![[Lake scene drawing]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/lake_scene.gif)
Around here, you don't need oceans for a beach vacation.
We have thousands of lakes, plus inland seas on shoreline that often is called the Fourth Coast. Lake Michigan's shores are a veritable Riviera, and even rocky Superior has some noteworthy stretches of sand.
You could throw a dart at the map and come up with a good beach. Or you could take a cue from names of state parks — Point Beach and Harrington Beach in Wisconsin, McCarthy Beach in Minnesota, Orchard Beach in Michigan.
One Great Lake east of Superior, there’s another North Shore.
It doesn’t have any craggy points or sheer palisades, and there are no agates waiting to be found. It has no waterfalls, and not a scrap of basalt; in fact, there’s nothing volcanic about it.
But this north shore, on the leeward side of Lake Michigan, has something Minnesota's beautiful North Shore on Lake Superior doesn’t have: Sand, lots and lots of sand.
To some people, nothing is a finer destination than the dusty gravel pits around Moose Lake in northern Minnesota.
A billion years ago, when fresh lava was cooling around what is today Lake Superior, dissolved minerals flowed into gas bubbles that had formed on top layers. Other minerals coated the first layers, some red from iron or white from calcium, and over time heat and pressure squeezed them into stone.
Then, the glaciers came, fracturing the surrounding rock and freeing the agates. Pushed along by ice, they were tumbled, polished and eventually dumped along with other glacial rubble.
Big, bad Lake Superior.
It’s big as in vast, with a surface area equal to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
It’s bad as in lethal, able to swallow ore boats or pulverize them against the hard volcanic rock that lines its shore. And it’s treacherous — like an enraged bull, its crushing waves can turn on a dime.
It's no secret there's buried treasure right here in Minnesota.
It's in every gravel pit, along every railroad track, on every beach. All you have to do is look to find a Lake Superior agate, Minnesota's official state gemstone.
And every July, agates also can be found spread over Moose Lake's main street — 350 pounds of them, some even polished, hidden along with 1,200 quarters in 4 tons of rock.
The best time to look for agates is on a sunny day, early in the morning or late in the day, when the rays of the sun are slanting across the rocks.
"Agates reflect the light a lot more than other rocks,'' says John Woerheide of Lutsen, Minn., who uses agates in the jewelry he makes. Woerheide suggests walking into the sun and stooping low.
It's fun to look on North Shore beaches, but they're picked over, so he looks after a heavy rain or storm, when new rocks wash up. He suggests the beaches of Tettegouche and Temperance state parks, as well as the edges of inland rivers, such as the Poplar and the Onion ("not Cascade; I've never found anything there'') and Paradise Beach, 14 miles north of Grand Marais and just south of C.R. Magney State Park.