The Trestle

I spent most of the last week in Lake Superior National Forest. It’s one of my favorite places. But to get there is a journey. After a 3 hour flight to Minneapolis, it is approximately a six hour drive to get to “God’s Country”.

Located in the northeastern corner of Minnesota between Lake Superior and the Canadian border, the 3.9 million acres of Superior National Forest includes over 2,000 lakes. The woodland harbors bald eagles, lynx, fisher, owls, ospreys, moose, otters, and white tailed deer, timber wolves (approximately 300-400) and black bear, beaver and red fox. And an abundance of partridge, a lot of partridge. It is the largest federal forest in the contiguous 48 states.

Over 445,000 acres or 695 square miles of the forest is surface water. In addition, more than 1,300 miles of cold water streams and 950 miles of warm water streams flow within the boundaries of the Superior. Fish species such as walleye, northern pike, smallmouth bass, lake trout, brook trout, rainbow trout, and brown trout can be found in abundance in these waters.

The rest is blanketed by dense, mossy floored forests of pine, spruce, aspen, birch, cedar and tamarack, or saturated by vast bogs and impenetrable swamps. The National Forest includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), and 254 "dispersed" campsites outside the BWCAW. The area that is now the BWCAW was established as the Superior Roadless Area in 1938. It became the BWCA in 1964, and at some point in the 1980's became the BWCAW. Outside of the BWCAW, the Forest has over 2,700 miles of roads. The very roads that rental car companies fear for the treacherous road conditions.

And amongst this wonderful wilderness is a bar, my all-time, favorite bar, The Trestle. The Trestle Inn, was founded in 1947 on a plot of land on the Crooked Lake in the Superior National Forest.

In the early spring of 1980, while on a snowmobiling adventure, the Trestles’ proprietors came across an abandoned railroad trestle last used in the 1920's. With permission from the Forest Service, they disassembled the bridge. One at a time, with Lee's 1948 Willy’s Jeep, they hauled the 8 x 16 x 33 ft. long Douglas Fir timbers weighing 1950 pounds each five mile back to the resort. There they were piled for future use. The timbers were estimated to be more than 300 years old. The Trestle Inn, my favorite saloon, was completed and opened in the fall of 1985.