The Gunflint Lodge has been going since 1925. It's a classic old-school lodge with a nice restaurant, friendly people, clear water, and a beautiful setting 50 miles north of Lake Superior on the Canadian border. I think this is going to be a tradition for us; we need to book our stay for next year.
The lodge was established by a remarkable woman, Justine Kerfoot.
One of the coolest things there is the fireplace. It's made entirely of rocks from the Gunflint Formation, a 1.9 billion year old rock that records two very significant events: (1) the origin of life, and (2) a massive asteroid impact. The rock consists of the earliest fossils of stromatolites that brought oxygen to the planet. The oxygen they produced rusted out the iron that was dissolved in the oceans and gave us the iron formations that Minnesota is famous for. Then there was a huge asteroid impact to the east that caused tsunamis that tore up the upper layers of the formation and redeposited it as broken fragments.
Our two-bedroom cabin was clean & cozy. It would have been fun to have fired up the fireplace, but it was too hot. In mid-September!
No comments:
Post a Comment