Centennial Trail

Yesterday, I hiked the Centennial Trail.  It was created in 2009 in honor of the 100-year anniversary of the Superior National Forest.  This trail celebrates the natural beauty, fire ecology, and history of this beautiful place.  You can start on the Round Lake Road, or the Kekekabic Trailhead.  I chose the latter of the two to begin my journey.

One of the early points on interest on the trail is the nickel test shaft for the Paulsen Mine.  You probably notice that the sign says 1893, the year of the mine's beginning, and end.  It shut down for three main reasons:

1. It was cheaper to mine iron ore using the open pit method that they were able to do on what is now know as the Iron Range.  The Paulsen Mine used the shaft method.  The town of Hibbing, Minnesota was also founded in 1893.
2. There was a financial panic in 1893.
3. The President of the Gunflint Mining Corporation was embezzling money from the Paulsen Mine for the City of Minneapolis, and vice versa.  He ended going to the prison in Stillwater until the governor of Minnesota pardoned him.

The next site I came to was one of the many ponds along the Kekekabic and Centennial Trails.  There was some great wildlife in there, including: two Lesser Scaups (Aythya affinis), two Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), and one Beaver (Castor canadensis).  The Lesser Scaups are the smaller two ducks.  Can you spot the beaver?

I eventually came to a Beaver dam, and was able to cross over to the Centennial Trail section.  The snow on the trees was from the night before.  Today, we had a combination of sleet and rain.  Most people up here are grateful for the precipitation this time of year because it cuts down our wildfire danger.

The Kekekabic Trail that I started on continues for close to forty miles.  It was originally put in to give firefighters access to the fires deep in the wilderness between Ely, Minnesota and the Gunflint Trail.  It was well placed.  The three biggest fires in Minnesota in the last decade and a half have burned over this trail.  There was the Cavity Lake Fire of 2006, the Ham Lake Fire of 2007, and the Pagami Creek Fire of 2011.  In later blogs, I will talk more about the Ham Lake Fire, since I worked on that fire, and it is the 10 year anniversary of its' ignition on May 5th.

After switching trails, I immediately came across one of the main shafts of the Paulsen Mine.  According to the Pioneers in the Wilderness Book by Willis H. Raff, the main shafts were between 70 and 110 feet deep.  The way they found out the depths was by sending down ropes with weights at the end.  The shafts are almost totally filled with water, and are too dangerous to send in divers.  When the water level is down a little bit, you can see some of the old timbers that were used to support the shaft in 1893.  This shaft was very close to "Gunflint City," the old mining camp.

Continuing down the trail, I came across two Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) in different spots.  Both did their best to hide from me.  The picture on the left was of the most photogenic of the two.  It walked back into the brush, and stood very still.  This particular one was very large for its' species.

The trail continued down through some deep valleys, and up over high ridges.  When the mine was active, there was a railroad spanning the valleys, but all the bridges burned in forest fires.  If you look carefully on the horizon, you can see a thin sliver of Gunflint Lake.  The last continental ice sheet to come through here had a melt water stream that formed a dam of glacial till (sediment) that separated this valley from Gunflint Lake.

The train that brought the one load of iron ore out of the Paulsen Mine was called the Port Arthur, Duluth, & Western Railway (P.A.D. & W).  It started out in Port Arthur (now part of Thunder Bay, Ontario), and terminated at the Paulsen Mine.  The train crossed from Canada to the United States over the narrows between Gunflint and Magnetic Lakes.  Due to the loss of the mine, the trail never made it to Duluth.

One of my favorite spots on this trail is a section of the old railroad grade which was cut into a ridge.  The small valley that was formed contains its' own micro-climate, and is always a little colder than the surrounding areas, as is evidenced by the snow in this picture.  Imagine what it was like 124 years ago when I train traveled right over this spot.

I soon came to the Round Lake Road, and hiked next to an old beaver pond, which is actually higher than the road.  There were a couple of ducks in there, which I originally thought were more of the Lesser Scaups that I had seen earlier.  I took several pictures of them, and later, when I put the pictures on my computer, I was delighted to learn that they were actually Ring-necked Ducks (Aythya collaris).  It is definitely worth bringing along a camera when you go birding!

I eventually turned off of the Round Lake Road, and walked a short distance parallel to the Gunflint Trail back to my car.  If you are ever up on the upper Gunflint Trail, it is definitely worth taking this challenging, but rewarding hike.