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Visiting Voyageurs National Park in Winter

Two centuries ago, only Native Americans and French Canadian “voyageurs” saw the pelt-rich terrain of northern Minnesota. Today, Voyageurs National Park is still a haven for furry animals and hardy souls in winter. Brave the often extreme weather conditions (ice on the lakes, for example, can be five feet thick) and you’ll be in the good company of moose, white-tailed deer, mink, beavers, bald eagles, and the eastern timber wolf. Rangers at Voyageurs’ Rainy Lake Visitor Center teach clinics on how to make your own snowshoe and, once finished, take people deep into the forest of pines, birches and cedars on evening wolf howls. Two of the best ways to get lost is on the 2.5-mile Sullivan Bay snowshoe trail and the 11-mile Black Bay cross-country ski trail. Sullivan Bay is a hard-packed up-and-down route on the shores of Kabetogama Lake (one of Voyageurs network of 30 lakes). The groomed Black Bay Trail zips past beaver ponds under a grove of aspens. Spearfishing for northern pikes is popular on Kabetogama in winter, but that’s one sport rangers don’t teach. However, the park staff does plow a 7-mile road on Rainy Lake so anglers can set up their ice houses to fish for walleye and burbot.
 

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Botswana A&K Guide, Kebby Arabang, Debuts Ilanga Tours

Lisa and I were fortunate to travel with Kebby Arabang on a magical 10-day trip with Abercrombie & Kent to Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia in September 2016. Kebby’s knowledge of the outdoor world was encyclopedic. He knew every mammal, every bird, every tree, even the planets in the sky above. But it was his genuine passion of the subject, seamless communication skills, infectious smile and sense of humor that made him one of the best guides I’ve ever met. I loved mimicking his Botswana accent, especially when he emphasized the letter r when naming the next exquisite bird like the lilac-breasted roller or southern carmine bee-eater. He took it in stride and laughed along with me, even when the joke lasted far too long. 

Kebby emailed me last week and told me that when he’s not leading A&K tours in 2018, he’ll be guiding Botswana trips through his new company, Ilanga Tours. Based on your budget, he’ll take groups through the Okavango Delta and up to Chobe National Park to visit the largest herd of elephants in Africa and cruise the Chobe River on the Namibian border. If you have time, he’ll add on the spellbinding Victoria Falls. If interested in traveling with Kebby, either with A&K or Ilanga Tours, please contact ActiveTravels and we’ll look into availability. 
 
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Montreal Knows How to Party, Even in the Heart of Winter

Last winter, Montreal unveiled the continent’s first Snow Village at Parc Jean-Drapeau. This was no miniature dollhouse or a series of ice sculptures. No. The Snow Village included a 30-room ice hotel, an outdoor spa, ice bar, ice restaurant, ice chapel for marriages, a maze, slides, and much more. The show’s promoters first encountered the Snow Village concept in Finland and wanted to recreate the idea in North America. Entering its second season, Snow Village Canada will feature a New York theme in 2013, so expect to see the Empire State Building carved out of ice. If you visit in January, you’ll have the additional bonus of checking out Igloofest, a winter outdoor electronic dance celebration drawing up to 10,000 people a night over 3 weekends. 

 
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Barcelona Modernism in All Its Glory

You can thank architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner for the fantastic Catalan Modernism movement that swept the city of Barcelona in the latter part of the 19th century. Utilizing colorful mosaics, stained glass, and ceramics, he allowed a congested and often polluted city to bathe in the beauty of his nature-based designs, a joy to behold to this day. We started with a 40-minute tour of the Palau de la Música Catalana, the concert hall Montaner started to build in 1905. One look at the stunning ceiling and its floral motif, dotted with roses, and you can’t help but be impressed. The building is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with Hospital de Sant Pau, which would be the start of a 3-hour Context Tour on Modernism the following morning. Once a working hospital, the 8 buildings that surround a courtyard are now open to the public and are worth a stop to see the walls plastered in colorful tiles and glass. A 10-minute walk from Hospital de Sant Pau is the masterpiece of the Modernism movement, Gaudi’s Sagrada Família. Still under construction for over 100 years, there is hope that this sensational church will finally be complete in 2026 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. The interior is just as magical as the exterior, with twisting columns that climb to the arching ceiling and our guide, Mariana, gave us the perfect introduction to Barcelona’s rich history in architecture. 

