• Date Circle Tour Completed
• Favorite Spot and/or Experience
• Member

Trips in 1960 and 2000
The first time was the very first year that the route was “completed.” It was 1960 and my father read in the Milwaukee Journal that the Canadians were closing the loop. He had two weeks of vacation in August, so we jumped in the Chevy wagon and camped the entire trip. I was in Junior High, my brother in elementary school. We had a great time - I remember being awed by the huge freighters in Duluth and Superior and then being awed all over again at the Soo Locks. Picnicking at Gooseberry Falls, my father had given me my very own camera, a 35mm Ansco, and I was thrilled. At Gooseberry there were some rocks covered in a brilliant orange fungus near the water and I asked my mother to stoop down so I could get both her and the rocks in the picture. I kept asking her to go lower and lower until she was squatting and said, “Virginia, if I go any lower people will think I couldn’t find the rest room!“
Thunder Bay was then called Fort William and Port Edwards. Neither one was very big. When we got to the northern Canadian portion of the road we learned that calling the road “completed“ was a bit of a stretch. Often we had to wait by the side of the road while a crew dynamited a section and a bulldozer came in and cleared a path. There were some axle-busting bumps and rocks, but the old Chevy made it all the way.
Probably the most fascinating part of the trip was THE store at Wawa. It looked like the last outpost to civilization. THE store was one-horse shopping - sort of an early 1900s answer to Wal-Mart. The building was one room with bear traps and snowshoes and coyote, wolf and bear pelts hanging on the walls. I know that our eyes seemed as big as saucers. I think that my mother wanted to buy a post card there and they just looked at her as though it were some crazy new idea.
In the summer of 2000, I took my German cousin, his girlfriend and my 16-year-old nephew camping around the lake. This time I “camped“ in the van while the rest tented (age has its privileges). We had a grand time. Some highlights were Old Fort William, the Sleeping Giant, the amethyst mine, which was celebrating its anniversary of that stone being the official stone of Ontario, so we got in on a big celebration.
We all loved the Petroglyphs. No sign of THE store in Wawa - what a shame. The Soo Locks were impressive as always. This trip we saw lots of lighthouses - Split Rock, Two Harbors Light and Eagle Harbor, etc. A highlight was going to Isle Royale for several days. While the Germans backpacked the island, my nephew and I enjoyed life in one of the National Park Service cabins, took side trips by boat and counted moose encounters.
Virginia, John & Michael Hirsch, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Holger Furestnau, Heisenrith Germany
Grit Annemueller, Roedental, Germany

July 18th, 2004 - also went around Lake Huron in the same trip.
Soo Locks and Brockway Mountain Drive - being from Colorado, I was amazed!
Mike Pierce, Parker, Colorado

July 8-18, 2004
We highly recommend the Painted Rocks National Lakeshore, specifically the Twelve Mile Campground. Watch out for the biting stable flies - only 100% Deet works on those. Old Woman Bay in Ontario is gorgeous at sunset.
Jason & Patricia Steck, West Saint Paul, Minnesota

July 18th - also went around Lake Huron in the same trip.
Da Yoopers Tourist Trap and Canadian Pictographs.
Richard Forest, Ypsilanti, Michigan

• Date Circle Tour Completed
• Favorite Spot and/or Experience
• Member

July 22, 2004
Our favorite spot was Thunder Bay’s Fort William Historial Park.
Jim & Nancy Reck, Green Bay, Wisconsin

