Over the past two years I’ve spent a lot of time traveling Highway 113 on my way to board meetings in Waubun and Mahnomen. While driving, I’ve been reflecting on what this highway has meant to me over the years and how it informs my perception of home.

Minnesota Trunk Highway 113 starts on its western end out in the Red River Valley, continues through Waubun and ends at US Highway 71 where it forms part of the south boundary of Itasca State Park. The highway is flat and straight coming from the west until it encounters the Waubun Hills and begins its twisty, hilly journey through lake country. The speed limit over much of this stretch is only 50 mph, on account of the sharp turns, narrow shoulders and limited sight lines along the road.

It is the route many summer homeowners from western Minnesota and North Dakota take to their bit of paradise on one of the many lakes in the area. Winding back and forth over the Mahnomen and Becker County lines the road showcases a beautiful slice of northern Minnesota with numerous lakes and ponds and thick forests of hardwoods, pines and spruce.

While there is private land, especially close to the lakes, much of the land on either side of the highway is publicly held, either as state forest or tax-forfeited land managed by the counties. A large block of land extending north from Tulaby Lake, through the Naytahwaush area and on north of Highway 200 is tribal land that is closed to non-members. This is the largest block of land on the White Earth reservation that is held in trust for the White Earth Nation.

Growing up as a kid, I heard a lot of stories set “up on 113”, giving the area a certain mystique in my mind. In my early years Highway 113 represented a remote, wild place deep in the heart of the White Earth reservation. This was the home of mysterious places like Long Lost and Bad Medicine Lakes.

Many of the stories I heard back then were about deer hunting. Great-grandpa Pete Spry and Grandpa Bud Spry hunted north of the highway back in the 1940s. Back then it was just a rough, muddy gravel road. My dad began hunting with them as a kid in the 1950s. He recalls traveling to deer camp in Uncle Dan Clark’s gravel truck with chains on; it was the only vehicle that could get them back into their camp in the woods near Long Lost Lake. Dad says he remembers seeing camps along 113 on nearly every curve in the road.

Grandpa Bud at deer camp ca. 1950

The crew in that deer camp included several guys from Callaway. They stayed in a tarpaper shack. Dad recalls watching them get up in the morning. Grandpa Pete would roll out of bed and immediately light a cigarette. The men passed a bottle of whiskey around to serve as mouthwash. In later years, they hunted out of an old converted school bus. When Grandpa Pete couldn’t walk as much in the woods he sat in the bus’s driver seat and shot deer out the window. My uncles and cousins still hunt north of Highway 113.

My first experience of this area was camping trips with cousins and friends to a lot on Pickerel Lake. The bare gravel lot got pretty hot on those summer days so we spent most of our time swimming in the clear, cold lake. When we weren’t swimming we hiked over to Hoot Owl Resort to buy candy. The adults spent most their time in a screen tent to avoid the bugs and maintain easy access to the keg of beer.

Later, in my high school summers my Grandpa Ray and I traveled up and down Highway 113 to plumbing jobs at tribal housing projects in Elbow Lake Village, Naytahwaush and Rice Lake (see “Rez Plumbers” blog post). Some days when we got done early we would explore one of several forest roads or “truck trails” that extended north and south of 113. With names like Anchor Matson and Strawberry Mountain these roads were a link to earlier years when logging dominated these woods.

After a long day, Grandpa would often take a nap and have me drive the winding highway home. Occasionally we would stop at McCraney Lake, where a bar in a Quonset hut served burgers.

That Quonset hut is long gone now, as are many of the little cabins the lined the lakeshores. Today in their place are large vacation homes. Otherwise, Highway 113 remains much the same, winding its way over knobs and around kettles left by the last glaciers. I still enjoy the remote beauty as I take my time at 50 mph.