Chippewa National Forest: Camp Rabideau & the Lost Forty

This morning Noelle and I woke up after a not-so-restful sleep. Every sound Parker heard in the woods forced him to get up, move around and try to see what had made the sound. We packed up the tent under a gray sky while thunder clapped around us. Luckily we got packed up before the rain started to fall. We drove into Cass Lake for a supermarket breakfast and then headed north towards Blackduck and Camp Rapideau, one of three remaining CCC camps.

While the camp was mostly inaccessible due to maintenance of the structures,

we were able to get a short tour and go inside the old education building.

It was quite interesting and we would both like to visit again when the camp has been restored.

From Camp Rapideau we headed east to the Lost Forty. The Lost Forty is a section of timbered land that was incorrectly surveyed and shown as underwater on maps. Due to the mistake the trees there were spared and the Lost Forty features some of the only virgin forest left in Minnesota. There are some big trees there and we enjoyed walking among them.