Where is Paddle?
Each week (on Monday when internet is available) we will give a series of clues throughout the week that will help you find where Paddle, from Paddle to the Sea, is in Lake Superior including pictures with Paddle, weather conditions, festivals/celebrations, traditions, and animals & plants we found there. See if you can use your detective skills to put the clues together and figure out where it is! Then on the next Monday weather and internet connection permitting we will post the answer.
Sources:
Eds. Berg, Bob & Konnie LeMay. Lake Superior the Ultimate Guide to the Region (second edition). 2010. Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. Lake Superior Magazine. Duluth, MN.
Paddle’s first adventure:
Paddle tested out the waters on the beach near a town who’s heritage was based on logging and fishing like many along the shore. It continues the fishing tradition with charter boat fishing.
Clue #1: This town is known as the first town to have a consolidated school district in 1903 with horse drawn wagons and sleds as school buses.
Clue #2: A landmark in this area is the Johnson Store, which you will see from HYW 13 when you travel through this town.
Clue #3: The WI DNR has perserved a beautiful Boreal Forest natural area to local residents and visitors to explore with bogs, huge white pines and a beach full of sand dunes near the harbor.
Paddle’s Adventure #2:
Paddle tried out the water with some kayakers in the canal that is a very distinct feature of this community along the shores of Lake Superior. It is in Copper Country & Mining was a major source of income for the region, like many other communities tourism and the university have become key players in the economics of the community.
Clue #1: This community is located near a very large canal that is also a lake.
Clue #2: It is a university town, with a twin city across the canal that also has a university.
Clue #3: It has the largest lift bridge on Lake Superior’s shores
Paddle’s Adventure #3:
Clue #1: This community is located close to a Fort.
Clue #2: Nearby there is an area where they count birds, we have a video of this on our website.
Clue #3: This community is on one of the largest peninsulas found in the shoreline of Lake Superior.
Paddle’s Adventure #4:
Clue #1: This place along the Lake has the highest peak on Ontario’s shoreline of Lake Superior.
Clue # 2: It has some of the warmest swimming waters of Lake Superior and you will often see people out in the water.
Clue #3: A falls is located here that marks the halfway point on the Trans Canada Highway.
Paddle’s Adventure # 5:
Clue# 1: This place along the shoreline is home to Mishipeshu
Clue#2: Some of trails in this area require squeezing through holes between rocks
Clue #3: This place was established in 1944
The name of the town where Paddle’s first adventure took place is called: Port Wing Wisconsin! It is beautiful historic town along Lake Superior. It has a history of commercial fishing, logging, farming and stone quarries with a local historical museum that will tell you about early Port Wing.
They are know for having the largest fish boil in WI around labor day and a fall festival, so if you are around the area during that time join in the festivities. In August they also hold the annual Plein air painting festival contest. It is also the birth place of Helga Skogsberg who wrote “Comes the day comes the way”.
Paddle along with Mike and Kate could not cross the harbor here because of the canal and wetland that surrounds it. They had to take the road around to other side of the harbor. On both sides of the harbor, though there are beautiful sand beaches, with beach grass and the boreal forest meeting it.
Great job on the post, I just happened to stumple upon this site thru bing, this ones going into favorites
Paddle’s second adventure takes place in Houghton, MI. Houghton is found at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula and sits along the banks of the Portage Lake, which was build into a canal. The word Keweenaw is actually Ojibwe/Chippewa/Anishinaabe for portaging. Where this lake rests before the canal was build there was a large outcropping of rock that had to be portaged around.
Houghton & the Keweenaw region are know as copper country because copper mining was the way of life here. From 1870 to around 1910 this area was known as one of the wealthiest in North America because of the copper found there. Today the biggest economic factor is tourism like many places along Lake Superior.
It also is home to Michigan Tech (Michigan Technological University), where some of the advisors for our Full Circle Superior Expedition teach & do research. As we travel around the lake we are collecting information on what people know about Lake Superior and how they feel about the Lake through surveys that scientists at Michigan Tech, University of MN Duluth Natural Resources Research Institute & Saint Catherine’s University will analyze.
