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Driving north out of Minneapolis, it isn't long before the scenery starts to change from the seemingly endless cultivated prairie to an even more boundless landscape- the edge of the great northern pine forests that stretch to the Arctic Circle, and around the globe to Siberia and Norway. In January you can almost imagine you are in the far reaches of the globe, when swirls of snow blow across the road, obscuring signs of civilization under drifting mounds. The endless corn and soybeans you find to the south and west disappear quickly as you pass north of the city on I-35, but it is only gradually that the pines and white-barked birches take hold. Half-frozen, quick flowing streams provide breaks in the landscape as it begins to roll into hills. By the time you crest the ridge above Duluth, you are hard in the forests. Sparkling below is that vast inland sea, a cold sapphire shining beyond the harbor. But the unalloyed beauty of Superior is most evident as you pass on up the North Shore, catching hours of wonderful glimpses of it through the trees as you cruise towards Grand Marais and the Canadian border.
Chamber
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Index of Other Writing