It’s a Hard Road to North Woods School

Seven-year-old Travis Smith has a good attendance record at school--even though that means he must spend several hours a day crossing two lakes and an international border in the North Woods.

“It’s a great place to raise kids,” said the boy’s mother, Terri Smith. “Give them a little hardship.”

At this time of year, it takes more than 12 hours from the time Travis leaves home at Sand Point Lodge in Ontario, Canada, until he returns home from school in Orr. But Orr is closer than the nearest school in Ontario, and the Smiths are U.S. citizens.

Part of his journey in winter is on a snowmobile driven by one of his parents to make a connection with a more conventional school bus for the rest of the trip to town.

He is among 24 pupils in his second-grade class at the Orr School in the Kabetogama State Forest in northeastern Minnesota, about 80 miles southeast of International Falls.

There are no roads to or from the Smith family’s resort lodge in the Canadian woods. Building materials and equipment travel the same route Travis commutes to school--on a boat or across the ice.

During the six weeks or so each year when melting ice or freezing water make boating or sledding impossible, Travis and his mother rent a room in town.

Travis’ teacher says he is a good student; she can’t remember when he was last absent. “His mom said that some afternoons he gets tired,” said teacher Shelby Karakas. “But he hangs in. He’s been just fine.”

Occasionally, a schoolmate comes out for a weekend visit, and summer vacationers bring their children to the family’s resort.

The Smiths could have received a permit to teach Travis at home, but they decided to send him to school to be with other children.

Despite having to communicate with friends by radio and stockpile groceries to last for months at a time, the family’s lifestyle can’t quite be considered roughing it.

“When I grow up, I’d stay here because it’s nice up here. I’d rather stay here than down in the (Twin) Cities,” he said, referring to Minneapolis-St. Paul.