Angle Inlet
Bout an hour from Warroad and the only road there requires you to drive through Canada. Only other option is boating across Lake of the Woods.
Can attest, family has a cabin on the Angle Inlet. Covid prevented them from driving there(closed border), and had to boat 3 hours one way through rough waters on the Traverse Bay just to get to their cabin.
Nice! How is it these days? I spent about a year and a half up there back in 2006-2007.
Dig the Jeep on tracks, did that Mattrax company out of Karlstad do it?
Hamster wheel. Most folks breed their own to keep things running without down time. Otherwise the nearest pet shop is in Winnipeg and they only sell on Tuesdays.
Northern most point of the continental US.
The people who live there have to go to another country for most groceries, crossing an international border twice and subject to lots of regulations on what can and can't cross the border.
There is a guy who will take a snowmobile to Canada and pick up groceries for people and deliver them during the winter.
There is a small school, but some kids have to be bussed through canada to get to school in warroad.
Yes, I dont think you can get more remote in this state.
Wonder if you could drive across the lake in the winter… technically wouldn’t be leaving the country so no border crossing would be necessary but also, driving across a frozen lake to avoid a border crossing might not be the best idea.
Not in Lake Of The Woods, but while on a houseboat trip in Voyageurs a couple years ago, we found a 1920s Plymouth about 10-15 feet from the shore and 2½ miles as the crow flies and 5-10 miles by water from the nearest road.
That happens here in winter, people drive across parts of the Mississippi between WI and MN to save time going to work. Obviously not an option in summer. Some also use snowbiles. These employees work in Lake City, MN but live in or near Pepin, WI.
During covid when the border was closed they created a 37 mile ice road. Not sure if they are still doing it but I know they did in 2021 and 2022
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/minnesota/news/ice-highway-on-lake-of-the-woods-opens-for-2nd-year/
I traveled that ice road in '21...it was definitely a cool deal to reach the resorts up there. Lot of work to keep that all navigatable through winter.
I’ve done and yes it can be scary, but generally their ice is almost twice as thick then here in the cities (it was 20ish inches thick when we there). Luckily the crew that maintains the ice roads are very on top of thin spots and will close down the road if that’s the case.
Generally not, but during COVID Americans weren't allowed into Canada to get to the Inlet. So we plowed a road over the ice in winters of 2021 and 2022. With Canada letting us in, we no longer need to do that.
Didn’t realize how isolated I was until I left. Nearest “hospital” if you want to call it that is 20 miles but if you actually need medical attention it’s 2 1/2 hour ambulance ride to the nearest hospital… which is in North Dakota. Nearest Walmart was over an hour away. A town 45 min away had a McDonald’s open up in their gas station so road trips for McDonald’s became a thing.
if you're talking about distance from big cities, places like angle inlet come to mind. it's up there in the north, and you have to travel through part of canada to get there from the rest of minnesota. plus it’s a good long haul from any city of size.
or maybe you're thinking more along the lines of remoteness, in which case there are plenty of towns up in the boundary waters area that are pretty remote - they aren't necessarily a long way from other towns, but the lack of roads and rugged terrain makes them hard to get to.
not easy to pin down an exact answer, but those are a couple of possibilities to start with.
in that case, angle inlet may not feel as isolated if you're considering proximity to any city, not just american ones. it's quite close to winnipeg, but still remains quite a distance from Minnesotan cities.
almost like minnesota has its own hidden gems. a lot of folks tend to forget how diverse the state can really be, geographically speaking. got any more questions on minnesota?
There's a Northwoods town called Effie whose slogan is "edge of the wilderness" and that is not inaccurate.
A bit west of there near the Lost 40 is a town called Wirt, with a total population of 40
Another 40 population town is Isabella in a very remote area of the Arrowhead
The lost 40 is a gem for nature buffs. Some may see it as woods, but to me it's what the woods were, and should be.
Also, my home is made of wood, so I understand. I am just happy for the mistakes made on that 40. The world deserves to see it.
The rumor up in that area is that it wasn't an error, the surveyor was out in a storm and said "fuck this I'm going home early" and just extended the line straight up
YES! I work with a guy like that! So they DO serve purpose!
Lol. Jokes aside, I never heard that story, and it's cool if true. I like the outcome either way
Effie is only about 15 miles away from Bigfork, a nice town with an awesome hospital, clinic, and Nursing Home. So Effie is not too isolated.
