This last weekend was Rendezvous at Grand Portage National Monument. Rendezvous is similar to an anniversary celebration at other parks. During Rendezvous we have 350 reenactors who come and live in canvas tents in the park. We have lots of special events and huge crowds each day. During the three days of Rendezvous Tom and …
From August 2016
Being Able to Worship
One of the challenges of working on Sunday morning is being able to worship at another time of the week. If you can go to church on Sunday morning it is relatively easy to go from church to church until you find a place where you are able to worship. If you can’t go on …
Stopped at the Border
Recently, Tom and I were stopped at the border. Tom and I go regularly to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. We have been heading up there every other week to do our grocery shopping at The Real Canadian Superstore. We also needed to get the truck serviced and chose to do it in Thunder Bay as …
Archaeology at Grand Portage
Tom and I applied for a winter 2017 position in Arizona and found out that applicants for the job were being ranked using a checklist. Tom and I scored pretty high on the checklist except for one exception: we didn’t have any experience with archaeology. Here at Grand Portage we have an opportunity to change …
Fisherman’s Picnic in Grand Marais
Last week was the Fisherman’s Picnic in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Usually we don’t get to attend local festivals because we have to work on weekends but the Fisherman’s Picnic started on Thursday, so we went down for the afternoon. We heard mixed reviews from the folks at Grand Portage about the Fisherman’s Picnic. Mostly about …
Boudia and Johnson Put Christ First
In case you haven’t noticed, the 2016 Olympics are going on right now in Rio de Jeniero, Brazil. When the Olympics are being held, they are pretty much the only thing on our television. We like to see the variety of events and are a little disappointed in the prime time coverage (maybe we could …
Historic Gardens at Grand Portage
The final area of Grand Portage National Monument is the Historic Gardens. We are not assigned to work in the gardens, but we often help by weeding or watering. We have a gardener who plans and tends the historic gardens. She spent the first few weeks of June planting and we joked that it took …
Northern Lights
Every night while we have been in Minnesota, Tom has checked out the Northern Lights prediction. There is a web page you can go to, The Space Weather Prediction Center, which tells how likely it is that you can see the northern lights. They use a five point G scale to describe the environmental disturbances …
Passionate about Recycling
Most national parks recycle the usual things and Tom and I appreciate the opportunity to recycle while we are living in the parks. Chickamauga was the exception because Georgia doesn’t really have a recycling program and the park had to pay to have its recycling collected. Consequently, they just collected certain plastics and aluminum. Grand …
Naniboujou Lodge
A couple of weeks ago we had lunch at Naniboujou Lodge. The lodge is located just south of Hovland and is a good place to eat when we go hiking at Judge Magney State Park. It is a unique place, both for its name and for its decor. Naniboujou is the Ojibwe word for trickster: …