After leaving Big Bog State Park, it wasn’t a long drive to Franz Jevne SP and we knew that the 1.3 mile hike wouldn’t take too long. On our way there, for the first time ever, I actually looked at reviews of the park on google maps. Lots of people posted photos and short reviews – I hadn’t noticed that feature before. In general everyone loved this little state park, the smallest one in Minnesota. But I was glad we hadn’t camped there because it looked like the bathrooms were all primitive and there were no showers. Good to know. Apparently, it’s a great park for fishing, though, if that’s what you want.
At last we came to Franz Jevne State Park, the final park to be visited and hiked on this particular trip. I wish I could tell you something about the man, Franz Jevne, after whom the park was named. All I know is that his family donated the land for the park in 1967. It’s strange to think of his name being used for the park, and then after some time goes by, only the name remains. The man, Franz Jevne, is gone. I found some information about his son, Franz Jevne Jr., though – he was born in 1913 in International Falls, so I’m pretty sure it’s the right family. That was a bit of a rabbit trail. Now that I think of it, maybe Junior is the Franz Jevne!
All the hikes we’d done so far on this trip had been fairly level so I hadn’t always needed the hiking pole, but Kris suggested I bring it along on this one, thinking the terrain might be more hilly. He was right.
The trail was narrow with lots of ups and downs. By this time we weren’t seeing a lot of new and interesting foliage, so there weren’t as many photos taken or plants identified. The trail goes along one side of the Rainy River, which forms another border with Canada. We didn’t see much of the river after the first part of the hike since the tree growth by the trail was so dense.
This was another out and back hike instead of a loop. There were some tree stumps here and there and my observant husband noticed that on the inside of one stump a lot of the plant matter had gone, but you could still see where some of the small twigs that had grown through the bark were still there. Hard to explain, so here’s a photo.
When we got to the place where we’d be turning around, there was a nice picnic table to take a moment’s rest. We were uphill from the river and there was no good way to get down there, so we didn’t.
On the way back it began to rain, a nice sun shower. It was a very humid day, so we didn’t mind getting a little wet. Felt good!
As we made our way back, we saw one of the rangers coming toward us toting a chain saw. He stopped and told us that he needed to take care of a downed tree on the path (which we’d seen). He was an older fellow, maybe 70 years old. I was pretty impressed that he was still so active. Maybe he was thinking the same thing when he saw us.
We saw a sign with the word “Mishe-Nahma” on it, so after we got done, we looked it up on our phones. It means “King of Fishes,” and is in reference to sturgeons, which many people had mentioned fishing for there. Now you know!
Contrary to my Eeyore-ish predictions that I might not make it through the hikes this week, it all went well. I’ve really noticed a difference to my stamina since I started lap swimming again in March. We added up our cumulative hiking miles and it came to 180. We only have four more state parks and 17 more hiking miles to go to finish what we started in July of 2018! Can you believe it?
Before leaving for home, we stopped by Voyageur’s National Park so we could get our NP passport booklet stamped. Very efficient of us, I must say.
On the way home, we listened to the John Denver album, “Back Home again.” It’s good road trip music – hit the spot for us.
Knee score: 5 out of 10.
I think the axe may fall on this post in the morning.
Next hike: Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park
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