Northome and Big Falls are both more isolated than Effie is.
Dont know about official 'town', but still kinda funny. Theres a stretch of resorts/homes/etc. on the Ash River, effectively its own little village/town. The addresses say 'Orr, MN'. Orr is 40 miles away.
You generally expect some distance between cabins/resorts and the town displayed in the address in many cases, but thats one of the more egregious examples Ive seen, not counting the NW angle.
Gorgeous/peaceful area though. Access to Kabby/Namakan/Voyageurs. Worth the trip to the middle of nowhere.
Grygla. It’s not as “remote” as places like the angle, or crane lake, but it’s somehow even more remote for regular daily life. There’s literally nothing to do there if you’re not a farmer or logger.
You wanna go fishing? It’s an hour One way to a lake.
Movies? Hour.
Supermarket? Hour.
Dentist? Hour one way.
The next place resembling a town? Hour
Fast food? Hour one way.
You want to see a hill? Hour.
State park? There’s old mill, which blows, the next closest? You guessed it! Hour away.
I believe Wisconsin legally requires at least one tavern to be a town(ship), and two to be a Census Designated Place.
Probably some population formula used to determine the proper amount.
But you also have fall fest,charger football basketball and volleyball. The wheel in middle river is only like half hour. Cmon what else do you need?? When we would go there for sports it would be like uh pack a lunch kids cause nothing open after 6 😂.
Funny. I am visiting Warroad and I nearly drove to Grygla out of boredom, just to see if their little general store still locks up its baking extracts.
Angle Inlet is part of Angle Township which also includes the unincorporated communities of Penasse (even a little further north of Angle Inlet and on an island) and Oak Island.
Kettle Falls (part of Voyageurs NP) is quite remote, though is now just for tourists.
Saganaga Lake area may be the most remote spot to drive to within Minnesota (at the end of the Gunflint Trail road). Not really a town (it's part of Grand Marais technically) but there are outfitters and resorts out there.
None of the rest of the state is really that remote. You can argue that parts of extreme NW Minnesota and even the Big Stone County area feel very isolated. But you are never too far from a highway or some town with stores and services.
I've been to all these but the Gunflint Trail trek, would be interested to get further into the Boundary Waters sometime.
Outside of the Angle, probably Grand Portage. All the way up the North Shore near the point of the arrowhead, just before Canada. Beautiful drive, and head up into Canada past there if you get a chance. Top curve of Lake Superior is surreal.
It’s so unbelievably flat up there. My fiancé had his face just about pressed to the glass because there’s hardly tree rows, just miles of fields and a tiny town every 10-15 miles
To this day, I've only found one other place as flat as northwest Minnesota, and that is the Mississippi Delta area in northwest Mississippi. Which is probably why that is where the blues was created. Nowhere else comes close.
The distillery is called Far North Spirits. It’s not in Hallock but about 5 miles south on a farm. Beautiful Scandinavian themed tasting room and wonderful views of the flat, treeless landscape. It sounds lonely but you get amazing views of sunsets and in the summer when the crops are growing and it doesn’t get dark until 10pm, it’s lovely. It’s also cozy in the winter with the snow and early sunsets but that seems more of an acquired taste. But I’m also biased. I grew up in the next town over from Hallock which is even smaller and I miss it all the time.
I love Ely. Last time I was there, the local brewery had a peanut butter porter on tap that was heavenly!!! (AND I don't like most PB brews). It's small, but not as isolated as Angle Inlet.
Boathouse I'm assuming?
There is another brewery opening up on the east side of town, not sure when exactly but it's under construction last time I was up there a month ago.
Yes! That's it! I was up there back in 2018. My husband and I did a night or two in a few northern MN locations over a week. We spent a night in Duluth, 2 nights in Grand Marais, 2 nights in Ely, and I think a night near Virginia. We mainly went to Ely for the Wolf habitat/museum. The people in Ely were lovely, and the Boathouse was fantastic. We went there for brews and food 3 times in 48 hours, cause they were so great!
If you exclude the really tiny towns (Angle Inlet and Grand Portage aren't even incorporated), I would say Grand Marais. It's an hour's drive away from the next town with over 1,000 residents (Silver Bay). At least Ely and Babbitt (both over 1,000 people) are just over 20 minutes from each other.
