It Is Indian Summer On The Gunflint Trail

Somehow the Gunflint Trail has blossomed into Indian Summer.  The last week or so has been just beautiful.  After a cool summer, this warm weather is what we have all been looking for.  The leaves are just starting to turn so there should be lots of great fall weather still to come.

Bob Baker from Gunflint Pines Resort says that fishing is improving some.  The walleyes have been biting well on Saganaga Lake.  Most of them are in the "eater" class.  Jigs with live bait have worked the best.  The warm weather has made it very nice to spend the day fishing.  Forrest Parson at Hungry Jack Lodge sent me a great picture of a walleye caught and released by one of his guests.  The walleye was 31.5 inches long.  Tom Caldwell from Loon Lake Lodge told me that the father and son who did so well fishing on Loon earlier returned this week.  They fished on Little Iron Lake and had great luck with walleyes.  Their fish were all in the 2 lb. plus size.  Tom says tht he can't remember when a guest has had such good luck with walleyes on Little Iron.

If you are going to be up on the Gunflint Trail on Monday, September 21st, there will be an interesting program you may want to attend.  Mark Jirsa, a Univeristy of Minnesota Geologist, will be leading an interpretive walk to two Sudbury meteorite impact sites.  As you may know, Mark has been discovering evidence that a huge meteoite that landed in Sudbury, Ontario, (500 miles away) blew ejecta to our area.  The walk will start at the gravel pit on the Gunflint Narrows Road (formerly Warren's Road) at 4:15 p.m.   At 6:30 p.m. on the same day, Mark will give a presentation at the Gunflint Lodge on this topic.

There is a new hiking trail going in on the Gunflint Trail.  Many of you have probably hiked in on the Kekekabic Hiking Trail to the Paulson Mine.  This mine was accessed by a railroad that came from Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1893.  They dug some test pits and took out one load of what was supposed to be high grade iron ore.  It turned out to be taconite which could not be proccessed at that time.

The Kekekabic had gone past the mine site on its way to Ely for many years.  This fall the U. S. Forest Service is building a loop trail out to the mine site and even using some of the old railroad grades that lead to the mine.  The plan is to finish the entire trail this fall.  Yesterday I heard one dynamite blast coming from the trail work.  Next time you are up on the Trail, be sure to plan a hike on this new trail.