Thinking about renting a Houseboat on Rainy Lake? We did and absolutely loved it!!!
We rented 2 Houseboats for 3 families and 1 dog. One boat we rented from Rainy Lake Houseboats www.rainylakehouseboats.com and the other from Northernaire Houseboats www.northernairehouseboats.com. We came to the decision that one boat would be the "kids" boat (actually they were mostly young adults) and the other one was the "parent" boat. It worked out great and there was plenty of room for everyone! We also had 2 fishing boats and kayaks and paddle boards. The Houseboats do not go very fast and so it took us a few hours to get to where we wanted to be and we found the perfect stretch of beach at Idle Hour Bay.
If you're wondering about the accomodations... each boat had a kitchen, bathroom with a shower and separate bedrooms. Of course, you have to be pretty comfortable with who you are traveling with :) Each family brought food to share, but the highlight was cooking and eating the fresh Walleye the boys caught daily! We tried four different flavors (original, beer, cajun and buffalo) of batter from Shorelunch mixes and Cajun was my favorite! The fish was cooked right over the fire on cast iron skillets and I have to say that might have been the best entertainment the whole trip!!
It was quite the show watching this fish fry!!!!!
So YUMMY!!!!!!!!
Austin loved taking this little fishing boat out every day!
We did book a fishing guide in advance for 2 mornings, which was great for the guys to find some awesome spots to fish in when they went back in the evening.
Bloody's in the morning was a great way to start the day :)
I was hoping for clear nights so I could see the Milky Way and capture some night photos, but the visibility just wasn't so great. This was the best I could do. Oh well, good excuse for me to to go back next year.
Here are just a few more photos of the Houseboats.
The "Kids" jumping off their boat.
Oakley, our friends dog, had the best time hiking and swimming everyday. She was awesome to have on the trip!
The day before we left, we took one of the Houseboats over to Anderson Bay and hiked the Cruiser Lake Trail. Let's just say, I burned some calories on this hike! We had read that hiking this trail was your best chance to spot Moose, hear Gray Wolves and see Beavers. Needless to say, we didn't see or hear any of that, but did witness lots of stunning scenery! Here's a photo of some of us on the trail.
The last night we moved the boats to Saginaw Bay. It was a little stormy, but once it cleared up the skies were so magical!! A gorgeous double rainbow and sunsets that literally were purple and then orange. Honestly, it was a sight to see!
Lexy paddle boarding to Canada! Ha
Keegan paddle boarding under the Rainbow!!
AJ and I chasing the rainbow
The next morning we were up at 5:00am, so we could get the boats returned by 9:00am.
Just a little more information on the trip, the Houseboat companies do supply large coolers and there is a refrigerator on the boat and one of the boats had a microwave. You can buy ice, firewood and bait once you get there and they will load up your boat with it for you. Also, if you need anything you can radio it into them. There was no wifi out there either, so you can really just escape from everything!!!
We plan to come back next summer and add a few days onto our trip. It did take us around 5 hours to drive up (from Minneapolis suburbs) to International Falls and on top of that it took us another 3 hours on water to Idle Hour Bay, so keep in mind that takes nearly your whole day. There were plenty of other things we could have done, but just ran out of time.
Until next year!!!!!
Thanks for taking the time to read :-)
Debra