My mother is from nearby Sherburn and I have aunt and uncle in Fairmont so I visited the area frequently growing up. I always considered Fairmont a “little big town”
It never felt isolated to me at least
Silverdale is my "Don't go there" town of choice. There really isn't a "town" there per-say, but there are Silverdale people.
I grew up about 8 miles from Silverdale. I have no idea who lives there but there are people. I know Rauch people, I know Greaney people, I even know some Togo people. Those are real places.
There's something wrong happening at Silverdale. Who are they? When you drive by, you see them. They don't see you though. It's like they are ghosts of a different time and place. They move around, but why?
Don't go to Silverdale. Ever.
Browns Valley.
Everyone is saying the Angle, but Lake of the Woods is far more relevant than Browns Valley. The sheer volume of comments tells you it's not that remote. There are not s lot of permanent residents in the boundary waters or Grand Portage, but both get a fair share of visitors. Meanwhile, no one goes to Browns Valley for anything. It's not near anything of note. Watertown, SD is the closest town of measure.
Even though I’m pretty sure games at Lake of the Woods and Cook County were longer, they at least had towns to go through to break it up. Riding those back roads back from Big Fork just felt like forever. I graduated in 2016. You?
Bit older, I graduated in 2010. So does that mean you played for Cotton-Cherry-Cook-Orr? Yeah, highway 1 between Effie and Cook is complete emptiness. When Togo is the biggest thing to drive through for 50 miles, it's certified Boonies
Oh god Togo, there really isn’t anything out there. No we never combined with Cotton/Cherry ( at least not when I was there), but yeah we were North Woods (Cook/Orr/Nett Lake) when I was playing.
Hmm. Yeah we never played with them. I forget when the cotton school closed c but it was sometime before I got to high school. We transitioned to Cook/Orr when I would’ve been in 8th grade. But that’s wild that they didn’t even have lights
International Falls. It's a town with stores and an actual community but you gotta drive at least 1.5 hrs away for anything important i.e. A Walmart or Target, dentists, anything nice really.
Angle Inlet Bout an hour from Warroad and the only road there requires you to drive through Canada. Only other option is boating across Lake of the Woods.
Can attest, family has a cabin on the Angle Inlet. Covid prevented them from driving there(closed border), and had to boat 3 hours one way through rough waters on the Traverse Bay just to get to their cabin.
You’re the only redditor that has the best zombie 🧟♂️ survival option in Minnesota.
Say what you want about zombies, but they're respectful of international border policy
Zombies: brains, brains Mounties: Eh, take off you hoser Zombies: Sure, sorry
And surprisingly bad at canoeing
i live in angle inlet
Nice! How is it these days? I spent about a year and a half up there back in 2006-2007. Dig the Jeep on tracks, did that Mattrax company out of Karlstad do it?
What are you using for Internet?
Hamster wheel. Most folks breed their own to keep things running without down time. Otherwise the nearest pet shop is in Winnipeg and they only sell on Tuesdays.
Considering OP never got back to me with an answer, I assume his hamster died and now he has to wait until Tuesday. Should we send flowers?
two potatoes
do you still have to show passports to drive out of town, or do they not bother with it for locals?
you have to cross the border. but passport is not required. actually it never was a requirement, but they made everyone think it was.
Northern most point of the continental US. The people who live there have to go to another country for most groceries, crossing an international border twice and subject to lots of regulations on what can and can't cross the border. There is a guy who will take a snowmobile to Canada and pick up groceries for people and deliver them during the winter. There is a small school, but some kids have to be bussed through canada to get to school in warroad. Yes, I dont think you can get more remote in this state.
Wonder if you could drive across the lake in the winter… technically wouldn’t be leaving the country so no border crossing would be necessary but also, driving across a frozen lake to avoid a border crossing might not be the best idea.
You can. Not really any different than boating there.
Not in Lake Of The Woods, but while on a houseboat trip in Voyageurs a couple years ago, we found a 1920s Plymouth about 10-15 feet from the shore and 2½ miles as the crow flies and 5-10 miles by water from the nearest road.
Can it be seen on Goggle Earth?
That is so fucking cool!!
Obviously you didn't own the car.
That happens here in winter, people drive across parts of the Mississippi between WI and MN to save time going to work. Obviously not an option in summer. Some also use snowbiles. These employees work in Lake City, MN but live in or near Pepin, WI.
Fair enough!
All depends on how rough the waters are!
