Planning a Superior Vacation at Lake Superior

Planning a Superior Vacation at Lake Superior

Lake Superior is the biggest of the Great Lakes and the largest freshwater lake on earth by surface area, roughly 31,700 square miles of cold, clear water spread across three states and one Canadian province. It holds close to a tenth of all the fresh surface water on the planet, enough, the story goes, to cover both North and South America in a foot of water. Point the car at its shoreline any season of the year and you will find more to do than a single trip can hold. Here is how to plan a superior vacation on the greatest of the lakes.

Lake Superior 3-D nautical wood chart, layered birch showing the lake's deep basin and rocky shoreline

Start with the water

Superior is deep, and it is cold. Even in August the surface hovers around forty degrees, and the water below stays near freezing straight through summer. That chill is not an accident of latitude alone. Superior is an oligotrophic lake, low in nutrients, which keeps algae and plant life from taking hold. Clear water and a thin food web mean fewer fish, but the ones that live here, lake trout especially, grow old and grow large.

The cold does one more thing worth knowing. It preserves. More than 350 shipwrecks rest on the lake bottom, held in near-perfect condition by water too cold to rot them. The most famous went down in a November gale in 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald, and divers still come from across the country to explore the wrecks scattered along the sandy shallows and rocky drop-offs. The lake earned that reputation honestly. Its storms build fast and hit hard, and for a century the shipping lanes out of Duluth and the Soo Locks ran straight through the worst of them.

Where to stay

Wind your way along Highway 61, the North Shore Scenic Drive, and lodging reveals itself around nearly every bend. You can pick your pace: a cabin tucked into the pines, a cottage a few steps from the dock, a hotel in town, or a working lighthouse if you want your sunrise served with a little history. A few north-shore standbys worth a look:

Wherever you land, you get a front-row seat to the lake. Sunrise from a cottage porch, sunset from the dock, or both from a lighthouse deck. Superior has a way of putting on a show from every direction.

Split Rock Lighthouse on a cliff above Lake Superior along Minnesota's North Shore Scenic Drive

What to do

The full loop around the lake, the Lake Superior Circle Tour, runs roughly 1,300 miles through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario. Drive the whole thing or pick a stretch. Either way the north shore delivers cliffs, waterfalls, and lighthouses in steady supply. Split Rock Lighthouse, perched on its headland since 1910, is the most photographed of them, built after a single 1905 storm wrecked or stranded nearly thirty ships in one night.

If you would rather be out in it than driving past it, the options run long:

When the snow comes, the list only grows: snowshoeing, ice fishing, and a shoreline dressed in frozen spray. Two minutes or two weeks, the woods and the water will give you as much as you ask of them.

Lake Superior serving tray in Baltic birch, the shoreline laser-cut in relief

Where to eat

Much of the shoreline is quiet and uninhabited, but you will not go hungry circling the lake. The regional obsession is smoked fish, and the two locals to order are herring and lake trout, served straight, baked, or folded into a fish dip. Duluth's Northern Waters Smokehaus is the standard-bearer, and the Finnish threads that run through the region turn up in the bakeries and diners along the way. Time your stops with care so you do not blow past a good meal, and if the weather holds, take it outside. Dinner tends to arrive here with a fire pit and a breeze off the lake.

Where to shop

Half the fun of the north shore is ducking into the small shops in each town, where you will find homemade food, jewelry, and plenty of local lake art. Support the mom-and-pop places and you will often leave with a story as well as a bag. Few regions guard their hospitality as closely as the people of the Great Lakes, and a real souvenir beats a keychain every time.

Great Lakes 3-D nautical wood chart showing all five lakes carved in layered birch

Take the lake home

From the small burgs of the north shore to the aerial lift bridge and Canal Park in Duluth, one of the farthest-inland seaports in the world, the towns around this basin give the trip its character. The lake gives it everything else. When you are ready to keep a piece of that water on your wall, a Lake Superior wood chart carries the real thing home: each layer of Baltic birch a true depth contour, the shoreline laser-cut to match the coast you just drove. The blue-green of the water and the honest depth of that great basin will take you back to the north shore every time you look up.

Planning the circle tour, or remembering it? Explore the full Great Lakes collection and find your water.

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