Minnesota: North Shore

Who knew Minnesota had a North Shore? And that it is full of waterfalls and breathtaking views of Lake Superior. This state just keeps surprising me.

The North Shore was our final stop in Minnesota, after Detroit Lakes and Rainer. We stayed in a campground near Two Harbors that we loved. From here we did our North Shore Exploring. 

(My friend Jenn inspired most of our adventures here. She visited much of the North Shore and has more details listed on her blog.)

Duluth:

Duluth was only 30 minutes south of us and we spent a fun evening here in the Canal Park area. Anthony works during the day so some of our adventures we save until the evenings so he can join us. This also gets me out of making dinner because we usually grab food somewhere so it’s basically a win-win for everyone.

The Canal Park area is an old warehouse district and is pretty fun to explore with many shops and restaurants in old, brick buildings with tons of character. We ate dinner at Vitta Pizza. Yum! And walked down to the aerial lift bridge.

This bridge is a pretty cool thing to see. It rises more than 20 times a day for ships to enter the harbor. We missed out on seeing the entrance of impressive freighters but did see a harbor cruise ship enter.

We also walked past Lake Superior Art Glass and watched through the open storefront as this guy made an entire glass vase in front of us. It was fascinating. I had hoped to visit a glass blowing museum at one point in Oregon but of course it was closed due to Covid. But hey, this was free. We stood on the sidewalk and watched the artist in action. The guy was great in explaining the process and answering our questions. 

Two Harbors:

Since we were staying right there we ventured down to explore the two harbors, the lighthouse and the giant ore docks. 

Because Two Harbors is a major shipping port on the Great Lakes, the US Army Corps of Engineers constructed 2 long breakwaters here. The longer of the two is over 1500 feet long and we walked to the end one night to watch the sunset.

Gooseberry Falls:

This is the most popular state park on the North Shore drive and it’s really easy to access. We went in the evening and missed most of the crowds. 

We walked around and explored the falls and I only had slight anxiety attacks when my boys tried to scale the rock cliffs. 

It is really a beautiful spot. 

Gitchi-gami Trail: 

I saw that there was a paved trail along a portion of the North Shore so I had the genius idea of taking the kids on a bike ride. What fun, right? A ride along the shore of Lake Superior? The distance between Gooseberry Falls and Splitrock Lighthouse looked doable, especially on bikes.

Well, what I didn’t understand when coming up with this brilliant plan was that there are some serious hills on this route. And where Splitrock Lighthouse State Park showed up on my GPS was not actually where the Lighthouse was. Nor was it where Anthony happened to be meeting us with the truck so we didn’t have to round trip it. 

It was a little rough. Probably more so for me. Since I was hauling Grady on the back of the bike.

And also because I’m old. 

But we did it. And we felt a huge sense of accomplishment. And although my kids will never trust me again when I say, “It’s just a little bike ride,” it was completely beautiful and we are glad we did it. 

Or at least I am.

The Gitchi-Gami trail goes much farther and I highly recommend it. Just allow yourself lots of time and bring lots of water. 

And also, in non-Covid times I’m sure touring the lighthouse would be amazing. But at least do the walk down the stairs to the rocky beach. The views are stunning.

Tettagouche State Park:

Although there are many hiking trails up and down the North Shore, we only did one here. We hiked from the visitor center to High Falls. It was about a 3-mile hike round trip and although Grady is pretty much too big for the Ergo carrier, I brought it anyway and shoved him in it because it was way better than dragging him the whole way. He did hike a portion of it and all the kids loved playing in the water at the end. 

At the top of the 60 foot falls is a swinging bridge we had to go check out.

At the visitor center there are also beautiful views of Lake Superior at a few different vistas.

Temperance River State Park:

This was as far north as we ventured. Viewing the waterfall was an easy pull off to the side of the road. A little trail and bridge curves over Temperance River Gorge and provides great views of the waterfall. 

The North Shore was a little slice of paradise and a great finale to our time in Minnesota.