Day 287. May 19, 2014. Day trip to NW Angle via Canada

LOCATION:  Warroad, MN,  in far NW Minnesota, on Lake of the Woods

WEATHER:  Dreary, rainy, cool. Highs in 50s

We seem to be the only campers in this campground, although it is full of empty RVs.  It is like aliens came in and scooped everyone up.  Their stuff is all around....unlocked bikes, grills, balls, chairs, children's toys.  We see ice fishing houses in almost everyone's yards.  This one is in our campground, being used as a regular RV

We decided to drive to the NW Angle.  It is a piece of land unconnected to the rest of MN.  They say that it was an error by the surveyor (or perhaps not) that the USA/Canada border was drawn to keep this MN.  To get there, you have to drive through a corner of Manitoba.  We passed through customs, about 10 miles from Warroad.

 Then drove about 45 miles through Manitoba.  Then, we entered USA (Minnesota) again.  You have  to stop here at Jim's Corner and call US immigration on a phone inside.

It is all very low-tech.  

We drove around the Angle.  These people are really off the grid.  There are only a few people who live here year-round.  The biggest industry is providing guide services to fishermen and hunters.  

We stopped in this restaurant, billed as the farthest north restaurant in the 48 states.

 There, we talked to the UPS guy who lives there.  He said ths his 3 children make up 3 of the 8 children in a K-8 one-room school there.  After grade 8, the kids are bussed to Warroad (100+ miles round-trip) a day to school.  He said it was a cold, hard winter, with many 40 degrees below zero temp days.  

We had to return to the immigration hut at Jim's Corner and call Canada immigration, to notify them that we were retuning.  Then we drove back through Manitoba, through US customs to mainland MN.  Quite an adventure!

DINNER:  Hooray!  We ate the final dish of leftover risotto.  I added some canned tuna to it.  As a side dish, we had dilled carrots.