Travel: Discover the USA’s Great Lakes in wintertime
Minnesota and Wisconsin are home to thousands of lakes – including the biggest, Lake Superior. But it’s in winter that the fun really begins, as Tanya Pearey discovers…
Stepping on to a frozen lake goes against a lifetime of warnings. I know the ice here must be as solid as rock – much of the local town has come on to it, bringing whole families in heavy cars and trucks.
In fact, further along the lake the ice gets so thick that they dispense with the ferry to reach the nearby Apostle Islands and simply drive across the lake on a purpose-built ‘ice road’.
Back in the UK, when lakes freeze over we’re told never to walk on to them. Driving cars on to them? Well, that would just be idiotic.
Here in Ashland, Wisconsin, on the edge of the vast Lake Superior (which is larger than Switzerland), they’re racing stock cars on it and have created a makeshift car park for competitors and spectators. Little wonder that I hold my breath as we drive on to it. ‘Keep off the ice’ is clearly a message hardwired into my brain.
But the temperature here in February can seriously plummet – it reached -15°C during my stay. If you’re trying to imagine how cold that feels – it’s like walking into a freezer (yours at home is around -18˚C).
It means the ice on the lakes in this region gets pretty solid and the locals make the most of it. Ice fishing is popular and you can hire all the gear you need plus a guide to take you on to a frozen lake and drill a hole to fish through. High-tech gizmos help steer you to the angling hot spots and for those less keen on braving the elements there are heated shacks.
Hayward is one of the state’s top fishing destinations. I ‘helped’ catch a couple of tiny walleyes there on Nelson Lake thanks to local guide Mike Best (mikebestguiding.com), who’s been fishing these parts for the past 20 years.
Another spot with a lot of history is Gunflint Lake. It sits on the Canadian border in Minnesota, around 50 miles west of Lake Superior, on the wild, remote Gunflint Trail, a 57-mile road which was once a footpath for travellers going from inland lakes to Superior.
The scenery along this stretch is stunning but the winter wildlife and weather can be pretty hazardous. ‘Watch out for the ice and moose,’ was the advice for our drive to Gunflint Lodge (gunflint.com). ‘They stop on the road to lick off the salt!’
The lodge was built by Gunflint Lake in 1925 and activities you can try here range from the exhilarating (snowmobiling and dog sledding) and the lower octane (snowshoeing and crosscountry skiing) to the hyggeinducing (massages, hot chocolates by a roaring fire).
For more active kicks, try snow tubing at Duluth’s Spirit Mountain, where you slide down snowy slopes in a rubber ring (spiritmt.com). Or ski some of the world-renowned 100km Birkebeiner crosscountry trail (birkie.com), at Hayward, Wisconsin, home to the annual Birkie – one of the largest and longest ski races in North America.
And when you’re done with the outdoor lakeside life there are the nearby vibrant twin
cities of Minneapolis-St Paul, with a great cultural and musical history (Prince and Bob Dylan have ties to the area). They have more than 100 theatre companies and it’s easy to move around out of the cold thanks to eight miles of climate-controlled skyways. After hours on frozen lakes, you’ll be pleased to see them.