Top of the Nation – the Northwest Angle – Lake of the Woods MN [July7-10, 2016]

The Northwest Angle border crossing is a tiny shed and a video phone

Long ago when early cartographers were drawing the boundary between the US and Canada, they didn’t always have a clear understanding of the topography of the area.  In fact, what the diplomats agreed upon in the Treaty of Paris (1783) was a geographic impossibility.  They drew the boundary through how they thought Lake of the Woods was situated, stranding a tiny section of the state of Minnesota across the lake in Canada.  It is above the 49^th parallel (49.3453° N, 95.0651° W), and is the northernmost most point in the Lower 48 States.  You have to drive through Canada to get there.  So, we just had to visit!

Flat, flat, flat

Lake of the Woods is a large lake, 37^th largest in the world.  It is a huge fishing destination, both in the summer and ice fishing in the winter.  To get there we passed miles and miles of flat farmland.  Huge rectangular fields stretching as far as you can see.  You can tell that something enormous (like a glacier) went through here and flattened this land out.  We stayed outside of the town of Warroad in a fishing resort on the lake just 3 miles from the Canadian border. 

Entering Manitoba

We moved from paved roads to dirt roads

So, here is how we got to the Northwest Angle.  First, we had a nice chat with the Canadian border officer who came aboard our motor home, then we crossed into Manitoba, Canada.  This part of Manitoba is also flat, flat, flat and has huge fields of crops.  After about 20 miles, the paved road ended, and we drove along packed dirt roads.  There had been a heavy rain the night before, so the road was not too dusty.  After a while, we turned into the Northwest Angle Provincial Forest, and the roads became more rutted.  We bounced over washboard ridges and swerved around deep holes in the road.  Eventually we came to the Manitoba/Minnesota border.  Signs told us that we should check in with the US border folks at Jim’s Corner 14 miles down the road.  At this point the condition of the dirt road improved. 

Craziest border we've ever crossed.

Yay, we've arrived!

Jim’s Corner is a small hut.  There is a phone inside the hut and a phone outside the hut.  You push the button with an American flag next to it.  US Border answers and you tell them where you are, your vehicle license plate number, who you are, and who is with you.  Yay, we had returned to Minnesota.

Jim's Corner doubles for both US and Canada border crossings

First you pick up the phone...

...and select if you are entering the US or Canada.

The Northwest Angle has several small communities.  First, we headed to the Young's Bay Fishing Resort.  We found that they had a campground there.  We ate lunch at Jerry’s restaurant.  Dana had a Minnesota invented Juicy Lucy – a hamburger cooked with American cheese inside, and Swiss cheese and grilled onions outside.  A heart attack on a plate.  Yummy.

Young's Bay fishing resort

A Juicy-Lucy - heart attack on a plate

The resort is right on the shoreline of the lake.  We noticed white pelicans floating in the water.  WHAT!  We had hoped to see these beautiful birds in the Everglades, but didn’t.  They must have already left for their trip up to Lake of the Woods.  Oh yes, said the local folks, they are here every summer. 

White Pelicans on Lake of the Woods

Everybody around Lake of the Woods has purple martin houses, and Young's Bay had huge purple martin condominiums.  It was such a pleasure to have swarms of 20 or more purple martins flying overhead.  We just stood and watched them fly.

Purple Martins!

We then drove over to Angle Inlet, the northernmost town in the lower 48.  We bought post cards and mailed them at the northernmost post office.  Then we drove around the tiny town and saw the northernmost school, a one-room, one-teacher K-6 school.

Most Northern Post Office

Eventually, we returned to Jim’s Corner.  This time we pushed the button with the Canadian flag, as we were about to enter Canada.  We repeated the same drill as before, though this time they also wanted our home address.  Again bumping over the (now very dusty) rutted dirt road to the paved road.  At the US border, we gave our passports to the border officer.  We were asked to pull to the side, where 2 more officers came out.  One boarded the motor home while the other stayed outside with us and Tiki.  Thank goodness we had left all of our fruits and vegetables in a cooler at the campground before we left.

Kayaking on enormous Lake of the Woods

The next day we took our kayaks out on the Lake.  We had been warned that waves get very large on the lake, especially at our location on the lake, because of the long miles uninterrupted fetch across that portion of the lake.  So, we decided to kayak along the shoreline.  We headed for a sandy beach area around the island where we were staying.  The kayak to the beach was lovely.  It was fun to see the homes from the water.  We landed at the beach and had a nice rest in the sand leaning against our kayaks.  The wind picked up, and so did the waves.  We hugged the shore in shallow waters and had a strenuous paddle back.  We joined fishing boats coming in to the harbor.  Too much wave action for fishing, they said. 

Some people just gotta swim in every body of water they visit...

Our inflatable kayaks interested some of them, so after we landed we had visitors to our campsite to get a closer look.  The people that we met at this fishing resort were extremely friendly.  They dropped by introduced themselves, and stayed for a chat.