A distinct feature of Houghton is its Double Decker lift bridge that holds the title of the heaviest lift bridge in the world. It is also the largest lift bridge on Lake Superior beating out even Duluth’s Aerial lift bridge, which I am more familiar with being from MN. The lift bridge was completed in 1959 & spans around a quarter of a mile. Each year over Father’s day weekend Bridgefest is held celebrating the bridge with a parade, music, dances, races & lots of food. Another huge celebration for the area is the Pine Mountain Music Festival held in June & July bringing in world-class musicians.
Houghton is also the gateway to the Isle Royale National Park. The Park Head Quarters are situated along the waters of the Portage Canal. It is from the Park Head Quarters that passengers board the Ranger III to reach the shores of Isle Royale National Park.
Paddles’s Adventure #3 takes place in the village of Copper Harbor located near the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. It dates back 150 years and was once the only access point in the region from Lake Superior. The region is known for its snowfall and holds a record of 390.4 inches. There is a big measuring gauge showing the record so you can see how much snow that is. It is a lot.
Near by rests Fort Wilkins which was built to protect the port of entry and to keep law and order among the copper miners and speculators, but it never saw any military actions during its time. Now life at the fort is re-enacted so you can step back in time and see what life at a fort was like.
Copper Harbor is also home to Brockway Mountain which offers amazing views of the Lake Superior and the nearby hilltops. It is also a place where they do spring bird counts. When we visited the Mountain we met a bird counter. Watch the video on the journal portion of the website. Copper Harbor is also know to have one of the last one-room school houses still in operation. It also has a beautiful lighthouse where you can learn more about the maritime history of the region.
Paddle’s 4th adventure takes place in Batchawana Bay. Batchawana Bay is a small village located along a 56 kilometer or 35 mile long beautiful bay in Ontario. It is home to the day use Batchawana Bay Provincial Park and the Voyageur’s Cookhouse and Lodge. The Voyageur is a wonderful place where we spent a lot of time both eating and using their internet. We also stayed at the Wild Rose campground next door which has paths that connect to the Carp River. We also recommend a visit to the Salburg Haus restaurant which features Austrian and German foods and a beautiful setting along the Bay.
Located in this Bay is the beautiful Chippewa Falls on the Chippewa River that marks the halfway point on the Trans Canada Highway. There are beautiful rock formations that the falls flow over and a great river to explore!
Batchawana Bay is also a place that is known for it wonderful access to swimming, sailing, boating, fishing and most anything you can do on the water. It is attractive also because the waters along this Bay are warmer than many other places along the shoreline of Lake Superior in part because the water is shallower here and more quickly warmed by the sun. The Bay is also home to Batchawana Mountain the highest peak along Ontario’s shoreline of Lake Superior, reaching 2,181 feet or 665 meters.
Adventure #5 takes place at Lake Superior Provincial Park!
Lake Superior Provincial Park was set-aside in 1944 to protect this special piece of land along Lake Superior’s shoreline in Ontario south of Wawa. It consists of 620 square miles of protected parkland protecting both natural and cultural beauty.
The park features an amazing rocky coastline trail, which Mike and Kate hiked from Agawa Bay through the Gargantua Trail. This park is where I saw the only moose of the whole trip. It was an overcast and foggy day when Mike and Kate walked the Gargantua trail and on the way back from my walk in with them Sheena and I visited Gargantua harbor and where there just at the right time to see a mama with her two babies across the water.
The coastal trail includes at Agawa Rock pictographs at a sacred Anishinaabe site along one of the cliff faces with a narrow ledge along the water where you can visit them. The most famous of these pictographs is Mishipeshu, a serpentine/dragon-like lynx that is the guardian of the lake. There are also other pictographs along the cliff that are only accessible from a canoe. If you are visiting the pictographs is very important to pay attention to the weather and what the waves are like that day because you can easily be washed off the rocks and into deep waters as the rock ledge features a curved slide into the Lake where water and rock meet.