Mississippi River near Grand Rapids MN

After a week, I’m settling in and getting a pretty good feel for Grand Rapids and surrounding areas. The Mississippi is a very different river up here, smaller and in some ways just one of many mid-size streams, not as central in the consciousness of folks like it is further south. In this part of Minnesota, logging, mining, and the lakes are central to folks’ identity. I’ll have more to say about each of those in the near future.

This part of the state consists of big spaces dotted with little towns. The regional hubs are communities of about 10,000 people, so I’m not optimistic about eating any Thai food for a while. Folks spend a lot more time outdoors than most people I know, although fishing is probably the single biggest reason. Fishing isn’t just a pastime; it’s a religion where the church is mobile, everyone has their special chapel, and regular worship is expected.

Just in case you forget where you are

Northern Minnesota is a good place to lose yourself (or just get lost). I’ve been on roads where I drove for dozens of miles without encountering another driver; where homesteads are carved out of the forest with nothing around them but trees, bogs, and bugs; where going to town means driving 20 miles to the community of 200 people. And image how much more isolating it feels when it’s -30° and a strong north wind is drifting snow across the roads. As far as isolation goes, Montana has nothing on northern Minnesota.

The “Minnesota nice” stereotype is true. I can’t tell you enough stories about how friendly folks are, and not just in a surface-y, just to be polite kind-of-way; they really want to know about you. Each time I go out for a bite to eat or to sip an adult beverage, I’ve had to close my book or put down my pen because someone wants to chat. Yesterday, I stopped at a local bank to look at its taxidermy collection (the owners are avid hunters) and within a few minutes the bank president was giving me a tour.

Open roads; little traffic

Yes, folks here are very friendly, which makes the way people drive all the more shocking: “Minnesota Nice” morphs into “Minnesota Ice”, with aggressive driving habits that would shame any big city driver, like me. My first day in Grand Rapids, I had two very close calls where someone nearly ran into me. I didn’t realize that being stationary at a stop sign was going to be hazardous, at least not until a hockey mom driving a giant Suburban nearly crashed into me head-on. As she made a quick left turn in front of traffic, perhaps temporarily forgetting that folks in Grand Rapids are supposed to drive on the right side of the road, she looked shocked when she saw my car. She swerved to avoid me, then raced on to whatever the hell was so damn important for her to get to. If I met her at a bar, though, I’m sure she’d go out of her way to be friendly and might even buy me a drink.

Deer are pigeons for country folk, except they make a much bigger dent in your vehicle. On the drive back from International Falls, I was taking it easy, watching out for deer and did indeed see several on the side of the road. As I neared Grand Rapids, traffic slowed to a crawl because someone had just hit one a few minutes earlier. The SUV will survive; the deer didn’t.

Can’t get the Prius around this one

Today’s bad decision: Driving down a minimally-maintained gravel road after a big storm. Nothing bad happened, but, after clearing a small birch tree from the road, a mile further along (and five miles into this gravel road detour), I encountered a much larger evergreen tree across that road that I was not going to be able to move. I had to backtrack the five miles to the main highway, then take the long way around.

© Dean Klinkenberg, 2011