The Big Trip

I’m just back from my shortest ever trip to Canada. Turned back at the Canadian Customs station in under 10 minutes. I was also fingerprinted and had my picture taken. And I paid for the privilege.

But the leaves in northern Minnesota are beautiful right now, and the traffic is sparse. That made this a good trip to stop and take a picture of all the very large roadside attractions between here and Warroad. Minnesota seems to collect these things.

After all, where but Garrison do you need a sign like this?

Keep Off the Fish! No leaning on, hanging from or climbing on Fish, including its fins, tail and mouth.

I love how specific that is. It makes me wonder whether they redid the sign every time there was damage to the fish. “Harry, I’m going to need you to add a bit to the sign.”None of that is visible, though.

Its teeth are a bit blunt, but it’s supposed to be a walleye.

Garrison’s walleye is only about 15 feet long. If you compare that to the walleye in Baudette, you should probably throw Garrison’s back.

That sucker is more than 40 feet long. Also, that’s Canada in the background on the right. Nobody was stopping the geese at the border. We had dinner in Baudette, and they were flying overhead the whole time.

This goose, however, won’t be flying south for the winter.

That’s at a little lodge in Squaw Lake (yes, I know) on the Leech Lake reservation.

Lest you think Minnesota is only about very large animals, I should point out that we also have a very large ball of twine. Also, just up the road a ways from Garrison is this.

Statue of a very tall Robin Hood.

It turns out that the Merry Men drove RVs.

Just be glad we didn’t take pictures of all the roadkill skunks.

All pictures ©Ben Zvan. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

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The Big Trip
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6 thoughts on “The Big Trip

  1. 2

    Did you try to sneak in without a passport?

    Canadian tourism must be getting demolished by all the post 9/11 border bullshit. I used to go several times a year to drop my tourist dollars in Ontario and Quebec. Now that the length of the wait at customs can be up to two extra hours, I’ve only been over 4 or 5 times in the last 10 years.

  2. 4

    I was also fingerprinted and had my picture taken. And I paid for the privilege.

    I’m reminded of a short bit from Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant”:

    He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington.” And friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.

    Only your fingerprints are in Ottawa.

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