Northome, Minnesota

 

 

I was given a civil, even cordial, welcome back into the US entering at International Falls, just across the Rainy River from Fort Frances.  I was asked a few perfunctory questions as I straddled my bike culminating with “What are you going to do when it gets cold,” as snow was in the forecast, not for today or tomorrow, but the day after. But the cold seemed a far way off with it actually up to seventy, the warmest it’d been in a couple of weeks. I told her I had already had a taste of snow in Canada and that I had plenty of warm clothes. I was able to keep my helmet on during our brief exchange, so she couldn’t see I was in need of a shower, which might have been grounds for denying me entry.

She didn’t get overly personal on what I might be bringing from Canada other than if it were cannabis or tobacco or fresh fruit.  I had half a loaf of bread and a couple of pop tarts remaining of the food I had purchased in Canada, otherwise the rest of my food was leftovers I had brought in from the US, peanut butter and nuts and oatmeal.  I wasn’t returning to the US with any non-food purchases, though I was bringing in a couple of Ontario license plates I had found along the road.

I asked her if it had been busier since October 1 when Canada did away with its requirement for Americans to be vaccinated to enter.  She said it had, as many people in International Falls go over to Fort Frances for its Walmart, as International Falls with less than six thousand residents, one third of Fort Frances, is without.  An older guy in the International Falls library admitted he’d rushed right over to the Walmart when Canada did away with the rigamarole of having to register on-line to enter the country with proof of vaccination, his first visit in nearly three years since Covid.  I asked the librarian if she had been and she replied, “I couldn’t be bothered to go to Canada.”

She didn’t realize Fort Frances had a Carnegie Library, which just might entice her over.  It was similar to the noble Carnegie in Kenora, a solid brick building with a pair of columns at its entry.  It had an addition to the side opposite from fhe “1914” chiseled into a rock near the base of the building.  The building wasn’t open, so I was denied being able to check to see if it had the Carnegie portrait or acknowledged him in any way, as nothing on the outside of the building did simply bearing “Public Library” over its entry.

International Falls may not have had a Carnegie Library, but it had the largest statue of Smokey the Bear in the US, twenty-six feet tall, erected in 1953, sixteen years after the equally grand Paul Bunyan statue in Bemidji one hundred miles south, the oldest such statue, but not the tallest.  Behind Smokey was another striking statue, that of the legendary Bronko Nagurski, a football great who is on the Mount Rushmore of Chicago Bear running backs along with Red Grange, Gale Sayers and Walter Payton., a foursome that no team can match.  He played in the 1930s in the era of leather helmets.

The day before if I’d had access to a television I could have watched a double header of .Canadian football games, as it was Canada’s Thanksgiving Day, and as in the US, there is a special offering of football.  Rather than a Thursday, Canada’s Thanksgiving comes on a Monday, the second Monday in October.  

The few businesses in the small resort town Nestor Falls, the only town I passed through all day in seventy-six miles, were all closed, partially because it was the off-season and partially because of the holiday.  I was fortunate to use the WiFi at a campgrounds/motel on the town lake.  The office was closed when I arrived with a note on the window saying the proprietor was cleaning rooms.  I went roaming to see if I could spot her.  She came scooting over in a golf cart.  

She said she had seen me the day before, as she had driven up to Kenora, sixty miles away, for a Thanksgiving dinner.  Someone had left her a container of chicken soup and another with a couple slices of pumpkin pie outside the office door.  As I sat outside the office using the WiFi she presented me with a warm bowl of some of the chicken soup, the first offering I’ve had in nearly a month on the road and also the first warm meal of the trip.  

My final twenty-five miles in Canada were in a valley along the border.  The terrain had flattened and had also become more fertile with clearings of forest turned into pastures of hay.  Crossing into the US the terrain remained flat and also had rolled bales of hay in fields. For the first time on the trip I had less than one thousand feet of elevation gain for the day.  This after two days of just under and just over three thousand feet.

And I also had the first chance in nearly two weeks to ride bare-legged, as a strong south wind pushed the temperature all the way up to seventy.  The legs sure spin easier when unsheathed. But it’s going to be just a one day aberration with the wind due to switch from the north plummeting the temperatures and possibly bringing some snow.