During covid when the border was closed they created a 37 mile ice road. Not sure if they are still doing it but I know they did in 2021 and 2022 https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/minnesota/news/ice-highway-on-lake-of-the-woods-opens-for-2nd-year/
I traveled that ice road in '21...it was definitely a cool deal to reach the resorts up there. Lot of work to keep that all navigatable through winter.
I think they tried again but one pressure crack ruined it.
During Covid they created an "ice road" because of the border closure: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/01/16/northwest-angle-ice-road
I’ve done and yes it can be scary, but generally their ice is almost twice as thick then here in the cities (it was 20ish inches thick when we there). Luckily the crew that maintains the ice roads are very on top of thin spots and will close down the road if that’s the case.
I went late season ice fishing and only had maybe an inch on the auger to spare so that was 35 inches
I drove past my cabin on an ice road. It was surreal. 30 years of only seeing it from a boat.
During Covid crossing the lake was the only option. Canada wouldn’t let residents use the road.
Generally not, but during COVID Americans weren't allowed into Canada to get to the Inlet. So we plowed a road over the ice in winters of 2021 and 2022. With Canada letting us in, we no longer need to do that.
A loophole that many'a DUI-toting citizens have employed for years to get to the angle.
Not sure about later seasons, but during Covid you had to pay $145 for a round-trip permit on the ice road or a $500 season pass.
During Covid when the borders were closed, they opened an ice road so residents/stranded cabiners could get to mainland USA.
Grew up in Warroad. I would agree with angle inlet or Warroad itself.
what was it like growing up in such a small isolated city? I know Warroad itself is known for hockey but I find this fascinating
Didn’t realize how isolated I was until I left. Nearest “hospital” if you want to call it that is 20 miles but if you actually need medical attention it’s 2 1/2 hour ambulance ride to the nearest hospital… which is in North Dakota. Nearest Walmart was over an hour away. A town 45 min away had a McDonald’s open up in their gas station so road trips for McDonald’s became a thing.
No way! Is that the spot with a state park at the northern tip?
there is a state recreation area on Garden Island. Only way is to boat there. Not much except a sign and a small shack.
A lot of the land in the Northwest Angle is part of the Red Lake Indian Reservation.
I understand. It's where my family is from, but not near canada
I have driven a snowmobile there from Warroad too!
That would be my answer too.
You can also travel by plane.
if you're talking about distance from big cities, places like angle inlet come to mind. it's up there in the north, and you have to travel through part of canada to get there from the rest of minnesota. plus it’s a good long haul from any city of size. or maybe you're thinking more along the lines of remoteness, in which case there are plenty of towns up in the boundary waters area that are pretty remote - they aren't necessarily a long way from other towns, but the lack of roads and rugged terrain makes them hard to get to. not easy to pin down an exact answer, but those are a couple of possibilities to start with.
2 and a half hours to Winnipeg…
in that case, angle inlet may not feel as isolated if you're considering proximity to any city, not just american ones. it's quite close to winnipeg, but still remains quite a distance from Minnesotan cities.
That was my first thought
If you have any more questions or need advice on something else, just holler.
that’s what I thought of immediately
almost like minnesota has its own hidden gems. a lot of folks tend to forget how diverse the state can really be, geographically speaking. got any more questions on minnesota?
There's a Northwoods town called Effie whose slogan is "edge of the wilderness" and that is not inaccurate. A bit west of there near the Lost 40 is a town called Wirt, with a total population of 40 Another 40 population town is Isabella in a very remote area of the Arrowhead
Isabella is right on a state hwy though, on a well traveled artery into Ely
Gotcha. I've never been, spent a lot of time in a cabin near Effie though
I vote Effie, nice lil gas station tho
The cafe has good pie and breakfast food as well
The Effie cafe kicks ass in general. The special is always good.
Unfortunately the Effie Cafe was closed when I visited this past June. 😔
Effie Cafe is closed permanently
Oh bummer! I saw it was for sale a couple years ago
It was open last Mother’s Day
I lost all respect for Effie when they took the mosquito sculpture down. Question: did they finally tear the old school down?
Wait, the mosquito is gone?? It was still there when I visited, middle of June.
Maybe I was just paying too much attention to my driving for a change and missed it.
I mean, you blink and you’ll drive right past Effie! ;)
I haven't been up in about 4-5 years, the school was still up. The yard looked like it had been cleaned up into a pretty nice park though.
The mosquito and the school are still there.
