Tag Archives: grand marais minnesota

Mannequin

Some people in Grand Marais love to perch creepy mannequins or dolls in upstairs windows.

I’m not sure if this is suposed to be funny, frightening or transforming, as in – “I’m lost in time, visiting this little town and, oh look, there’s a person in a nightdress looking out at the harbor.”

What I mean is this:

A creepy mannequin looks out a window in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

This is a mannequin that was perched in a second-story window over a shop. It was a male mannequin, which perhaps my limited drawing skills don’t portray properly, that had a long-haired, white wig perched on its head.

Ben Franklin?

Norman Bates?

My cross-dressing neighbor?

The mannequin was wearing a very fancy nightshirt and grinning out to sea; Lake Superior to be more exact. In my mind, I’ve made a scenario in which these shop owners were hoping to create a tableaux in which a wistful wife waits for her sailor husband to return from a long voyage. Unfortunately, they only had a male mannequin and a wig from some long-ago Halloween with which to make it happen.

When I see things like this, I imagine  the particular day someone set this up in the window. Think of the time involved. Get the wig, dress the dummy in the period-appropriate nightgown and then run down to the street to look up and see if it’s placed to your satisfaction. And then… wander off to watch TV or something, I guess. Judging from the dusty look and the faded nightshirt, this all happened in 1991 and has remained, frozen in time, since.

Eating Grand Marais

World's Best Donuts in Grand Marais, Minnesota.Grand Marais is a tiny town far away from the Big Cities.

But don’t think that, if you go there, you’ll go hungry. Fear not, there is a lot to eat in the GM.

Here’s the rundown of eating from our recent weekend trip.

World’s Best Donuts
Glazed Raised
Bismark, round, filled with raspberry jelly
Mini bismark, filled with lemon
Chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing

The Pie Place Cafe
Crab cakes with wild rice and asparagus
Wild mushroom lasagna
Vanilla & white chocolate cheesecake

Sign for Angry Trout Cafe in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

 

Angry Trout Cafe
Fried, bread herring* with wild rice and salad
Apple pie with vanilla ice cream

Gunflint Tavern
Black bean burritos with blue corn chips, pico de gallo and sour cream, beer!

Blue Water Cafe
Eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee, tea
Mural of Lake Superior**

* I never really knew that you could have herring just as a cooked fish. My only experience with it has been looking down at it in a weird, cold broth of pickling and feeling ill.

** Lake Superior is a big lake. I mean, like, really big.