Bear Spotting In Northern Minnesota

After years of thinking about it, I finally made it out to the Nordlager Collector show in Cloquet Minnesota!

The show has been going on for quite a few years now and for some reason I have never made the two hour drive up there to check it out. The icing on the cake of this show is that a 40 foot inflatable Hamm’s bear makes its appearance and that still wasnt enough to get my lazy ass up there haha…until now!

I figured since I have some time off and I dont know if the world will end this year due to the Covid outbreak, now should be the time to attend this event. The drive itself really was not that bad, sure I had a few clowns changing lanes without looking, because really if you are on the highway why would there be anyone else on the highway at the same time as you?

But anyways I made it up there alive and the show was pretty well attended considering the circumstances. Masks were encouraged and I did have one with me but I ended up only wearing it inside the Northeastern Hotel when I went in to check out the decor.

And man did this place have some very nice beer signs inside along with the entire place being a historic location, now I know why the show is held here. Oh and on top of that they have Hamm’s on tap so right there is another reason this all makes sense.

So the bear, yeah, it was pretty big. It’s actually 40 feet tall to be accurate and its a long time survivor from the 1970’s. I’m not even sure the purpose of its existence to tell you the truth or how many they made back then cuz I forgot to ask but I’m assuming it was for promotional events and fairs and etc.

Actually I can say the bear did make an appearance in my hometown of South St Paul during the 1980 South St Paul Rodeo which I believe was held during Kaposia Days in June of that year, I could be wrong cuz I was like 5 then haha.

So for this years occasion, I had to actually go across the street to get a picture of me “standing next to it” but in the pictures below it almost looks like its kinda small so I keeled down to show the size difference.

So if you are ever up in Cloquet in the middle of July I would say definitely check this show out. Theres many great things for sale, a nice group of people and a great location to boot.

If you want to see more pictures of the day check out my Instagram and Facebook accounts at the links above and below!

Also thanks to members of the Northstar Chapter and Hamm’s facebook group for a couple other pictures Im posting here to show the size of the bear itself.