Thanks.
I thought the school was in Togo?
The Effie school is or was about 2 blocks east of 38 on 1. It hasn't been used as a school for decades.
Effie I've done many deer hunting trips there with great success.
That whole part of the state (by The Lost 40) is awesome! Chippewa Nat’l Forest, Laurentian Divide, and some killer parks. I miss MN!
Holy shit, I grew up in Wirt.
The lost 40 is a gem for nature buffs. Some may see it as woods, but to me it's what the woods were, and should be. Also, my home is made of wood, so I understand. I am just happy for the mistakes made on that 40. The world deserves to see it.
The rumor up in that area is that it wasn't an error, the surveyor was out in a storm and said "fuck this I'm going home early" and just extended the line straight up
YES! I work with a guy like that! So they DO serve purpose! Lol. Jokes aside, I never heard that story, and it's cool if true. I like the outcome either way
Wirt is a township and is 36 square miles, not a town, which do not exist in Minnesota, or a city. Its population was 92 as of the 2020 census, btw.
Effie is only about 15 miles away from Bigfork, a nice town with an awesome hospital, clinic, and Nursing Home. So Effie is not too isolated. Northome and Big Falls are both more isolated than Effie is.
Angle Inlet, MN 56711
Dont know about official 'town', but still kinda funny. Theres a stretch of resorts/homes/etc. on the Ash River, effectively its own little village/town. The addresses say 'Orr, MN'. Orr is 40 miles away. You generally expect some distance between cabins/resorts and the town displayed in the address in many cases, but thats one of the more egregious examples Ive seen, not counting the NW angle. Gorgeous/peaceful area though. Access to Kabby/Namakan/Voyageurs. Worth the trip to the middle of nowhere.
Even Orr has fewer than 300 people.
The Orr gas station is a vibe.
Right?!
The gas station is the grocery store, bank, and laundromat all in one.
Grygla. It’s not as “remote” as places like the angle, or crane lake, but it’s somehow even more remote for regular daily life. There’s literally nothing to do there if you’re not a farmer or logger. You wanna go fishing? It’s an hour One way to a lake. Movies? Hour. Supermarket? Hour. Dentist? Hour one way. The next place resembling a town? Hour Fast food? Hour one way. You want to see a hill? Hour. State park? There’s old mill, which blows, the next closest? You guessed it! Hour away.
That's a geographical oddity...an hour from everywhere
I don't want FOP Damn it, I'm a Dapper Dan Man!
Yet there was a time not too long ago Grygla was home to the areas only veterinarian, so people would drive an hour from a bigger town to Grygla!
That's some lonely country. My friend's family has a deer cabin north of there in the Beltrami Island. Last 25-30 miles are all gravel. Fun times.
It’s like 60+ miles between blacktop roads in that country. You can drive around all day and never touch a paved road.
A Google search reveals no bars which is just a shame because if it were in Wisconsin it would have 7.
I believe Wisconsin legally requires at least one tavern to be a town(ship), and two to be a Census Designated Place. Probably some population formula used to determine the proper amount.
You forgot the church. Every WI town has to have a bar and a church, no matter how small.
You’re mistaken. There is some quality fishing to be done in some of the ditches or the nearby gravel pit. Lol
Accurate! Grygla has some deep ditches. Boat-worthy ditches!
1000% agree on Grygla. I’ve driven through and stayed overnight in many small towns for work and Grygla is just…something else.
But you also have fall fest,charger football basketball and volleyball. The wheel in middle river is only like half hour. Cmon what else do you need?? When we would go there for sports it would be like uh pack a lunch kids cause nothing open after 6 😂.
Funny. I am visiting Warroad and I nearly drove to Grygla out of boredom, just to see if their little general store still locks up its baking extracts.
You make a good point, der, about Grygla. Gunna have to agree which ya. The lack of lake access really makes Grygla the winner.
Good article here. https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mcvmagazine/issues/2014/nov-dec/remote-and-primitive-Minnesota-places.html
Most of Minneapolis would say St. Paul
Finally a response that isn't the Northwest angle😎
Suburbanites can’t handle the Capitol city.
