Pierre the Voyageur

Two Harbors, Minnesota, United States

·

Characters and mascots

✓

Current

Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Pierre the Voyageur is a 20-foot fiberglass statue of a French-Canadian paddler beside Highway 61 at the Earthwood Inn in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Built in 1960 as an advertisement for a roadside museum and motel, he was moved to the inn in 2011.

Private to your Passport.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

No recommended arrival yet

We have not checked a recommended place to arrive or stop here yet.

This takes you to the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Pierre the Voyageur

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Site-level location · 47.0113° N, 91.7073° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Pierre the Voyageur has a nickname that tells you the first thing you will notice: some call him Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur. He is a 20-foot fiberglass fur-trade paddler with a black beard and a canoe paddle, and he greets traffic on Highway 61 at the edge of Two Harbors on Minnesota's North Shore.

He went up around 1960 in front of a new Voyageur Motel and Museum. The Duluth News Tribune reported in 2010 that the 20-foot figure was an advertisement for the business, built in the late-1950s boom of drivers looking for roadside curiosities. A worker hidden in a booth spoke through a speaker, his head swivelled, his eyes lit up, and a machine next to him dispensed souvenir coins. Northern News Now said in 2025 that children bought a token to hear him talk, and that he was meant to rival the moving, talking Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd.

The museum is long gone, and the lot he stood on was later sold to a national retail chain. The Duluth News Tribune reported in February 2011 that the Earthwood Inn's new owners had bought Pierre. Movers had to lift his head off separately before trucking him about a mile west, and his 5,000-pound frame lost its feet in the process.

He has had some bad luck since. According to Exploring the North Shore, a windstorm broke off his arm in March 2017 and a new one was fitted that June. In 2025 the inn's co-owner told Northern News Now that the weight of his head keeps wearing out the bearings, so he no longer moves, and that his eye lights, whose wires were cut during work, would be restored. The inn says he wears leggings that happen to match his skin tone.

Pierre stands on a private business property, so view him from the Earthwood Inn parking area and be considerate of guests.

Add a photo

PRACTICAL

Plan your stop

WHAT TO EXPECT

A 20-foot statue of a voyageur with a paddle, facing Highway 61 at the Earthwood Inn, a private business. Northern News Now (Aug 2025) invited visitors to have a meal at the inn and see him; his eye lights were awaiting repair.

ACCESS

Stands at the Earthwood Inn on Highway 61 just outside Two Harbors, Minnesota. He is on private business property; Exploring the North Shore says photos can be taken from the inn's parking lot.

COMMUNITY

Visitor Log

WHAT'S NEXT

Find another Big Thing nearby

✓

Current

Whispering Giant Two Harbors

Two Harbors, Minnesota

A 26-foot carved wooden head-and-shoulders sculpture by Peter Wolf Toth, one of his Trail of the Whispering Giants, standing beside the Lake County Chamber of Commerce and R. J. Houle Visitor Information Center on Highway 61 in Two Harbors. Toth refreshed it in 2008 with a new steel backbone and preservative.

Public art

·

3.7 km away

TRANSPARENCY

Sources & research

Something not right?

If this Big Thing has changed, moved or gone, telling us keeps the guide honest for the next traveller.

Suggest an update →Report a problem →