Short trip teaches campers about the environment

This post is a guest post by my friend, Wendy Grethen. Wendy is a fellow environmentalist and enjoys learning about the environment and environmentally-friendly practices. 

Wendy and her husband pitched a tent in what had
 been a neighborhood full of houses.

By Wendy Grethen

As a person who loves to travel, I appreciate that there are places to go and things to do that aren’t that far.  My husband and I don’t always have a full weekend free together.  But, we did have time for a 24-hour getaway in early September.   We packed a tent and our bikes and headed to Hibbing on the Iron Range.  We tented at Historic North Hibbing Campground, a municipal campground with a half dozen sites on the actual building and house sites of the town that once stood there.  

Old street signs are up on the end of the roads.  Displays show what was in the town and how many buildings were relocated two miles south to accommodate for mining activity that came in and dug up most of the former town.  With the announcement to move the town, the community members figured out how to move the buildings.  Some moves were a success and some weren’t and the buildings collapsed.  The will of people can be very strong and the town was rebuilt in its new location.  Reuse of materials is one of the top ways to reduce impact on the environment. 

I’m thankful to fit in outdoor-time

in the tail end of summer

to enjoy a mix of cycling, site visiting

and non-highway driving

 

My husband and I woke up the next day to the call of a loon and mining equipment sounds. We went into town to eat an outdoor breakfast from a local bar-restaurant.  
We then hopped on our bicycles and rode on the Mesabi Trail to the town of Keewatin.  The bike trail had other cyclists and walkers using the trail and viewing the scenery of the filled-in mine pits that looked quite beautiful and trees growing up through the mine tailings.  
One pit had a group of swans on the water. The bike route was mostly on a trail but part of the route was through very small towns. It also crossed railroad tracks a few times which were loaded with spilled taconite. After we made the round-trip bike ride we did a little sightseeing and located Bob Dylan’s boyhood home near the high school and the new large sign announcing his receiving a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 for his poetic expressions within the Great American song traditions.

The remote spot where the Wellstone plane crashed.

Then, we drove on toward Duluth via a side trip to the Wellstone Memorial site with a short hiking trail near where the plane crashed in October 2002 and all 8 passengers died. Sen. Paul Wellstone was a 58 years old liberal politician and social science teacher. He developed outstanding skills in community organizing and had passion for making the country a better place for all. His successes included limiting international sex trafficking, investing in workforce, and mental health parity act. A quote of his is “We all do better when we all do better.”  The rest of our 24-hour trip involved driving through rural roads toward Duluth.  A bit more needed rain fell. We stopped at a gravel pit and looked for (but didn’t find) agates but enjoyed the time viewing the various colors of the stones. I’m thankful to fit in outdoor time in the tail end of summer season to enjoy a mix of cycling, site visiting and non-highway driving to slow down a bit and see many, many trees.  

Learn more about Wendy at WendyUpNorth.com