July 2004
1,302 miles in our motorhome.
Tom & Nancy Whittingham

We did the Circle Tour in late September to early October 1992, going west and then east across Minnesota and Ontario.
Now that the cat has died and we can be away from home for two weeks, we’re doing it again in late September, going from the Soo north. We can’t pick one favorite. Narrowing it to two at least for places to stay would be Rossport Inn on top and the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge and Peninsula on the south side. But man, how do you rule out the awesome view from the top of Mt. McKay at Thunder Bay, or the view of Duluth and the West End of the lake from Enger Tower, or the staggering vista of three states, the emerald Apostle Islands and hazy Isle Royale from the top of the Copper Mountain ski flying jump? Or the mass of the Stewart Cort locking through at the Soo while the first range of fall foliage covered granite hills in the Canadian Shield rise as a backdrop? Or the view off Kama Point or Palisade Head on the North Shore, or the desolate beauty of the beach at Grand Marais, Michigan, or the sensation of sitting all alone at the wave-washed very tip of Whitefish Point at night with a full moon reflecting off the lake and an upbound and downbound laker passing each other a couple of miles offshore? Not to mention Pictured Rocks from the boat on a sunny late afternoon when they turn gold and red, or the winter snow up to your backside at Point Iroquois when the shoreline ice is a crystal aquamarine blue? Or how about the first view you get of Batchawana Bay and the shore mountains as you crest the hill from the south on the Trans Canada Highway half an hour north of Sault, Canada? And if you’ve never been on the lake on the sunset cruise out of Copper Harbor on a moonless night and sailed within 200 yards of a brightly-lit 1,000-footer in otherwise total blackness, you’ve never really been on the lake.
Best Regards to lovers of the Big Lake. Everywhere!
Kurt & Rhonda Van der Dussen, Bloomington, Indiana

• Date Circle Tour Completed
• Favorite Spot and/or Experience
• Member

July 19 to July 23, 2004 for the fourth time!
Our favorite spot turned out to be the Bad River Casino in Odanah, Wisconsin, whereby we received free tokens for our birthday month and proceeded to win $270, without spending a dime (we eventually did play some). The meal and prices for food were outstanding. Our second choice was the casino in Minnesota just past the border from Thunder Bay, Ontario, whereby several birthday gifts of food, drink and lodging were given. We had a wonderful time all around the lake. A lot of driving, but a lot of beautiful scenery and experiences and memories. We always promote this trip, which is relatively inexpensive.
James & Shirley Goral, De Pere, Wisconsin

August 6, 2003
In early August 2003, my wife and I completed the Lake Superior Circle Tour, driving around the lake in a clockwise direction, starting from Superior, Wisconsin. Our trip took six days, from August 1st through August 6th.There were many favorite spots, but lunch at the Serendipity Café in Rossport and the Agawa Canyon Train Tour were certainly at the top of our list.
James & Dolores Kerr, Mission Viejo, California

My son and I have circled the big lake quite a few times and enjoyed every minute except for some serious fog once from about Schreiber to Nipigon. That was tough, but all other trips, done in mid-September, were exceptional.
Our latest trip was in September 2003 and we wondered if we’d have problems entering the USA because of 9/11. Some favorite spots (of many) - the roadside overlook at the Little Pic River, the cuestas just south of Thunder Bay, Gooseberry Falls State Park on Minnesota Highway 61, the black bear at the end of the Gunflint Trail, the shy little red fox near the Sleeping Giant Overlook, the lighthouse north of Paradise at Whitefish Point, the waves crashing against the shore at Old Woman Bay, the little white church across from Batchawana Bay, the High Falls of the Magpie River at Wawa. Jeff and I have been making this journey almost annually since 1965, so there really is no one outstanding experience - there are too many to pick from. It’s fun to reminisce!
Richard & Jeffrey Lieber, Carmel, Indiana

July 1996
Lake Superior Provincial Park.
Don Schultz , Bay City, Michigan

July 2003
One and two friends circled the lake starting in Duluth. We had a wonderful time and met many wonderful people along the route that helped. We really enjoyed the Keweenaw Peninsula, but every day was wonderful. My friends might have a different favorite.
Betty Baker with Dorothy Walker & Leona Jackson, Maryville, Missouri

July 2002
We drove the Circle Tour in July of 2002 and spent one week starting in Thunder Bay, first travelling the north shore to the Sault, then continuing on through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It is hard to say which area we like best since every part has some beautiful landscape. The hospitality was great and the people very friendly along the way. This was the second time we have done the Circle Tour, the last being 35 years ago, but I’m sure we will do it again in the not too distant future.
E. Bruce, Thunder Bay, Ontario