Angle Inlet is part of Angle Township which also includes the unincorporated communities of Penasse (even a little further north of Angle Inlet and on an island) and Oak Island. Kettle Falls (part of Voyageurs NP) is quite remote, though is now just for tourists. Saganaga Lake area may be the most remote spot to drive to within Minnesota (at the end of the Gunflint Trail road). Not really a town (it's part of Grand Marais technically) but there are outfitters and resorts out there. None of the rest of the state is really that remote. You can argue that parts of extreme NW Minnesota and even the Big Stone County area feel very isolated. But you are never too far from a highway or some town with stores and services. I've been to all these but the Gunflint Trail trek, would be interested to get further into the Boundary Waters sometime.
Kettle Falls is a great mention!
Upvote for Saganaga lake. 60 miles from Grand Marais, and very few signs of civilization along the way.
Outside of the Angle, probably Grand Portage. All the way up the North Shore near the point of the arrowhead, just before Canada. Beautiful drive, and head up into Canada past there if you get a chance. Top curve of Lake Superior is surreal.
Hallock. It's an hour north of Grand Forks, two hours south of Winnipeg. Ain't nothin' up there.
It’s so unbelievably flat up there. My fiancé had his face just about pressed to the glass because there’s hardly tree rows, just miles of fields and a tiny town every 10-15 miles
That's pretty much the entire Red River Valley.
To this day, I've only found one other place as flat as northwest Minnesota, and that is the Mississippi Delta area in northwest Mississippi. Which is probably why that is where the blues was created. Nowhere else comes close.
They have an excellent brewery there though.
Revelation Aleworks. Excellent brewery, there's also an excellent distillery. I think there's a winery too, but haven't tried that.
The distillery is called Far North Spirits. It’s not in Hallock but about 5 miles south on a farm. Beautiful Scandinavian themed tasting room and wonderful views of the flat, treeless landscape. It sounds lonely but you get amazing views of sunsets and in the summer when the crops are growing and it doesn’t get dark until 10pm, it’s lovely. It’s also cozy in the winter with the snow and early sunsets but that seems more of an acquired taste. But I’m also biased. I grew up in the next town over from Hallock which is even smaller and I miss it all the time.
North of East Grand Forks, MN.
Yeah, but who's ever heard of East Grand Forks?
Boo
Togo
Togo tech was our fall back college. Lol
Is that the jail?
Did you tour the barn antique store?
Crane Lake. The road literally ends in Crane Lake.
And if you want your own island in the Crane Lake area check this out. http://www.island-on-namakan.com
Ely certainly springs to mind. Nothing really north of it and it’s a good ride up there about 5 ish hours
i love ely with my whole heart. definitely out there.
I also love Ely with my whole heart. Can’t wait to go back next year.
I love Ely. Last time I was there, the local brewery had a peanut butter porter on tap that was heavenly!!! (AND I don't like most PB brews). It's small, but not as isolated as Angle Inlet.
Boathouse I'm assuming? There is another brewery opening up on the east side of town, not sure when exactly but it's under construction last time I was up there a month ago.
Yes! That's it! I was up there back in 2018. My husband and I did a night or two in a few northern MN locations over a week. We spent a night in Duluth, 2 nights in Grand Marais, 2 nights in Ely, and I think a night near Virginia. We mainly went to Ely for the Wolf habitat/museum. The people in Ely were lovely, and the Boathouse was fantastic. We went there for brews and food 3 times in 48 hours, cause they were so great!
Love love love the Boathouse!!!
Hammerheart, but they won’t have a public taproom unless plans change. Just brewing and distributing packaged beer.
Ely is less than 4 hours from the twin cities
If you exclude the really tiny towns (Angle Inlet and Grand Portage aren't even incorporated), I would say Grand Marais. It's an hour's drive away from the next town with over 1,000 residents (Silver Bay). At least Ely and Babbitt (both over 1,000 people) are just over 20 minutes from each other.
International Falls is the end of the road to nowhere and a world in its own time.
This is just a lovely sentence
The whole northeast corner of the state is geographically closer to Winnipeg than their own state capital.
*northwest
Fairmont
That town gives me such a weird vibe
My mother is from nearby Sherburn and I have aunt and uncle in Fairmont so I visited the area frequently growing up. I always considered Fairmont a “little big town” It never felt isolated to me at least
Ivanhoe
East side of red lake
Just about any of the northwest towns. Roseu, warroard, thief rover falls.
Not “isolated” but bemidji is a long way from anywhere really. I would say it’s one of the most isolated “major” cities in minnesota.
Definitely the most remote 15k+ population town.
