July 20-21 — Related to the prior post on visiting the second of the four extreme points in the U.S., we had an enjoyable journey to get to this destination, and once here, we had a wonderful stay! From our current location of International Falls, MN, the trip up to this extreme point is close to four hours, so we decided not to push ourselves with a big long day-trip, but rather go up, spend the night, and come back the following day.
The journey to Northwest Angle is worth noting, because this part of Minnesota is not connected to ‘mainland Minnesota’ – it’s about 20 miles north, so to get here, you cross the Canadian border and travel around 40 miles in Manitoba before crossing back into the U.S. to get to “The Angle” as the locals call it.
While Border Patrol crossing into Canada was more involved than we thought, once we got to where we had to cross back to the U.S., there was a phone booth, of sorts, at “Jim’s Corner” where you had to go in and call the appropriate Customs office to let them know you were crossing. Failure to do this, we were told, was punishable by steep ($2,000!) fines – no problem from us abiding by this rule!
From here it was a short 8-ish miles down another dirt road – did I mention that the last 20 miles we traveled to get to Jim’s Corner was also on dirt roads? Anyway, we made a couple more turns then got to our destination: Angle Outpost Resort.
Lisa and Jason Goulet, owners of the resort, couldn’t have been more accommodating for us! When reserving a cabin earlier this spring, I mentioned on the phone to Lisa that we were coming up, not for the fishing, but to go to the extreme northernmost point in the U.S.
At that time she indicated that Jason could take us out on his boat to the actual border spot – such service!
As the below photos show, we went out on Jason’s boat, going about seven miles west then a little north until we came upon a buoy Jason created to mark the spot. Looking to the shores on both sides of the water, we could see the cut in the trees that marks the U.S. – Canada border, and it is THIS SPOT, not the land mass with the sign on it, that is the TRUE northernmost point.
Again, thanks to the Goulets for really making our stay at Angle Outpost Resort such a memorable one!
