The North Shore of Minnesota is one of my favorite places on the planet. How much do I love this place? AP Style says I shouldn’t capitalize it as a place, but I love the North Shore so much that I capitalize it anyways. That’s fucking love. We make a trip up from Minneapolis every few months to camp or visit Duluth. The fly fishing is stellar, weather is usually cool, northern lights are often visible and Lake Superior is, well, Lake Superior.

We saw a different side of the North Shore on our last trip up that we hadn’t seen before. It was our last day of camping. The car was packed up and Audra and I were spending a few last minutes on the Baptism River. The morning started cloudy. Our drive from our Finland campsite revealed some fog on the ridges a couple miles inland. As we were on the river, clouds broke apart and the sun made its presence known. That’s when we saw the fog hanging over Shovel Point.

I’d never seen anything like it. Rather than getting into the car and heading south as planned, we hiked the half mile to the water. 200 yards to the left of where this photo was taken was sunny. We hiked a managed trail to Shovel Point, then took a dirt trail near a viewing point to get closer to the water. As we were sitting there, the fog kept rolling in. Points that we could see minutes before were gone. Visibility could be measured in feet. We hung around for a bit, then made our way back to highway 61 and south to Minneapolis.

Until next time, North Shore. I look forward to seeing you in August.