Yes, the "Cadillac" of Mines

So, your traveler descends from the great Lake of the Woods, down the Rainy River and into Kabetogama and Voyageurs National Park, and now, into the far greater depths of subterranean wonders!

First I should report that I am feeling markedly better! A vast improvement upon conditions just a few days back, I am now on the road to recovery. It's such a joy, to rediscover health. Every breath, sight and sound is that much more reinvigorating. I feel greatly for those with Lyme's Disease and who carry into dangerous realms. Now, I am beginning to feel splendid!

On the Saturday evening, enclosed in the stale-cigarette-smoke-infused Super 8, I lie in what I believe to be the greatest physical misery an illness has ever brought to me. With every heartbeat and with every breath the great rusty railroad spikes were driven into the back of my eyes and my brain was trying desperately to force itself free by splitting my skull in two. The pressure on my inner ear brought extreme nausea and I could not tell if I was too hot or too cold. Was my body telling me to get something to drink or to go bleed my bladder? I tried desperately to sleep. Please, oh please, let me sleep! Sleep was my only escape. But there was no state of mind nor physical posture that allowed this. I could not imagine how I would get a full day of shoots in the following morning. Wanting to cry and to go home so badly, but knowing I must carry forth. "And I will grind whatever grist the mill requires!"

In agony I saw morning, and choked down my pink antibiotic tablet after laying a bed of some stale, generic Cheerios and washing it down with Gatorade. Even though my guts wanted me to vomit and eyes were not wanting to work, they all knew that the road would bring comfort. And it always does.

The road, in fact, was Hwy 38. I cannot think of a more beautiful and peaceful road upon which to drive. It brought me through Chippewa Forest country. So beloved is this place to me that it is featured on my business card. There was no one behind me, pushing me on and no one coming the other way. The maple, birch, cottonwood, spruc and pine all offered a fresh healing breath and a healing color array. I got to the destination early, pulled off the road by some peaceful trees, turned on healing music and got the best sleep of the last 24 hours.

My first shoot was at an old lodge where some of the Hamm's commercials were filmed! The owner and his son were quite friendly and I was able to banter as I shot. He also was friendly enough to provide me with a cool map of the area and highlighted one particular area I asked about...

After my next shoot I crashed for a bit, but head into town, happy that my stomach demanded food. I found Gosh Dam bar and was alone in the great big bar with the waitress and the giant TV's. On the screen was the awesome Japanese show called Ninja Challenge. I love this show! Normally, game shows like these have that sadistic Japanese trait of having fun watching people getting seriously injured. If you watch Japanese TV, then you know what I'm talking about. But this show is more about putting people through tremendously athletic physical feats whilst creating a tone that makes you cheer for them. And there are many more saftey precautions than there other shows. Sorry, you get excited for stuff like this when you are alone and seperated from technology! The waitress and I chatted a bit.


On my way back I contemplated returning to crash, feeling not the best. But...there is a place. This place is called the Lost Forty. And I was only about 40 minutes away from this magical realm which I could visit in quietude. So I did.

Driving down dirt roads, I used the gifted map and looked where the helpful man had highlighted my treasure. I looked for enormous trees and soon saw a sign.

The Lost 40 is 40 acres of virgin forest. That means it has never been logged. Only 2% of Minnesota is in such a state! Once 1/3 of this state used to be trees such as these. Here I was! In the land of our greatest living elders! The land of peaceful giants!!! Towering red and white pine.

It was due to a surveying overlook that this area was never logged. A lake was mapped in this grid and so these trees were spared. There is a nice interpretive sign and a path off the road. Trees are everywhere, so its nice this specific route is marked, otherwise you'd wonder, "where am I supposed to go?" But as soon as you walk a few feet it really becomes clear. These giants reach up into heaven. They have stood here for around 350 years and continue to grow. That pushes them back to 1658. Keep in mind that the Salem Witch Trials did not happen until the 1690's! And some trees must be older than that!

They were big and quiet. You had to be bundled against mosquitoes but the time spent was special. I walked slow and, in time, went away. Before I did I put my hand on the biggest I could find, felt his aged bark and smiled at his greatness.

No video, just my own pics. The sea salt picked up by my Olympus in Florida now shows a bit too much in my pictures. My SLR only allows me to dump via my memory card, which I can’t on my work computer. But I’ll still include some pics of my destinations when there is an internet connection that allows upload.

