In March 0f 2025 there was a post questioning whether Enhanced Driver's Licenses (EDLS) from Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington were still a viable form of ID when crossing between US and Canada via land. This past weekend we packed up the camper and headed out on a little trip to find out.
We live in northern Minnesota so we only had a 90 minute drive to Big Bog State Recreation Area at Wakish which is home of the largest patterned peatland in the lower 48 states. This area is next to Red Lake which is the largest natural freshwater lake located entirely within Minnesota. (The only time we had been in that area in the past was coming back from a Playa Del Carmen forum gathering in Winnipeg about 20 years ago.) We had a great little campsite and the restroom/showers were very clean. They have heated camper cabins onsite, also, which people told us were nice.
There is a mile long boardwalk into the bog. It's pretty incredible. We were surprised to see 20 other people on the trail.
The real reason for this trip was to complete the geocaching challenge of finding a cache in each of the 87 counties in Minnesota. We found Paul Bunyan's grave in Koochinging County for #86 and finished off the challenge in Lake of the Woods County in Baudette.
We've never been to the Northwest Angle of Minnesota so we headed there on Saturday. For those of you that aren't familiar with the Northwest Angle, it is only accessible by land by passing through Canada and includes 23 miles of gravel roads each way.
We drove up to the Canadian border north of Warroad and presented our Enhanced Licenses. The agent asked us the normal questions (where are you going, how long will you be there, do you have firearms, alcohol and so forth). We had to roll down the back window so she could see what was in the backseat. She gave us instructions to use at the Angle to help us check back into Canada on our return trip.
At the border between Canada and the US (Northwest Angle) you will just see signs ( no humans). It is up to you to get to one of the several locations to report to the US that you are there. Most of them are little white buildings with an i-pad that may or may not work (the only one we tried didn't work). You can also report your presence by calling the border patrol in Warroad or using the CBP Roam app (we called). They asked for our names, birthdates and license plate number along with the normal entrance questions.
There is a large lot at the end of the road for people to park when they go out on Lake of the Woods. The lake is big (about 70 miles long and up to 60 miles wide). People come to the lake for the natural beauty and the great fishing. We took our picture at the famous buoy, ate lunch and drove to the little community of Angle Inlet to see the tiny post office and the school. There was another white building by the school so we used the Canadian phone to tell them we were entering back into Canada (in about 15-20 minutes because it would take us that long to get to the border). The agent asked us the same info the US did plus she wanted the our passport number. When I said we had EDLs, that wasn't a problem. As we got to the border there was a sign that said if it was flashing to stop and report (it wasn't flashing, so it must have read our license number).
In Canada we stopped at a nice little museum in Sprague to get one more geocache. Getting back into the US near Warroad with our EDLs was very quick.
We saw a moose in Canada but it ran into the woods before we got close. We also saw a black bear just standing on the side of the highway just south of Baudette. It was a fun journey!