Local lore in Knife River, Minnesota

• Russ Kendall's has been smoking fish in Knife River since 1908. Four generations, same family, still sold over a counter on a paper tray with crackers rather than plated in a dining room.
• The population is 212. That is the whole community as of the 2020 Census, which makes Knife River smaller than a single Duluth apartment building and one of the smallest places with its own identity in this guide.
• The marina was private for thirty years. Built in the early 1970s under Lake County ownership, it did not become a DNR facility until 2001.
• Scenic 61 exists because the four-lane went somewhere else. The expressway took the through traffic inland, which is why the old shore road stayed slow and why the drive is still worth doing.
• The river runs steelhead. Spring and fall bring anglers to the river mouth and the lower river, and the parking along Marina Road tells you the run is on before anyone says so.
• Fog is a season here. The lake generates it, the shore catches it, and there are stretches in early summer when the houses on the water spend days inside a cloud while the ridge above sits in sunshine.

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