Harbor Lights

Legend has long claimed that the veil between the human and animal worlds is very thin the farther the sun gets from the earth, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself standing nose-to-nose with a white-tailed deer browsing the harbor at Grand Marais on the eve of the summer solstice. She stood on her hind legs, gazing at the watercolor clouds gathering on the horizon, before turning to nod a silent hello. I fumbled for my lens cap, but before I could catch her, the deer had dashed off to join a conga line of other ungulates dancing a hoofy version of “The Hustle” before a hooting audience dressed in plaid shirts and polar fleece.

The Wooden Boat Show and Summer Solstice Festival the third weekend in June captures both sides of Grand Marais’s wonderfully split personality—the free-spirited creative community that harbored the state’s very first artists’ colony, and the fierce sportsman culture of fishermen, hunters, and hikers who help put the flint in Gunflint.

This is not the Grand Marais I remember as a kid every summer, when my family and friends made the municipal campground home base for mosquito-filled adventures in the backwoods and the nearby Boundary Waters. In those days, Grand Marais had the feel of a way station, the final fueling stop for gas and gorp before setting out over the Sawtooths in the morning, and a welcome return to civilization and soft-serve ice cream in the evening. But more recently, this highly photogenic harbor village has remade and remarketed itself as a destination of its own, with fine restaurants featuring local catch, a thriving timber-frame campus for folk art instruction, and—to the grumbling of many locals—even lakefront luxury lodgings. While the surrounding big woods and great lake still beckon, you don’t have to leave the harbor to feel like you’ve been someplace very special.

Your day should start early with a cup of coffee from the local espresso joint Java Moose (218 W. Hwy. 61, 218-387-9400), which will help warm your hands against the morning chill. From the rocky beach, it’s a stone’s throw past the sailboats buoyed in the harbor to the red-roofed Coast Guard station, which helps make Grand Marais look like a stand-in for the coast of Maine. Turn right at the trailhead just behind the station and catwalk out to the lighthouse and wave goodbye to the fishermen hoping for a good catch. A left turn will lead you through the boreal forest and lava-smooth rocks of Artists’ Point, so called because it seems to inspire visitors to break out the watercolors. (On several trips last summer, we counted more than a dozen plein air artists squinting at the horizon.) On Saturday afternoons, a forest service naturalist is often on hand to point out the flora and fauna, though the light is best at the beginning of the day and again in the gloaming, when you can settle into a comfortable rock and feel your shoulders relax to the sound of the waves.

Depleted from your exhausting half-mile hike, you’ll have to refuel at World’s Best Donuts (10 E. Wisconsin St., 218-387-1345), which also has one of the world’s best vacation traditions—sign your name next to one of the numbers on the “donut registry,” and if you remember it next season, your first one is free. That bit of marketing ingenuity was originated by founder Merieta Altrichter, who started doling out her famous cake donuts and “skizzles” (a raised dough heap of deep-fried heaven covered in sugar) in 1969 using the same recipe her grandmother taught her, fried up in a cast-iron pan.

Altrichter passed away last year, but her granddaughters carry on the tradition and will celebrate World’s Best Donuts’ 40th anniversary on June 20. Visitors who ask co-owner Dee Brazell how many donuts have gone out the little red door will get the same answer Altrichter used to give customers. “My grandmother used to say, ‘I know I sell more donuts than McDonald’s sells hamburgers, because they have time to count,’ ” says Brazell.

Moving down the main drag, you may notice a surprising number of people wearing jackets, sweatshirts, long-sleeved T-shirts, and stocking caps emblazoned with the words “Grand Marais.” While this may be a display of hometown pride, it’s more likely these are tourists who forgot to account for the lake-effect wind chill while they were packing. Fortunately, everything you’ll need for the swift-changing weather is at the Lake Superior Trading Post (16 S. 1st Ave. W., 218-387-2020), which carries the trendy, technical footwear so favored by south Minneapolis woodsmen and the child-sized rain slickers we discovered we needed in a sudden downpour. More meat-and-potatoes types may prefer the packed-to-the-rafters appeal of Joynes’ Department and Ben Franklin Store (105 W. Wisconsin St., 218-387-2233), the department store that time forgot, where they stock Monopoly boards and Malone pants, and just about everything in between.

