There are a number of things to do in International Falls. The one thing we did was visit the Koochiching Historical Museum and the Bronko Nagurski Museum. They are in the same building. If you don't know who Bronko Nagurski was, check it out in Wikipedia. He was a great football player and was in the first class inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1963.
The other museum was about local history. The voyageurs passed through here along the Rainey River on their way to Fort William to trade furs (primarily beaver pelts) for goods. These guys were known as the hommes du nord (northern men) or hivernants (winterers). They were the very tough ones. They met with the mangeurs de lard (pork eaters) who carried trade goods for the trading companies up from Montreal. This whole trade scheme petered out in the early 1800s as railroads and trading into the Oregon country developed.
The curator of the museum was a very knowledgeable guy who spent a lot of time talking with us and explaining things. I really like it when we meet people like him. One of the things he explained to us was harvesting and roasting wild rice. Turns out that wild rice is not rice but it is grass seed. It needs to be dried and roasted right after harvest. I like it a lot. We went to a food store here and stocked up on wild rice.
For lunch we decided to give the Chocolate Moose Restaurant Company a try. We knew it was going to be good when we arrived and it was mobbed with locals. Our feast was fried walleye sandwiches which were excellent. Today's photo is of Ginny enjoying our repast.
