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Best Short Hikes on the Gunflint Trail The plethora of hiking options on the Gunflint Trail can be overwhelming, especially if it is your first time visiting or have limited time, or even worse both.  There are hiking trails that run on for 40 miles in one direction, or trails that have so many turns and loops you should not...

Periods of heavy rain assault our tents throughout the night. We linger in our sleeping bags listening to the wet world. For now we are warm, dry and satisfied. We try not to think about the inevitable. Eventually the rain wears us down mentally, never letting us forget about all that water we have been drinking. Finally we are forced...

A disorienting field of gray cloaks everything. I raise my head up out of my hammock far enough to see the thickest fog imaginable. We very well could be camped on the top of a mountain. My eyes provide me with the only information available; I’m hanging between two trees. It takes a bleary second but my mind reminds me...

My eyes and mind adjust to the confusion of oriented strand board as I wake. It takes me a second to recall my surroundings. We squeeze out of our narrow bunks and begin packing yesterday’s purchases. Our story may have included a weary retreat if it had not been for Jim and the people at Canoe Canada Outfitters, we are...

Over the years in talking with people on a daily basis in the summer about what we do up here in the winter I have come to the conclusion that what keeps most people from enjoying the Gunflint Trail and Boundary Waters in the winter is their fear of the cold.  Although I am not advocating that everybody jumps right...

Winter on the Gunflint Trail is a special thing and just being here can be enough, but when you want to get out into the pristine cold there is no better way to explore it than on cross country skis.  In a world where actually finding snow is getting harder and harder the groomed cross country ski trails in Cook...

We are on the cusp of the finest month of the year.  The long, hot, sun-soaked days of summer are behind us and they have been replaced by the shorter, cooler days of early fall.  This time of year on the Gunflint Trail is our favorite.  Considering the lack of bugs, humidity, and crowds, its hard to imagine how anyone...

At roughly a latitude of 48° N and healthy distance from any major metropolis our location at Clearwater Lodge makes for a perfect place to catch the northern lights.  Also known as the aurora borealis this incredible light display is primarily caused by a disruption of the magnetosphere by solar winds or flares leading to the ionization of particles in...

After “Is this where I check in?” the second most common question we get here at Clearwater Lodge is “Where can we find moose?”  It makes sense as Northeastern Minnesota is one of the few places in the Midwest to find the largest member of the deer family; it also helps that a moose is featured on the Gunflint Trail...

For the longest time one of the most popular questions we would get upon somebody walking in the front door of the historic lodge was, “What’s the story behind that big boat on the porch?”  Considering it took up a good portion of the already massive porch and it was right next to the front door it was not a...