After watching a brief introductory film, Hannah decided she was too scared to go. The rest of us put on our hard hats and were herded into the shaft elevators and then went down, down, down, down, down into the ground.
(that's about a half mile underground!)
It was a constant 51 degrees in the cave and of course we were wearing shorts. At least we had sweatshirts! It was also very fresh smelling, very clean.
We rode in these trains for three fourths of a mile before climbing a spiral staircase to a stope where we saw the places the miners would have worked, what tools they used, how dark it would have been for them (they turned out all the lights and showed how much light one candle would give), and how loud (they turned on one of the drills at half volume).
It was really fascinating. Some of the other children were scared when we first went down that elevator - it was a bit scary - but during the presentation, they were asking questions and enjoying themselves. Our guide was fantastic and really was able to answer all of our questions.
After that we drove to Bearhead Lake State Park. At the park office, we saw a sign that said there was archery available that day and there was still some time left. So we hurried down to the site and the kids were thrilled that they were able to participate.
After that they were able to take off their shoes and wade a bit in the lake before we had to leave.
The very last thing we did was tour the house of Dorothy Molter, aka The Root Beer Lady, who was the last person to live in the boundary waters. I had read her book awhile ago and it was neat to see her house. Our guide was a personal friend of hers and that made the tour quite interesting.
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