Two Fish House Beach – Grand Portage, Minnesota
There’s no shortage of interesting places to photograph along Minnesota’s North Shore drive along US Highway 61. One of those places is Two Fish House Beach, where, you guessed it – two weathered and abandoned fish houses sit along the shoreline of Lake Superior.
This is one of those places where, when researching things to photograph along Minnesota’s North Shore, you see and wonder, “Where the heck was that taken?” Here’s how to find Two Fish House Beach along US Highway 61 along Minnesota’s North Shore.
Two Fish House Beach – Location
Two Fish House Beach is located between mile markers 139 and 140 on US Highway 61, located between Grand Marais and Grand Portage, Minnesota. (Roughly 5.5 miles south of Grand Portage and 34 miles north of Grand Marais). There is no designated parking lot so you’ll need to park alongside of the road. Chances are, you won’t be the only one here, so you’ll probably see a few other cars parked, but it’s never crowded by any means. You will not see any sign for Two Fish House Beach – if you want to visit, either put this in your GPS or be on the lookout for the mile markers.
Visiting Two Fish House Beach
Once parked, you’ll have to navigate your way to the beach – there is no official trail, so you’ll just have to follow one of the beaten paths through the tall grass down to the beach. Once at the beach, you’ll see how expansive it is. You’ll get great views of Lake Superior from this location.
This isn’t a beach for swimming or sunbathing – it’s usually too cold for that, and I’d never swim in Lake Superior no matter how hot it was, as the water is always freezing cold. Rather, this is just a beach to sit and relax, enjoy the views, and to photograph the abandoned fish houses, of course. You can also search for agates and sea glass here.
The two fish houses will be to your left – you might not even notice them right away, as you’ll have to walk along the beach, through sand and slippery wet rocks, to get a closer view.
Not much is known about these fish houses – who owned them, why they were abandoned, when they were abandoned, etc. Instead, you’ll have to daydream, making up a story in your mind about these fishing shacks, the fishermen who owned them, and the kind of tough life they had, working in the Great Lakes fishing industry to survive.
While deteriorating, the fish houses are free of graffiti and vandalism, so they make excellent photography subjects. I didn’t go up to them, I just photographed them from afar.
As always, please practice the Leave No Trace principles when visiting these sites – so that the next visitors to the site (whether it’s tomorrow or 25 years from now!) can enjoy it too!
We were there on Thursday, May 5, 2022. We have been a few times before over the years, but this time as we were sitting on the pebbly beach, a car pulled up, a man got out and stood by his car door and hollered at us saying, “You can’t be here. Locals only.” We, being law-abiding, middle-aged people, got up, grabbed our pack and started trudging back up through the grass while he stood there making sure we were leaving. I asked him why there was no sign telling people it was off-limits. He stated that where we had parked (about 300 ft down the road), there was a sign. That “sign” was a sawhorse about 25 ft in from the highway blocking the little sandy wood trail into the woods and on it was crudely painted “Resident Access Only”. All we had done was park (probably still in the state highway right-of-way), and walk to the beach via the side of the highway…not the woods the trail went into.
There was not civility whatsoever and before he drove off, he made a show of stopping and taking a picture of our license plate. So, fair warning, unless you are a “local”, you might not have the best experience.
I contacted the Cook Co sheriff’s office via message asking if he knew about this and who the land belongs to, etc. They did not know this was the policy now but said the land belongs to the Grand Portage tribe. Fine, But legally, don’t you have to post a No Trespassing sign clearly?