Voyageurs National Park is in northern Minnesota along the border with Canada and is the fifth least-visited national park in the lower 48 states. It is primarily a water-based park and much of the land in the park can only be reached by boat. There are three visitor centers that are accessible by car and boat tours are offered through the park service (sign up in advance on the Recreation.gov website; a link to the site is available through the nps.gov website).
For our visit to Voyageurs, we stopped at the Ash River Visitor Center and did hikes around that area, including the Kabetogama Lake Overview/Blind Ash Bay Trail (3.0 mile out-and-back) and Beaver Pond Overlook Trail (just 0.3 miles to a nice overlook area). The trails were not difficult, but the mosquitoes were fierce! We resprayed with bug spray five times over the course of the hike and still got bitten a few times. We stayed overnight near International Falls in the town of Ranier, MN, where we found Loony's Brew Pub.
Beyond the national parks, there were plenty of other fun things to see and do in the International Falls and Duluth areas. We stopped in Smokey Bear Park in International Falls to see the giant Smokey Bear statue and saw the world's largest hockey stick in Eveleth, MN (which is also the home of the USA Hockey Hall of Fame). We hiked the Park Point Nature Trail in Duluth, walked along the Lakewalk trail near the Aerial Lift Bridge and stopped in the Duluth Trading Company.
We loved that there are lots of brew pubs in Duluth, and we sampled beers at Ursa Minor Brewing, Warrior Brewing, Blacklist Brewing and Taproom, and Canal Park Brewing Company. In addition, we spent one night over the river in Superior, Wisconsin, where we went to Earth Rider Brewery, Thirsty Pagan Brewing, and 7West Taphouse (had to get the cheese curds there!). All were good stops, but Earth Rider Brewery really stood out as being excellent. Mike tried two IPAs that were both good...Stoney Point IPA and Caribou Lake IPA. I did a flight of five, to include the North Tower Stout, Duluth Coffee Pale Ale, Blueberry Honey Cream Ale, Grapefruit Radler, and Raspbecrush Kettle Soured Wheat Ale. The coffee pale ale was amazingly good with a delicious coffee flavor. Quite surprising for a pale ale! The Raspbecrush was a wonderful sour ale...just the right amount of tartness. And the Blueberry Honey Cream Ale was very smooth, with a great blueberry flavor.
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