Sad to leave such peaceful country but happy to move onwards, the Iron Range was next. I passed through many a monument to mining days. Great iron statues and piles of mining debris. Soudan mine was in my sites and a got there in time for a tour.

When you pull up the hill you see the engine house. This building encloses engine that spins the huge cable drum that winds up the elevator cable. You can also see the old compressor that powered the air tools and pumped air after detonations. There is an old fellow at the top who sits at his station and operates the giant when called to do so from below. As one car ascends the shaft another descends in a slanted counter-balance fashion.

Tours run every half an hour and, when it was time, we got our hard hats and crammed ourselves into the rectangular metal can. Our guide asked us to file three abreast and as many deep as needed. (You could tell people did not like the cozy feeling.) The door was slid shut and we descended a few feet down the shaft so they could fill car above us with people. In the old days, the top was for people and the bottom was for ore!

Being packed together you got somewhat of a sensation of what it must have been like as a miner, but you’d have your lunch pail too (and an extra perhaps with food for the mule, to entice him to pull that very last load that you didn’t want the next shift to get credit for). Though you are not going more than 10 miles per hour, the sound is a great combination of metal wheel on rail, wind and stone and your imagination left to amplify your mood. I grinned a sinister enjoyment in the dim red light and wanted the ride to go longer than it did.

In no time we were down. Big shaft, some 10 feet high and about as much across down which we then rode in a small train to our next destination. It felt a little of the second Indiana Jones in the jerky, track switching ride we were taking. You also had no idea just where you were going.

I somewhat tried to listen to our very nice and knowledgeable guide but was also curious about looking down this shaft and that shaft, touching this device and that. So, let’s see what I can recall…

My memory was jogged, when afterwards, I told a friend about the tour and they replied, “oh yes, I believe my mom’s side immigrated from Cornwall to work specifically in the Soudan man. Now I remember! He had mentioned that, some 23 levels down, in front of an old screen - Cornwall!!

The method was called cut and fill. You drill test shafts and find the ore. You dig vertical shafts down through it. You then dig a horizontal gallery shaft underneath the ore with room for a cart and track. You blast through and get your ore at the top and throw it down to the shafts below. The waste rock is piled and spread on the floor and you step on this to get yourself closer to the ceiling. You keep digging at the ceiling and throwing the load down into the hole below. You stop when you hit waste rock and no longer ore. We’ve the Cornish dwarves to thank for that. They were the experts on such a technique!

One of the female’s guides great grandfather had died when he fell 150 feet to his death through a shaft.

It was very cool but not the most structurally stimulating. They had carved very spacious tunnels that you could have driven a semi truck down. The colors were pretty uniform (from a non-miner, non-geologist perspective). One cool thing, is that the rock was so hard, that there was no real need for support structures! The only guy paid an hourly wage was the guy who went into a shaft after a blast and tapped at the ceiling with a metal pole, insuring it safe for the crews to enter.

Anyhoo, you were given ideas of how loud, dusty and dim it would have been below and told of the mules. They worked some weeks below, became blind and were then sent up for above ground labor with bandages over their eyes. The vet would remove a strip or so, daily, to allow the mule to acclimate to the light. They were supposedly treated fairly well, as they were expensive and imported from Missouri. Besides, it was easier to replace a miner than a mule.

It was also called the “Cadillac of Mines” as it was a dry place compared to the wet places most miners had to encounter.

On my way out a look at hillsides covered in a million daisies. To me it was a memorial to all the miners that had worked the shafts. All those immigrants coming to America for a better life.

Oh yeah, the physics lab is down there too. Safe from cosmic rays, scientists can run their experiments on Dark Matter and the like. Pretty profound stuff happening down there still!

And before I left, I just happened to find a secret place. Behind a interpretive sign, and a bent-down barbed-wire fence, I thought I spied the entrance of an enormous café. One hundred feet back and you could feel the breath of cold, subterranean air! I hemmed and haughed but had to see! I discovered I gigantic mouth. On the top were trees, some fifty feet up and below, what must have been either a cave in or an old entrance to the mine. You could see cave-ins and further sites to explore. But there was no need to fall 150 feet down for a closer look. With the ferns, moss, trees and rock, it was a cool melding of worlds. On to Ely.

That’s enough ramble for now. Thought I should catch up a bit. I’ll try to get pics on as well.