The Cook County History Museum is housed in the former lightkeeper's residence, a wood-frame building constructed in 1896 just above the harbour. Cook County — the entire northeastern corner of Minnesota stretching from Schroeder up to the Canadian border — has a small population spread across a vast, mostly forested area, and the museum's exhibits trace the layered history of that geography: Ojibwe inhabitation, the voyageurs of the fur trade, commercial fishing on Lake Superior, logging, the building of the Gunflint Trail and the wilderness paddling tradition.
It is small and run mainly by volunteers, but the collection of historic photographs is excellent, and the building itself is worth a visit. Free entry. Open mid-May to mid-October.