Poplar Creek Courier Brought to you by Boundary Country Trekking

Beginning Thursday, August 2nd is the 77th Annual Grand Marais' Fisherman's Picnic, with races, live music, fireworks, street vendors, specials in the shops & restaurants and all kinds of events.

Another annual festival is the Rendezvous Days & Pow Wow in Grand Portage Aug. 11-13. Celebrate the Chippewa culture with traditional food, arts, crafts, music, dancing, drumming and games like horseshoe throwing, softball, a walk-run race and the turkey shoot.

For additional information and lodging for the above great Lake Superior North Shore events contact Poplar Creek Guesthouse Bed & Breakfast or call 800-322-8327.

Saturday, August 12 is the Geat River Engery Mesabi Trail tour 2006. Supports the Trail and Independent Public Radio. For more information visit http://www.mesabitrail.com.  The tour offers ethnic food, northern music and family entertainment. Four starting points: Giants Ridge–Gilbert–Virginia–Ironworld Discovery Center– and end at Hibbing's Bennett Park.

Special: Poplar Creek Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast is now offering a new Forest Fire Ecology Tour. On this educational tour you will spend your first night at the Poplar Creek Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast.

The next morning following breakfast you drive to Seagull Lake near the end of the Gunflint Trail and the site of the Cavity Lake Forest Fire. At Seagull you will meet your guide, forest naturalist and Seagull Lake resident Jim Raml. Accompanied by Jim, you will paddle through the BWCA by canoe or kayak, to the Seagull Palisades, passing by the 1976 Roy Lake fire, the 2005 Alpine Fire and the 2002 Three Mile Island prescribed burn. From the Palisades you will have a spectacular view across Seagull Lake to where the Cavity Lake Fire started and where several other USFS prescribed burns have taken place. You will also travel through some of the Seagull Lake previously burned areas where Jim will explain the forest regeneration occurring there. Jim has spent many years as a firefighter with the Minnesota DNR and USFS and he is well versed in forest ecology issues. He has a wealth of knowledge on forest fires, forest regeneration, and the local area that you can count on him to share with you.

The tour lasts 4 to 4 1/2 hours. Following your tour of Seagull, you return to Poplar Creek Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast for your last night. This package includes two nights lodging with breakfast each morning, canoes or kayaks, and the services of guide/ecologist Jim. Rate- $185/person plus taxes (two person minimum). For reservation or more information -call 800-322-8327.

SPECIAL- View the aftermath of the BWCA's Cavity Lake Fire and the past fires on Seagull Lake. Traveling by canoe into the BWCA with forest naturalist and Seagull Lake resident Jim Raml. Paddle to the Seagull Palisades passing by the 1976 Roy Lake, 2005 Alpine Fires and the 2002 Three Mile Island prescribed burn. From the palisades you look across Seagull lake to where the Cavity Lake Fire started. Jim has spent many years as a firefighter with the DNR and USFS and he is well versed in forest ecology issues. You can count on Jim to convey as much knowledge on forest fires, nature and the area as you can absorb. The Tour lasts 4 to 4 1/2 hours and includes canoes or Kayaks and the services of guide/ecologist Jim. Rate : $75/person (two person minimum)

 Images is the Cavity Lake fire, day three of the fire,  looking from the north shore of Seagull Lake

In Rosemary Good's words,

"OK, here's the northern that I caught on Little Ollie…..on our measuring tape it measured just under 30".  We didn't weigh it because we didn't have a scale, though on our 'What's it Weigh' chart, a northern of that length comes out to read somewhere over 7 pounds."

To the best of our knowledge this is the largest Northern ever caught on Little Ollie Lake.

Rosemary and here husband David spent several days at the Little Ollie Lake Cabin this July and now they are planning to return next year and hopefully another record fish. 

The Cavity Lake wildfire which began as a lighting strike on July 14, near Cavity Lake and just south of Seagull on the upper end of the Gunflint Trail has now grown to over 22,000 acres. The fire is the largest fire the area has seen since the 1930's.

The fire is still over twenty five miles away from mid trail and  poses no immediate threat to Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B nor any other structures along the Gunflint Trail. We however, will keep you posted.

Water bombers and helicopters are presently attacking the fire. Click on images for more pictures taken by area residents.

"Not Bad" at least that is how Dean and Barbara  Schrandt  would describe the fishing on Little Ollie lake during their latest stay at the Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B. The Schrandt’s caught and released too many small mouth bass to count over twelve inches and four between sixteen and eighteen inches. Dean’s pride and joy was a twenty-one inch bass which according Dean was the largest small mouth he had ever caught.

The Schrandt's first came to the Poplar Creek Guesthouse in 2001, the first year the B&B was open and they have been coming back every year since.

Boundary Country Trekking welcomes you to our newly remodeled web sites- Secluded Lodging and Adventure Vacations. Boundary Country's first website was introduced in the late 1980's. In fact it was one of the first travel-hospitality URLs operating in the state. There were very few ISPs operating then but we were able to house our site on the University of Minnesota server. Our access to our site and email was via phone calls to Duluth. Imagine our phone bill.

In 1995 Boreal Access a community server was opened in Grand Marais and our web site was transferred to it. We have been with boreal ever since. With the opening of the Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B, in 2001, our second website- Secluded Lodging was opened. While our two web sites continue to be house with Boreal, we have dropped our dial-up connect and we now operate with wireless via satellite.