10 Great American Drives: The Heartland, Yosemite, The Elvis Trail and More

AMERICA'S HEARTLAND: MINNESOTA
I am the product of a Minnesota-style mixed marriage: my mother's from St. Paul, while my father hails from Minneapolis. Como Park versus Minnehaha Falls, the State Fairgrounds versus the Mall of America. My parents did agree that every summer we'd vacation at our lakeside cabin in the North Woods. There I would fish, poorly yet enthusiastically, for the northern pike that lurked beneath the sky-blue surface of Thunder Lake, and then drift off to cedar-scented sleep as the grown-ups played cribbage. Now, decades later, I'm back, with my wife and three-year-old son, driving toward "the Arrowhead," the rugged corner of the state wedged between Canada and Lake Superior. Over the next four days we will make a long, ambitious loop through the immutable landscape of my childhood: glacial lakes and a wilderness of pine and birch; smoked-fish stands and homespun museums; grand lodges and a stunning shoreline.

Duluth, a pocket-sized San Francisco, is the gateway to the region, a working port tucked between wooded hills and a dark inland sea. Its broad-shouldered history is palpable and kid-friendly: the Depot, a châteauesque train station erected in 1892, has a children's museum and an all-climb-aboard collection of retired steam engines. Nearby, kids can "pilot" the 610-foot William A. Irvin, a former flagship of U.S. Steel's ore-carrier fleet.

Beyond the humpbacked Aerial Lift Bridge, Highway 61 hugs a coastline punctuated by tumultuous rivers and abrupt headlands. The mercurial Lake Superior has a passive-aggressive personality, capable of dead-calm beauty or raging nor'easters. So many ships foundered in a 1905 storm that Split Rock Lighthouse was built upon a sheer 130-foot cliff. Now decommissioned, the solitary beacon 46 miles north of Duluth is the highlight of an excellent state park with bird watching—peregrine falcons and bald eagles—and guided tours of the lighthouse, museum, and 1920's keeper's house.

Along the craggy 150-mile north shore, we find the best (read warmest) swimming is at Temperance River State Park's deep swimming hole; Lake Superior, meanwhile, is 40 degrees even on a hot July day. The largest town in the tip of the Arrowhead Country is Grand Marais, founded in 1823 as a fur-company trading post. Those hardy trappers wouldn't recognize the lively harbor village 110 miles northeast of Duluth, which houses a renowned arts colony, several charter-fishing services, and that totem of any happening place, a bar serving microbrews. (Check out the Gun Flint Tavern's walk-in cooler, once a bank vault.)

A 15-mile drive northeast leads us to a Jazz Age relic, the Naniboujou Lodge. Now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, Naniboujou was conceived as a private club and counted Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey as charter members. It remains frozen in time: its gymnasium-sized Great Hall is anchored by a fireplace fashioned from 200 tons of native rock and topped by a 25-foot-high ceiling painted with stylized Cree designs. The pleasures here are simple; skipping stones along the shingle beach tops our list.

After tackling the lodge's epic Sunday brunch—turkey sausage, omelettes stuffed with mushrooms and wild rice—we head for Grand Portage National Monument, an easy 20-mile cruise up Highway 61. In 1784, the North West Co. established its inland headquarters here and traded woolen blankets, dye, and glass beads to native trappers for fox, beaver, and bear pelts. The National Park Service's re-creation of the depot is complete with Ojibwa village and voyageur encampment. We get a taste of frontier life as re-enactors build canoes, press furs, and cook period meals. Good planked fish.

Twenty miles west of here, the lake-pocked Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness preserves a million acres of the old hunting grounds. After loading up a take-out picnic from time-warped Leng's Soda Fountain & Grill in Grand Marais, we roll along the Gunflint Trail through nearly 60 miles of primeval forest. At trail's end, hard by the Canadian border, we rent a canoe for a once-around of Seagull Lake and are rewarded with sightings of loons, a beaver dam, and even a bald eagle before a long drive back to Naniboujou.

The next day, we're back in the deep woods, rambling along unpaved roads inside sprawling Superior National Forest, a stronghold of the gray wolf. We're bound for Ely, a three-hour drive west of the lake and the easiest place to see Canis lupus. The International Wolf Center has a resident pack, hands-on exhibits, and field trips to see an abandoned wolf den and to do some howling.

Only a scattering of fire roads penetrates this boreal forest; the best trails are dedicated to subzero fun: cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and dog-sledding. The pro-Arctic attitude seems contagious—Buzz and Elaine Braginton gave up an Arizona beauty-supply business to run the Finnish Heritage Homestead, a four-room B&B in tiny Embarrass, about 30 miles southwest of Ely. As I admire his weathered, hand-hewn Finnish-style outbuildings and my son picks fistfuls of blood-red raspberries from his garden, Buzz informs me—with more than a touch of perverse pride—that in 1997 the town had frost every month.

With weather like this, people learn to relish Minnesota's brief summers. The taste of a pan-fried walleye. The incandescence of a hummingbird's throat. And everywhere, the presence of water: a rushing stream, a boiling cascade, a lake holding the sky's reflection.

On the 300-mile drive back to the Twin Cities, we wander through a steady succession of heartland towns: Hibbing and Grand Rapids, Hill City and Remer. The two-lane blacktop finally skirts a familiar shore, and I impulsively swing the Chevy Blazer onto a dirt track and rattle a mile through woods to a fork in the road. And there it is, nailed to a tree trunk: the old hand-lettered sign with my family's name, still pointing the way toward the Thunder Lake cabin my grandfather sold nearly 20 years ago.

I don't go down the road, but say a silent prayer instead. I have already touched the Minnesota I knew. The pike, as always, are off the hook.

MINNESOTA FACTS

THE ITINERARY
DAY 1 From Minneapolis, take Interstate 35 north to Duluth, then Highway 61 north for 46 miles to Split Rock Lighthouse State Park; Grand Marais is 63 miles farther. Naniboujou Lodge (milepost 124) is 15 miles past Grand Marais.

DAY 2 Continue on 61 north for 20 miles to Grand Portage National Monument. Retrace the road to Grand Marais, then go west on Cook County Road 12, also known as the Gunflint Trail. Return to Naniboujou Lodge.

DAY 3 Head south along Highway 61 for 43 miles to Temperance River State Park, then west on county roads through Superior National Forest to Isabella. Follow Highway 1 north for 34 miles to Ely and the International Wolf Center. To reach Embarrass, take St. Louis County Road 21 south for 30 miles.

DAY 4 From Embarrass, take St. Louis County Road 21 west for 12 miles to U.S. Highway 169 south. Continue for 88 miles, then take Highway 200 west for 16 miles. In Remer, follow Highway 6 south for 59 miles to Highway 18 east. At Lake Mille Lacs, turn onto Highway 169 south and drive 75 miles to state Highway 101, then seven miles south to Interstate 94 east. After nine miles, take I-494 south for 28 miles to Minneapolis—St. Paul International Airport.