 
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What’s Doing in Nairobi

First-time visitors to the Kenya have misconceptions that Nairobi will be some dusty backwater where narrow streets are filled with destitute people ready to pounce on your wallet.  Much of this stems from an outbreak of thievery that occurred in the late 90s, earning the city the nickname, “Nairobbery.” Today, especially now that the post-election violence of January 2007 is in the rear view mirror, Nairobi is a relatively safe and cosmopolitan hub of 3.5 million people in East Africa. The poor, who flood out of their shanties every morning to walk to nearby factories, merge with a growing middle and upper class, whose gated estates in the western suburbs of Karen and Langata have far more in common with Boca Raton than Bogota. Travelers are starting to realize that Nairobi is worthy of more than a one-night stopover on the way to safari. At the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, west of the city centre in Langata, baby elephants whose parents have been killed by poachers are raised by workers who actually sleep in their stalls to comfort the young. When they’re old enough, they’ll be brought back to the wild. The suburb of Karen was named after Out of Africa author Karen Blixen, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dineson. Visit the estate she lived in from 1913 to 1931, now home to the Karen Blixen Museum. The grounds, dotted with the prehistoric looking candelabra cacti, overlook the Ngong Hills, and are worth the price of admission alone.
 

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Arizona Week—The Impressive Musical Instrument Museum

When Lisa mentioned to me that there was a museum devoted to music in the northern outskirts of Phoenix, I initially scoffed at the idea, having already been to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Jimi Hendrix Experience in Seattle. Thankfully, she persuaded me to visit the Musical Instrument Museum since it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. Unfortunately, we didn’t have nearly enough time to view the entire collection in this large building (give yourself at least 2 hours, preferably 3 hours). We went upstairs first to see the exhibitions devoted to music around the world. In the European galleries, display cases are arranged by country. Simply walk up to the Belarus video and your headset will automatically play the indigenous folk music of that country. In fact, the headset was amazing, immediately picking up the music in front of you without having to input numbers. In the United States/Canada gallery, I loved seeing the old clips of Coltrane and Miles in the jazz section, Natalie MacMaster work her fiddle in the Cape Breton display, and Lalo Guerrero singing about his native Barrio Viejo in Tucson, which we had just visited the day prior. Downstairs in the Artist Gallery, you’ll find the piano John Lennon used to write “Imagine,” Stevie Ray Vaughn’s signature guitar which he jams on in a video clip, and wardrobes worn by Johnny Cash, Elvis, and Taylor Swift. Nearby is the Experience Gallery, where you can pound the drums, try the xylophone, and other bizarre metal instruments that seemed better suited for Tibetan monks. A whole lot of fun that’s highly recommended when you’re next in Phoenix. 

 
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Climb Mount Monadnock

Climbing the broad-shouldered peak Henry David Thoreau called a “sublime mass,” Mt. Monadnock, is a rite of passage for many New England children. Just over the border of Massachusetts in southern New Hampshire, Monadnock is less than a two-hour drive from Boston. Its accessibility and locale, smack dab in the center of New England, has made it one of the two most popular mountain ascents in the world going toe-to-toe with Japan’s Mount Fuji. 

 
Early May, when the black flies have yet to arrive, is the ideal time to bag this 3,165-foot peak. Head up the White Dot trail, one of the steepest ascents, but also one that rewards with you with incredible vistas in a very short time. Above treeline, the forest recedes to form open ledges covered with low-lying shrubs like mountain cranberry bushes. This gives you ample opportunity to rest and peer down at the soft blanket of treetops, small towns with their requisite white steeples, a smattering of lakes and ponds, and farms that fan out to anonymous ridges. Soon you’ll reach the summit, where Thoreau watched in dismay as his fellow mid-19th century trampers inscribed their names in rock. You can still spot names like “T.S. Spaulding, 1853” clearly etched in the stone. 
 

2 Comments

  1. The Park Service now plows a 9 mile ice road on Lake Kabetogama,also. The road runs from the Kabetogama Visitor Center to the Ash River boat landing and is routed between islands that provide great fishing opportunities.

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