Koochiching - Ojibway word meaning "neighbor lake and river".
My mother was born in International Falls, Minnesota. The family had originally settled in Fort Frances, Ontario, Canada, where I still have lots of cousins. There is a border crossing there that leads to International Falls, 1 mile away.
International Falls is the county seat of Koochiching, Minnesota. Okay, I am stretching it here but the only other K I had was my Kozimor family from Galicia.
At least it appears they have a decent border crossing station here. I have made two trips around Lake Superior and on one of the entrances to America when traveling to St. Louis county which is just to the east of Koochiching, there was a mailbox where you filled out a form and left it. I doubt that situation still exists.
And while I have made the two exhausting, but beautiful trips around the lake and have visited both areas in Minnesota and Wisconsin, I never got to International Falls.
There is nothing like living in a sparsely populated (13,300) area. The county's website even has the prisoners online.
For those of you who may have been fans of Rocky and Bullwinkle (I have now gotten Charlie interested as new episodes are on Amazon), Frostbite Falls is based on International Falls.
Well, there you go, Denise! Koochiching!
ReplyDeleteJust the name Lake Superior would be enough to tempt me to take the trek!
ReplyDeleteIt really is a wonderful drive. And I imagine it is much easier now with GPS rather than my old Rand McNally Atlas.
DeleteI love Rocky & Bullwinkle and those credits are hilarious...near "veronica Lake"...hhahahaaaa. At least your family like to live in strange places where not much goes on except for kamikaze mosquitoes.
ReplyDeleteKamikaze mosquitoes, lol. My ex-husband used to live in New Orleans and would joke that if you set down your sandwich, the bugs would carry it away.
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