Now that you’re properly dressed, you’ll be comfortable for your excursion on the Hjørdis (218-387-9762), the gleaming and gorgeous 50-foot gaff-rigged schooner that leaves a few times a day from the marina. A two-hour cruise includes some sailing instruction for up to six passengers, though if you prefer to paddle your own, Superior Coastal Sports (20-B E. 1st St., 218-387-2360) offers a three-hour sea-kayaking package that allows you to hug the shoreline at your own pace. If you’d rather watch other people get wet, come for the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival July 23–26, during which teams of 20 paddlers (plus a drummer and steerer) try to beat each other across the harbor, all to the beat of a drum.

All that exercise and fresh air may build an appetite—your only problem is deciding where to eat. The dockside tables at Angry Trout Cafe (416 W. Hwy. 61, 218-387-1265) may be the best alfresco seating in the state, and the fish specials, chowders, and wild rice concoctions taste just as fresh as the breeze. The brown sugar brine–smoked fish from the deli at the nearby Dockside Fish Market (418 W. Hwy. 61, 218-387-2906) pairs nicely with crackers and a Swiss army knife on the shore.

People who prefer a tablecloth will be happier at Chez Jude(411 W. Hwy. 61, 218-387-9113), where local flavors are cleverly reinvented (sage ice cream is a treat you shouldn’t miss), or at The Crooked Spoon Café (17 W. Wisconsin St., 218-387-2779 ), where fare can range from rare ahi tuna to rabbit Bolognese. The Gunflint Tavern (111 W. Wisconsin St., 218-387-1563) on the harbor does brisk weekend business in microbrews, burgers, and even barbacoa fajitas, items rarely found this far north of Canal Park.

If you need a nap, I’m sorry to report that the pleasantly rundown East Bay Hotel is no longer the place to go. It was razed a few years ago, replaced by the surprisingly upscale East Bay Suites (21 E. Wisconsin St., 800-414-2807), color-coordinated sunset and sea blue condos with nightly rental rates that come complete with kitchens, gas or electric fireplaces, and flat-screen TVs. Preservationists may yet be heartbroken at the loss of the iconic hotel (the Viking ship from the old bar is still on display in the center stairwell), but practical types may appreciate the stacked washers and driers in each unit. (Did I mention the weather can be unpredictable?) Each has a relaxing view of the East Bay, but if the hustle of the harbor is more to your liking, check out the new Cobblestone Cove Villas (20 S. Broadway, 800-247-6020), luxury townhomes tucked neatly on the north end of the harbor. From the second-story decks you can sit back and watch sailboats come and go all day—though in this economy, it should be noted that you can enjoy a similar view, for about one-tenth of the price, at the primitive lakeside campsites across the harbor at the Grand Marais RV Park and Campground (114 S. 8th Ave. W., 218-387-1712).

This harbor has been an oasis for artists since 1947, when The Outdoor School of Painting started here as a project of the Minneapolis School of Art, a precursor to MCAD. The Grand Marais Art Colony (120 3rd Ave. W., 218-387-2737), as it’s now known, is still going strong, housed in a former church with an annex built in 2005 that has expanded studio space and class offerings. There you can take watercolor classes taught by acclaimed North Shore artist Howard Sivertson, who started Sivertson Gallery (14 W. Wisconsin St., 888-880-4369) before realizing he’d rather be behind a canvas than a cash register. His daughter Jan now runs the successful shop (there’s a second one in Duluth’s Canal Park), which features the work of more than 60 regional artists, including Hazel Belvo and woodcutte Betsy Bowen (whose print studio in town is another must-see: 301 1st Ave. W., 218-387-1992).

Inspired by all this creativity, you may find yourself signing up for a class at the North House Folk School (500 W. Hwy. 61, 218-387-9762) which has become a community center and cultural hub since the first of its timber-frame school houses went up on the harbor 12 years ago. Dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional northern crafts, North House offers year-round instruction on everything from rosemaling and wool-braided rugs, to cedar-strip boat construction and mukluk making. Each day at the school stars with a morning coffee greeting around the wood-fired brick oven, and then students peel off for their own pursuits—my husband caught up with a seminar on birch bark canoes, while I took notes on nålbinding , a nearly lost textile art that not even my Swedish-speaking grandmother ever mentioned.

Our kids went their own way, enjoying a North Shore tradition that requires no instruction and will never lose its appeal, no matter how much the harbor changes—skipping rocks across cold water.