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In Bemidji, it's all about Bunyan. The northern-Minnesota town was first to create a giant Paul, in 1937, and it's the northern trailhead of the Paul Bunyan State Trail. The professional Paul Bunyan Playhouse stages plays in summer, and in August, a new opera festival is presenting "Paul Bunyan.''
What to do: Ride the first 7 miles of the Paul Bunyan State Trail along the
eastern shore of Lake Bemidji. Swim from the beach of Lake Bemidji State Park. Catch
a play at the Paul Bunyan Playhouse, "Three Days
of Rain'' through Aug. 2 or "The Music Man'' Aug. 6-16. Go to the first Lake Bemidji Summer Opera Festival, presenting
"Carmen'' July 25-26 and "Paul Bunyan'' Aug. 1-2. Buy a plaid ear-flap hat from Bemidji Woolen Mills.
Events to catch: Aug. 1-2, Dragon Boat Festival
on Lake Bemidji. Aug. 8, International Day
at Concordia Language Villages, an open house with food, canoe rides and cultural activities.
Where to stay: Ruttger's Birchmont Lodge, a full-service
resort on the northwest corner of Lake Bemidji; it has excellent deals the last half of August. The
newer, lodge-style Hampton Inn & Suites has a long sandy beach on the south shore near downtown,
218-751-3600. The 1910 Villa Calma
B&B is on the west shore.
Information: Bemidji tourism. Also see Bemidji's behemoths.
Past fast plans: Keweenaw Peninsula, Breezy in Bayfield, Cooling off in Duluth
Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wis.
You can't see this kind of thing just anywhere: cut-throat log rolling, boom running, springboard
chopping and speed climbing (pictured) in competitions between the best modern-day jacks and jills. July
25-27. For more, see Hayward's
lumberjacks.
Nordic Fest in Decorah, Iowa. Ole and Lena host this friendly,
authentic, very fun and very large festival of Scandinavian culture. The parade, one of the region's
best, is at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. July 24-26. For more, see Nordic nirvana.
Three lakeside festivals in Clear Lake, Iowa. They're all in the pretty City Park of this northern Iowa town: Iowa Storytelling Festival, July 25-26, Art Sail juried show, July 26, and DixieFest, July 26-27.
Kickapoo Country Fair in La Farge, Wis. The festival in this hotbed of sustainable living features music, food, children's activities and a workshop and talk by pioneering author Frances Moore Lappé. July 26-27.
For a list of ethnic festivals from African-American to Ukrainian, see Celebrating
roots.
For summer food celebrations, see A
feast of festivals.
For outdoor arts fairs, see Art
al fresco.
For dragon-boat festivals, see Waking the dragon.
For Laura Ingalls Wilder festivals, see Laura land.
When heat wraps itself around your shoulders like an electric blanket with static cling, there’s only one thing to do: Look for cold water.
You'll find it tubing on a spring-fed river, such as the South Branch of the Root River, which takes a short cut through Mystery Caverns and heads toward Lanesboro chilled to 48 degrees.
On Minnesota's North Shore, plop yourself into one of the Baptism River’s potholes and let the cool waters swirl around you. Or go whitewater rafting on the St. Louis River south of Duluth — a fast cool-down is guaranteed.
If it's really scorching, try a dip in Lake Superior. Sheltered coves can be tolerable, especially off
Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but otherwise it's perfectly chilly.
Below are some of the best ways to cool off in hot weather.
In northern Minnesota, not every little fishing village had a place like Chase on the Lake.
But Walker did. When the Tudor-style hotel opened in 1922, it was the most luxurious and expensive hotel north of Little Falls. For many years, it was the place to be in this Leech Lake town, named for a lumber baron whose fortune was plowed into a famous Minneapolis art collection.
Eventually, the hotel became ragged around the edges, and it burned in 1997. Until this year, the hillside site on Minnesota's third-largest lake, a block from downtown Walker, sat empty.
Now there's a new Chase on the Lake, and it's a beauty. This one also is gabled and half-timbered in the Tudor style, except its facade is artfully applied concrete. Inside, halls are lighted by stained-glass sconces, floors are laid with William Morris-style floral Arts and Crafts carpet and furniture is dark oak.
In 1896, a St. Paul man named J.A. Berkey came to Minnesota's Leech Lake, threw out his line and reeled in a whole new industry.
"He set up white tents for some men from Kansas City, who fished their guts out and said, 'We’re going back and telling everyone,’ ’’ said Renee Geving, director of the Cass County Museum.
The hook was set. Over the years, Leech Lake’s reputation as a fishing hole grew as big as its muskies, which can be huge. The town that grew on the shores, however, wasn’t called Berkey, or even McGarry, after the town founder, a resort owner who is credited with coining the slogan "Land of 10,000 Lakes.’’
More than a decade before Laura Ingalls played on the banks of Plum Creek, and 70 years before the
fictional Kit Kittredge solved mysteries in Ohio, a girl named Caroline "Caddie'' Woodhouse roamed the
Wisconsin wilderness.
To many readers, Caddie was the first and best American Girl.
She came of age during the Civil War and loved the outdoors, gathering hazelnuts in the woods, dodging rattlesnakes on the bluff and poling a log raft on the lake.
She was friends with the local Indians, unlike Laura, who wanted her dog to kill the ones who visited
when the family was squatting on Osage land in Kansas. A Santee Dakota band lived near Caddie, who lived
only half an hour north of where Laura would be born, and she often forded the river on tiptoe to watch
them make birchbark canoes. When she overheard settlers making plans to attack, the 11-year-old girl got
on a horse and rode over at dusk to warn them.
Caddie had pluck and a loyal heart. What she didn't have was a TV series or a Hollywood movie.
In summer, nearly every river is a good canoeing river.
For adventure, try the Bois Brule, which flows into Lake Superior over a series of rapids. For scenery, head for the cliff-lined Upper Iowa, which National Geographic Adventure magazine calls one of America’s Best Adventure 100, along with rafting in the Grand Canyon.
For fun with kids, paddle the crooked Kickapoo. Teen-agers like floating the Crystal River in the tippy canoes rented there.
Below are some of the best places to dip a paddle this summer.