Naniboujou Lodge

Built in 1929 as a private sportsman's club — with Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and Ring Lardner among its charter members — the lodge never became the grand resort its founders envisioned. The stock market crash and the Depression killed those plans, and only the clubhouse was completed. That single building, preserved largely intact, is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Great Hall tells the whole story: a 200-ton native rock fireplace anchors the west end of the room, and a French artist painted Cree-inspired designs across every surface of the 20-foot domed ceiling, creating a dining room unlike anything else on the North Shore.

The property sits where Lake Superior and the Brule River meet the MN-61 corridor, and there is intentionally no Wi-Fi, cell service, or television on site. The restaurant serves locally sourced meals in season, and the lodge is open to non-overnight guests for meals, though hours and reservation policies vary by season — worth checking before you ride out. For riders turning around after Grand Marais, this is a practical and genuinely unusual overnight: remote enough that the quiet is the whole point, close enough to the road that you don't sacrifice the return run.