Ellsworth Rock Gardens

Arrowhead

Unknown

 Wednesday we took advantage of "roving" rangers and rode along to Ellsworth Rock Gardens.  Jack Ellsworth built the rock gardens between 1944 & 1966.  Jack and his wife, Elsie, spent their summers on Lake Kabetogama transforming a 60-foot high granite outcrop into a formal garden.  Mr. Ellsworth was a building contractor from Chicago and while not formally trained as a artist, the gardens were his chance to show creative expression and attitude toward art & nature.

Mythical Animal

How's that for paraphrasing the brochure?  We had a great time as Miranda and Nick took us to the gardens and to Locator Lake trail head as part of their roving duties (all by boat) as they talk with people visiting the areas and picking up campsite tags dropped off at the trail heads.  This was the last chance for this duty section of park volunteers to get out together before departing.  This time next week, it's all new volunteers at the three visitor stations.

View from the bottom

We've enjoyed our time here at Voyageurs.  It's been a great learning experience.  The park and interpretative rangers here are the best and invested heavily in us for just 9 weeks of work.  The result is that all of us saw & learned Voyageurs in much more detail than we would have on our own.  Donna & I found that we really do like being at the "front" desk and prefer it much more than being campground hosts.

Another Mythical Animal

This time next week we plan to be at Bemidji, MN trying to find the Mississippi River headwaters.  From there we're off to Theodore Roosevelt NP for a few days, Bozeman, MT for truck servicing, Glacier NP, and over to Thom & Mary's for a week or so.  At least that's the plan.

Later, David

Unknown

Ellsworth house - now a picnic shelter

P.S.  All reconstruction work on the rock gardens is accomplished by National Park Volunteers.  I'll stick with the visitor centers!