Voyageurs National Park

Day 1 - April 30, 2025

My son joined me for this trip. We saw lots of wildlife even before entering the park such as sandhill crane, bald eagle and numerous deer. This time of year was wonderful weather but none of the visitor centers were open yet for the season. The first day was spent hiking all of the trails near the Ash River area. The first trail Blind Ash Bay was beautiful however, I got a bit worried when I saw almost the entire lake was still frozen as we were planning on kayaking tomorrow. It was cool to see the remnants of the ice roads used across the lake in winter. We kept hearing a noise that sounded like an old engine starting but not catching. It came from several directions throughout our hikes. It was the sound of ruffed grouse seeking mates. There were also several piles of wolverine scat along the trail that was a bit unnerving. We continued on to several other trails that were not as exciting but did include swans, loons, eagles, deer and a cool boulder that looked like a scrunched face cat. A bonus was dump piles from about 50-75 years ago that included pull top beer cans and flat top soda cans.
That evening, my son wanted to go into Canada for a quick visit. It was a complete bust. The park was decent with views across the river to the US but the trails he looked up did not exist anymore. We tried to visit a thrift store in downtown that closed just before we pulled up. We gave up and went back to our home country.

Day 2 May 1, 2025

Kayaking day. The weather forecast said no rain, so it rained all day. The ice on the lakes prevented us from kayaking very far, but we were able to go across Rainy lake to another island to hike Black Bay Beaver Pond. The rain made the rocky trail very slippery. The rocks were mostly granite with veins of quartz and the view of a large beaver pond made the slow hike worth it. Although I am from the Beaver state, I think Minnesota has way more of them. I think we saw about half of their 10,000 lakes. There were lots of water fowl while kayaking and I enjoyed the call of the loons. We ducked into some small inlets and found several beaver downed trees but never spotted an actual beaver. Back at the docks, my son found two ticks that hitchhiked their way with us.