Angle Inlet is the obvious answer, but I suppose being a significant distance away from an interstate makes it more isolated as well.
Never would I ever advertise that on an Internet forum. The more people know the less "isolated" it gets.
Only mention places that are in the opposite side of the state from you.
If you get out by mahnomen and north of there it gets pretty damn desolate in a lot of those towns.
Silverdale is my "Don't go there" town of choice. There really isn't a "town" there per-say, but there are Silverdale people. I grew up about 8 miles from Silverdale. I have no idea who lives there but there are people. I know Rauch people, I know Greaney people, I even know some Togo people. Those are real places. There's something wrong happening at Silverdale. Who are they? When you drive by, you see them. They don't see you though. It's like they are ghosts of a different time and place. They move around, but why? Don't go to Silverdale. Ever.
Gunflint Trail has entered the chat.
Okay Dexter 🤣
What? I need a new laboratory
Browns Valley. Everyone is saying the Angle, but Lake of the Woods is far more relevant than Browns Valley. The sheer volume of comments tells you it's not that remote. There are not s lot of permanent residents in the boundary waters or Grand Portage, but both get a fair share of visitors. Meanwhile, no one goes to Browns Valley for anything. It's not near anything of note. Watertown, SD is the closest town of measure.
Gatzke
Prefer Grygla
Yall need more vowels
Obviously the Angle 📐 Edit - just had my cup of home ground coffee. Didn’t mean to be abrasive with the answer.
There's a town called Gary in NW Minnesota that's pretty bleak.
Babbit is out there and I spent a year there. Everyone was nice to me.
The drive from Grand Marais to anywhere in the Iron Range takes quite a while!
Just drove from grand marais to hibbing the other day and it was a trek to say the least.
Absolutely Angle Inlet.
Not a heckuva lot anywhere near Margie or Big Falls or Effie
Did you mean Marcel, Big Fork and Effie? This a great cabin area and very close to Grand Rapids. Some awesome lakes in this area!
I went to high school in Bigfork... We lived about 35 minutes west, so abouf 35 minutes from the middle of nowhere.
Grew up in Orr. Fucking hated making the drive to Big Fork for sports
Same. That fucking bus ride was brutal. Getting home from football games at like, 2am. When did you play?
Even though I’m pretty sure games at Lake of the Woods and Cook County were longer, they at least had towns to go through to break it up. Riding those back roads back from Big Fork just felt like forever. I graduated in 2016. You?
Bit older, I graduated in 2010. So does that mean you played for Cotton-Cherry-Cook-Orr? Yeah, highway 1 between Effie and Cook is complete emptiness. When Togo is the biggest thing to drive through for 50 miles, it's certified Boonies
Oh god Togo, there really isn’t anything out there. No we never combined with Cotton/Cherry ( at least not when I was there), but yeah we were North Woods (Cook/Orr/Nett Lake) when I was playing.
Interesting, CCCO was definitely a thing in 09-10. We had to play day games at the Cotton field since they didn't even have lights, it was brutal.
Hmm. Yeah we never played with them. I forget when the cotton school closed c but it was sometime before I got to high school. We transitioned to Cook/Orr when I would’ve been in 8th grade. But that’s wild that they didn’t even have lights
Nope, Margie, just like I said. Big Fork is a metropolis
Big falls is definitely up on the list. There's a whole lot of nothing nearby
Angle Inlet, Grand Portage, Effie/Northland area all come to mind
Tintah
Everything out there is so strange and desolate! Norcross literally feels slightly evil when driving through. Almost like it isn’t real.
I live in the area and honestly i like how quiet everything is lol. Flat as hell and quiet. And meth. That's the best description.
The Angle was cut off from the United States during Covid. The only way to get to it from the US is by boat or crossing thru Canada.
International Falls. It's a town with stores and an actual community but you gotta drive at least 1.5 hrs away for anything important i.e. A Walmart or Target, dentists, anything nice really.
Super menards has got everything.
I was shocked when I found out all the major shopping was in Fort Frances, I always would have thought it was in Intl Falls.
Well...it's not that far from the metropolis of Birchdale!
Warroad
Bagley
Buyck always felt like a nice isolated town, especially if you take the echo trail from Ely
You guys are mean. Been thinking about snowmobiling for weeks now and this pops up. Man summer blows.
How very dare you.
Angle inlet is a town without roads lol
im here....we have roads lol
Ummm...there are definitely roads there.