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General Information
Superior - a more appropriate name could not have been given to this extraordinary National Forest. Located in the northeastern corner of Minnesota, sandwiched between Lake Superior and the Canadian border, this vast woodland harbors bald eagles and ospreys, moose and white tailed deer, timber wolves and black bear, beaver and red fox. This is the largest federal forest in the contiguous 48 states.
The Superior National Forest contains over 2,000 lakes. Even so, only 12% of the Forest's 3.9 million acres is covered by water. The rest is blanketed by dense, mossy floored forests of pine, spruce, aspen, birch, cedar and tamarack, or saturated by vast bogs and impenetrable swamps. The National Forest hosts 27 United States Forest Service campgrounds, 9 Minnesota DNR campgrounds, 2,200 developed campsites within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), and 254 "dispersed" campsites outside the BWCAW. These camping areas provide quick access to 354 fishing lakes, 162 public boat landings, 29 picnic areas, 400 miles of designated hiking trails, 450 miles of groomed cross-country ski trails, and over 1500 miles of canoe routes through the BWCAW. The area that is now the BWCAW was established as the Superior Roadless Area in 1938. It became the BWCA in 1964, and at some point in the 1980's became the BWCAW. Outside of the BWCAW, the Forest has over 2,700 miles of roads.Geology 
Northeastern Minnesota lies on the southern edge of a massive bedrock formation called the Canadian Shield. The Precambrian rocks that constitute this continental foundation are some of the oldest exposed rocks in the world. The Ely Greenstone belt is known to be about 2.6 billion years old. It is a belt of metamorphosed pillow basalt, a dark fine-grained lava which cooled underwater, and long after solidification, was subjected to heat and pressure. The belt is almost 40 miles long, 2 to 6 miles wide, and it's exposed thickness is 20,000 feet. It runs from Lake Vermilion, eastward to near Snowbank Lake.
At one time, a vast inland sea covered the area, resulting in sediments in the southwestern part of the Forest that became the world's most productive iron range. The geologic struggle to reclaim the continent continued when a period of mountain building occurred about 1.6 billion years ago, followed by a period of extensive volcanic activity along what is now the North Shore of Lake Superior. That ancient mountain range, the only one in the state, now accounts for both the highest point (Eagle Mountain - 2301 ft.) and the lowest point (Lake Superior - 602 ft.) in Minnesota.
The products of glacial quarrying and abrasion are clearly displayed in the Forest in the form of boulders, streamlined hills, polished and striated bedrock outcroppings, and hundreds of lake basins. Glacial deposits, too, in the form of moraines, drumlins, and eskers, are important features of the landscape. These features, as we know them, are relatively young, in geologic terms. None is older than about 25,000 years, and some are as young as 12,000 years. It is this fairly recent glacial past that adds special character to the entire northeastern part of Minnesota.
The Forest's "plumbing" system is quite unique. It is drained by 3 different drainage systems. Lake Superior, and subsequently the Atlantic Ocean, is the "sump" for North Shore streams - mainly short watercourses with small drainage areas. The Rainy River carries water from the border lakes area, through Lake of the Woods, and finally to Hudson Bay. Nibbling along the edges of the region, are tributaries to the Upper Mississippi, and the St. Croix, which drain southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The Laurentian Divide marks the boundary between these drainage systems. A rest stop along Highway 169 near Virginia marks the Laurentian Divide. The question I have... when you flush the toilet at this rest stop, where does the water go? <g> |
Superior National Forest Images Go directly to my Superior National Forest Images Directory |
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Two Island Lake
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Northwoods Reflections
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Mirror Lake
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Birch Lake Island
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Forest Road in Autumn
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Border Country
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Canoeing the Gunflint
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Flaming Hillside
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Northwoods Still Life
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Little Gunflint Sunset
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Moose Tracks
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Leaning Tree
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The Three Bears
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Round the Bend
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White Pine Lake
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Gunflint Goodnight
Image: SUN400.JPG 10929 Bytes 281x400 |
Check Back Later for More Images! |
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Visit Lake Superior's North Shore
| Links to Other Superior National Forest Related Sites |
 Superior National Forest ... U.S. Forest Service's SNF Page Superior National Forest ... SNF Page Found in L.L. Bean's Parksearch BWCA ... News, Weather, & More from the BWCA Area Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Minnesota ... "The Boundary Waters premier information source" Superior Hiking Trail ... Hiking in the BWCAW Area Sawtooth Mountain Riders ... Horseback riding in the BWCAW Area Canoe Country ... "Your Comprehensive Guide to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area" |
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| About This Page |
| Graphics on this page were hand crafted from scratch and from other graphics by Martha Decker on a Dell 8300 using Corel Photo Paint and Paint Shop Pro. The page itself was created using Hot Dog Pro 7.03 for Windows. If you are interested in using any of my graphics, please send an email to the autoresponder Graphics@deckernet.com for permission. This page was developed on a computer running at 1280x1024 resolution at 65K colors. If you are running at a different resolution or color depth, things might not look as intended. I HIGHLY recommend that you run at least 65K colors. The Web will look dramatically different to you - I guarantee it! |
| The background tile on this page was derived from a tile I found on the Corel Photo Paint Plus 5 CD. |
| Click here to view it or click here to view the JPEG version. |
| The Trees divider line image on this page was adapted from a GIF that I found at http://www.great-lakes.net. |
| The wolf image on this page was used with permission from John Seeman of the former Loonlink.com. |
| The CGI counter on this page is an adaptation of the Text Counter that uses Server Side Includes which can be found at Matt's Script Archive. |
| Note: It is NOT an acceptable practice to load images onto your own Web pages or load images into a Web Chat environment directly from someone else's server. Many people on the Web are charged for file transfer from their site if they go over their alotted amount. I was one of those people and really got burned (try a $500 bill, guys...) |
You are welcome to use any of my images on your own Web page or in a Web Chat environment as long as you do the following:
The main Woodshed page ... http://deckernet.com/shed/ The main deckernet page ... http://deckernet.com/ For Christmas graphics ... http://deckernet.com/shed/xmas.htm For Minnesota graphics ... http://deckernet.com/minn/ Thank you! :) |
| The information about the Superior National was obtained, quoted, and paraphrased from the following books: "Superior National Forest" Robert Beymer The Mountaineers/Seattle 1989 "Minnesota's Geology" Richard W. Ojakangas and Charles Matsch University of Minnesota Press 1982/2001 "Minnesota Underfoot" Constance Jefferson Sansome Voyageur Press 1983/1987 |
| Click HERE for more Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Books |
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Goodbye, and thanks for stopping in! :-)
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Last modified on Saturday, January 19, 2008