Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Osseo draws scads of travelers from
around the world
to an unassuming, big-britches eat-
ery, the world-renowned
M
Norske Nook
(7th St., 715/597-3069, 5:30am-9pm Mon.-Sat.,
8am-8pm Sun. in summer, fewer hours the rest of the year, $3 and up), which arguably
bakes the world's best pies. Celebrated by road-food gourmands (and feted by many, many
national media appearances), the place could not be more underwhelming when first you
walk through the door, as it looks like nothing more than a classic diner. But the food is un-
real. It's got the obligatory heart-stopping breakfasts and the requisite Midwestern hot beef
sandwiches. Occasionally a dinner special might feature something Scandinavian such as
lutefisk or
Iefse.
But the pies are really the thing—a whole page of them. The strawberry
pies have up to five pounds of strawberries. The Nook is
the
stop between Eau Claire and
the Mississippi.
Since you're already in Osseo, stop by the
Northland Fishing Museum
(1012 Gunder-
sonRd.,715/597-2551,9am-5pmdaily,free),anawesomerepositoryofclassicandantique
fishing equipment, featuring one of the most extensive (and kitschy and hip) fishing lure
collections in the world. You want a rusted Evinrude? You got it.
One of the ubiquitous oddly spelled Wisconsin towns with the same pronunciation,
Menomonie (muh-NAH-muh-nee) was still one more lumber town alongside a floating log
highway. But this was not your ordinary lumber town; it was
the
lumber town, the site of
theworld'slargestlumbercorporationatthetime,processingmorethanfivemillion feetof
lumber, with 1,200 employees on 115,000 acres of land.
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Fantastically wealthy—and perceptive—lumber magnate James Stout foresaw incipient
timber unemployment and founded the Stout Manual Training School, today's
University
of Wisconsin-Stout.
It was the first in the country to offer a curriculum designed specific-
ally for industrial arts, helping shift local schools' emphasis toward vocational education.
UW-Stout today has a one-of-a-kind Hmong Culture Studies program (the Chippewa Val-
ley has a large number of Laotian immigrants from the Vietnam era).
MM
The Mabel Tainter Center for the Arts
The enormous dark sandstone
Mabel Tainter Center for the Arts
(205 Main St., 715/
235-9726,
www.mabeltainter.org
, 10am-5pm Tues.-Fri, self-guided tours $1) was deliber-
