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Minnesota's North Shore Driving Tour
North Shore
Today, this area is still the edge of a wilderness that sprawls for 10,000 square miles across Minnesota's northeast corner. State-61 provides almost the only link to engaging harbor towns, wide-spot-in-the-road villages and state parks along the shore of oceanlike Lake Superior, as well as to the rugged north-woods country beyond. It's a journey to savor in short spurts, with plenty of stops along the way.
On this 175-mile two-lane lakeshore tour from Duluth to Canada, timeworn cliffs rise like weathered castles, their walls battered by crashing waves from the world's largest freshwater lake. Inland, Superior National Forest protects vast tracts of maples, pines and aspens. The rolling Sawtooth Mountains, which formed the shore of Lake Superior before the water receded eons ago, now rise several miles inland. More than two dozen rivers rush from these highlands to the lake, transforming the shoreline into a series of dazzling waterfalls. The area's forests and the woods closer to shore stage an incredible fall-color show, often lasting from mid-September to mid-October. Never is the contrast between the lake's deep blue and the surrounding countryside more striking.
You can hike, mountain bike, kayak and fish, or just contemplate the breezes in the trees and the sound of the waves. Though the landscape is a main attraction, you'll wish you had more time to spend in almost every community along the shore. If you talk to shopkeepers and artists in Grand Marais and other shore towns, you'll hear different versions of the same story: The more they visited Minnesota's North Shore, the harder it became to leave. That's a feeling you're sure to get to know.
