VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK
My search for an adventurous family vacation was finally hitting the bull's-eye as our houseboat motored early one morning into Saginaw Bay of Rainy Lake.

Months earlier, I had schemed this outdoors trip to Voyageurs National Park on the Minnesota-Ontario border to sate my family's widely varying desires.

Aboard the houseboat were my wife, who wanted sunshine, good food and a cold glass of wine with dinner; my 2 1/2-year-old daughter, who is happiest with a plastic bucket and sand beach; my mother, who traveled from Oregon hoping to see some beautiful northern Minnesota landscapes; my aunt from Boise, Idaho, who wanted to catch walleyes until her wrists ached; and my uncle from northern Minnesota, who wanted to explore a new fishing lake.

Beaches. Walleyes. Beautiful scenery. And a fridge filled with chardonnay and marinating chicken breasts. I truly wondered how I was going to pull this rabbit out of the hat.

But after two days of houseboating on Rainy Lake, which lies in Voyageurs National Park, we had seen spectacular sunsets and scenery on Cranberry Bay, caught walleyes in big numbers and large sizes and feasted on Moroccan-spiced pork chops from the barbecue under sunny skies.

Now, there was the matter of that beach.

As we motored down Saginaw Bay, my binoculars settled on a distant sandy beach at a designated houseboat-mooring site.

"Full speed ahead," I said to my uncle, who manned the wheel.

Somewhere on the boat, a plastic bucket and tiny shovel were being unpacked.

RAINY LAKE BY HOUSEBOAT
Over the years, I've day-tripped for walleyes on Rainy Lake and camped several nights on its islands. As a fishing lake, it is among the best in Minnesota for smallmouth bass, walleyes and crappies, and Rainy Lake's status as a national park has kept the shorelines largely free of development.

I have never traveled by houseboat, preferring to canoe and camp, but for the entire family with different needs, a houseboat seemed a natural and more comfortable choice.

We hooked up with Rainy Lake Houseboats, owned by the Dougherty family, and rented a 50-foot Tamarac houseboat with a screened deck, kitchen and fridge, bathroom and shower and room to sleep eight.

There was a gas-powered generator on board to power the appliances and water system.

The houseboat also comes with a 16-foot fishing boat, but since everyone in our party wanted to fish at least one day, I also brought my own fishing boat. Both were towed behind the houseboat.

At first, a houseboat seemed out of our price range, but we benefited from the 20 percent discount for spring rates. Once the cost of the boat was divided among the five adults, we realized the expense was certainly comparable to renting a lakeside cabin, but the trip was more adventurous.

We brought our own groceries, bait and tackle. On the day of our departure, a Rainy Lake Houseboats staff member gave us 45 minutes of instruction on how to pilot the boat and operate the generator and engine. The boat was supplied with a full set of navigation maps, which are critical to getting around the island-studded lake where submerged reefs aren't always marked.

The maps, however, also are guides to the designated mooring spots on the lake. So when we pulled out of the harbor, Uncle Bill and I soon had a mooring spot picked out about two hours away in Cranberry Bay, where the walleye fishing was reportedly good.

Piloting the boat, we quickly realized, required someone to read the map and watch for obstructions with binoculars, while another person drove the houseboat and took instructions from the navigator. That system delivered us safely to Cranberry Bay, where we moored and later launched our fishing boats to seek walleyes.

Rainy Lake has a special walleye regulation requiring anglers to release all fish between 17 and 28 inches, a rule that contributed to the lake's recovery from a low walleye population in the early 1990s. Having never fished Cranberry Bay, I wondered if we could find any walleyes by studying the navigation chart and fishing traditional fish-hold spots, such as windswept bays and points.

The strategy failed the first night, but the next morning my uncle and aunt nailed a half-dozen walleyes, including several keepers for dinner.

At sunset, we fried walleye fillets and listened to the chorus of loons.

We enjoyed the next three nights in similar fashion, while temperatures in the 80s ushered in summer in full style.

SPECIAL DELIVERY
Early one morning, I monitored radio traffic between another houseboat and Dougherty's base camp.

"Base, this is Boat 38,'' the radio crackled. "Come in base."

Boat 38 couldn't get through, so I offered to help.

"Boat 38, this is Boat 24," I said into the radio. "Can I relay a message?"

"Sure, Boat 24. Tell base we need five loaves of English muffin bread delivered to us in the Kempton Channel."

English muffin bread?

I radioed the request to base and snickered into the radio, "And Boat 24 would like a pizza delivered, too!"

Two hours later, a motorboat buzzed up to our houseboat, and two Rainy Lake Houseboats staffers were grinning. They had just driven the boat from the houseboat base, making deliveries to clients on the lake. One held out a medium pepperoni and sausage Domino's pizza.

We all broke into laughter.

"We heard your request on the radio,'' the two dock boys said, "and we were going into town anyway, so we thought we'd surprise you."

Boat 38 got its delivery of English muffin bread, too.

SPECTACULAR FISHING
Six days on the lake flitted away quickly. Bare feet and plastic shovels explored every inch of the sandy beach in Saginaw Bay. Hikes were organized in the boreal forest to look for wildflowers. Sunbathing took place on the ancient basalt rocks surrounding the boat. Meals of walleyes, marinated chicken and fresh salad were consumed. Mom baked two cakes in the houseboat oven.

Sunburned and sated with our vacation desires, we fretted about leaving the lake.

On our last afternoon, Aunt Judy and I took the fishing boat on an excursion down the lake to find walleyes. We caught three outside the slot limit and released them; for the week, we had caught and released more than 30 trophy walleyes. Judy sighed. "My fishing expectations have been fully met," she said.

"Let's try a new spot, someplace we pick out of the hat," I suggested.

We motored into a windy bay, not another boat in sight. It looked promising: The wind had been beating waves into the bay all afternoon, no doubt sweeping up bait fish and pushing them into shallow water. We drifted past an island, and I pitched a jig into the shallows.

A 22-inch walleye gulped it down.

"Let's anchor here," I said after the walleye was released.

For the next hour, we caught and released walleyes between three and seven pounds and after each yellow-skinned fish was put back in the water, Aunt Judy would exclaim, "They're just huge!"

Our wrists ached from catching so many fish.

A vacation rabbit had been pulled from the hat, to everyone's satisfaction.

The next morning, an engine was fired up and the houseboat was pointed in the direction of International Falls and a highway we would travel, so reluctantly, back to city life.

Chris Niskanen can be reached at cniskanen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5524.