was mostly granite to tie up for the night. We found a wonderful site, and swam and fished a bit more. We made a huge fire on the granite rock, completely bug free. We had a wonderful evening….until the last bit of daylight receded. We must have really made the mosquitos angry the night before, because they showed up with reinforcements. I didn’t think it was possible to fit more angry bugs in the air. These things attacked so fast that we barely had time to retreat to the boat. We swatted away for another hour, clearing out the boat, then wept silently in our pillows (really!). I actually contemplated turning in the boat a day early. The bugs are tough!
By morning, the bugs were gone again, and we saw a beaver busily working on a nearby shoreline. The day was HOT, so we decided to motor over to Burnt Island where there are places to jump off cliffs. The kids were excited about this, and they jumped off the boat, and swam over to the island. There are two cliffs to jump from, the lower is about 15 feet high and the upper is about 40 feet. Sam wasted no time jumping from 40 feet, and Eli followed. By then we had an audience of about 5 boats cheering us on. It was so refreshing on a hot day! For a finale, Eli, Sam and I a jumped off the high rock at the same time. Unfortunately, Eli jumped with his arms out, rather than tucking them to his side. He received a pretty bright raspberry on each arm that stayed until the next day. OUCH! He was a trooper though.
One of the best things we did was park the boat, and hike over to Mukooda Lake. There, we were treated with crystal clear water filled with fish. The kids waded out to their waist and caught dozens of panfish with a few really nice smallmouth bass mixed in. It was a great time on light tackle. We left the fish biting, and went in search of our last campsite. This time we learned our lesson. We found a beautiful campsite in Grassy Bay, swam and fished the afternoon away…but as soon as the sun went down, we stayed inside!!! Alas, we had a wonderful dinner, played cards, trivia, and mocked the mosquitos hanging on the outside of our boat. It was a good night sleep on a quiet bay, in a very beautiful national park.
