Minnesota couple finishes 1,500 mile hike around Lake Superior

By Mark Neuzil

Mike Link and Kate Crowley, a couple from Willow River, Minn., know the answer to a variation on an old joke: How do you walk around Lake Superior?

One step at a time.

Link, 64, and Crowley, 60, are quick with a response because they lived it. On Sunday, they strolled into Duluth, Minn., on the last steps of a 1,550-mile hike that started on April 29.

As best as anyone can tell, they are among very, very few people to ever circumnavigate the largest freshwater lake in the world by foot. They walked east –counterclockwise–through Wisconsin and Michigan, then along the Canadian side during the summer, 12 to 15 miles a day for 145 days.

The trip was designed to bring attention to the lake. “Let’s just agree that we cannot degrade our fresh water any more than we have,” Link said.

The journey marked Link’s retirement as director of the Audubon Center of the North Woods, an environmental education center in Sandstone, Minn.

Couple gathered data for scientific research

True to their backgrounds as educators, Link and Crowley sampled the quality of streams and rivers, took photographs and surveyed human attitudes. That data was provided to researchers at seven universities throughout the basin.

They also measured weekly their diet, pulse, blood pressure and weight for the health care company Medica, a sponsor interested in the medical aspects of the trip.

Link lost 29 pounds and likely needs knee replacement surgery; he started out with bad knees and “wore them down to nothing.” Crowley lost 8 pounds and dealt with nothing more serious than blisters.

“We were very cautious on the rocky shores, the boulder fields and cliffs,” she said. “And walking on Highway 61, (some drivers) wouldn’t move over.”

Grumps were few

The couple said they encountered “only four grumpy people,” two in the United States and two in Canada, in the 1,500-plus miles. Three wanted them nowhere near their property, and one swore at them from a car.

But the couple said the grumpy people and the oblivious drivers were anomalies.

“I would encourage people to get out and walk, across their town or city, and meet people,” Crowley said. “We met so many kind and generous people.”

Those folks included Ed and Dorothy Hajala, a couple of Finnish heritage on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan. The two were tipped off that the Minnesotans were coming and met them on the beach near their cabin. Ed was on his way to the sauna when Link and Crowley showed up, but he delayed his sauna for a glass of well water and a visit on the deck. When they parted, Ed pointed out a shortcut through a neighbor’s property and said to tell the neighbor that Ed and Dorothy said they could cut through.

Many would stop and ask them what they were doing. “Walking around the lake,” became a standard answer. “Oh, that’s nice,” folks replied. “It’s a good day for that.”

Supporter suffers mishap

It wasn’t 145 good days, though. One member of their support crew, an 18-year-old kayaker, fell from a cliff and needed to be helicoptered to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where he eventually recovered. It rained for 15 of their walking days or so, and during the only portion of their trip in which they had to take to a canoe, they were wind-bound on an island for several days.

Each wore out two pairs of boots–soles only, not the uppers. “Our rain gear was worthless,” Crowley said. “I ended up buying an umbrella in Wisconsin and that worked better.” They waded the small rivers and creeks and used a support vehicle for those too fast and deep to swim safely.

Link said the most common large mammal they encountered was the black bear. They did not see any moose, although the time of year they were walking would suggest it was possible. “We saw a lot of things that as naturalists we enjoyed, but that were not real spectacular,” he said. One exception was a 10-point white-tailed deer swimming in the lake, possibly to escape a wolf pack in the Sibley Peninsula.

The couple has scheduled several presentations and public talks as they continue in their role as educators. And hiking is in their blood.

“We just did a little three-mile trek today,” Link said Tuesday. “I was afraid we’d stop and seize up if we stopped walking.”

Related story: Love affair with Lake Superior leads to major expedition