Summer Staff

Summer is upon and our summer staff has adjusted to their summer routine. They can plan on cleaning a few cabins, some bunk rooms, a few canoes and some dirty camping gear almost every day. Andrew and Rachel are working a little over 40 hours a week for us but still have lots of free time to fill. They both spend a lot of time on the Internet but they are slowly adjusting to life with slower and limited Internet access. It has been a struggle!

As soon as the growth of what passes for grass in the north country slowed down we found Andrew a job weed whipping at a neighbor's estate.  After weeks of training he now possesses a mean weed whip and his services are in demand. Tomorrow, he is helping a neighbor on a nearby island haul take-off shingles from an island cabin to a dumpster on the mainland and tonight he is working at the Trail Center restaurant.

Rachel has only been here a couple of weeks. Since she came late in the season she hasn't had much of a chance to meet our neighbors. Today Lin is taking her and two of the summer staff from another resort into Grand arais for grocery shopping. So far Rachel's main activity outside of working is to feed Andrew. She claims that he really likes bananas.

To fill their free time they are venturing into fields where no staff member as gone before. Andrew won't tell us what the project in this picture is suppose to end up being. However, it is obvious that Rachel know what it is suppose to be and has some serious doubts about it ever working.

Feasting in the Northland & Summer Staff

This is the time of the year when we really get to "pig out". Last week one of our guests from Iowa brought us some sweet corn and a neighbor returned from Alaska with some frozen Halibut for us. In another week we will have friends who will be bring homegrown tomatoes and garden fresh green peppers. Anyone who has shopped in Grand Marais knows that our produce sections often have an "end of the road" appearance. There is a local famer's market but somehow we alwways seem to be busy at the Lodge and never get away to shop for fresh produce.

We are going to Duluth tonight to pickup Rachel our a new summer staff member. Andrew has been a great help this summer but Lin and I have had to do a lot of the daily chores that are normally done by our second staff person. With Rachel around we will have more time to do the visit with our guests. It is especially nice to know that she will be here to help when Andrew leaves on Sept. 2nd. 

Pancake eating Bear





Stopped by a chair



Todays adventure started when a young black bear decided to explore the outfitting building. Once it broke into the side door, he was greated by one of his favorite sights -- a bright red GARBAGE CAN.  Instead of muching on some prime outfitting goodies he settled for some pancake mix that was past its "best by date". We were in the process of discarding a the pancake mix and had but it into a gargage can to be hauled away.  Dragging the pancake mix and the red GARBAGE CAN away became a problem for the bear when a chair became stuck in the doorway. 





This year we had an early thaw and the bears came out of hiberation early. The early warm spell was followed by cold weather that deprived the bears of an early food source.  They quickly adapted and discovered  GARBAGE CANS as a prime food source. This young bear had to settled on dragging individual packages of pankcake mix across our driveway to the bunkhous stairway.  We suspect that after eating about 60 servings of dry pankcake mix this young bear may loose his appetite when he takes a good long drink of water.





Who need a chair when you have comfortable steps

Young Bear and Twins

An recent guest was enjoying the lake view from the front porch of Cabin 5 when Sharon who was staying in cabin #4 took this picture. Guests willing to participate in our early morning Bear Patrol have been rewarded with encounters of the fleeting kind. Meanwhile, Andrey one of our summer employees now knows all of the hiding places that this bear likes to use to hide stolen garbage cans.  

Another guest sent us this picture of two calves closely following their mother. We're getting lots of young moose reports. Earlier this week Lin saw a moose down by Cabin #9. This morning I saw a moose cow, without a calf, in the pond near the Poplar Lake boat ramp.

Good News Comes In Threes

Many of the troubling issues affecting the Gunflint Trail area have shown signs of improvement this past week. As I mentioned earlier the spruce trees along the Trail and in open areas took a hit from the early warm up followed by freezing weather. Many of the trees that looked dead now have about three inches of new growth at the tips of their branches. 

The heavy rains that caused the cancellation of the Campfire ban late last month raised the Poplar Lake water levels to well above normal. Since May 26th the water level on Poplar Lake has dropped 8.4 inches. A few of the private docks on Poplar Lake washed out but our docks all survived! In another couple of days we should return to having a nice beach area to launch canoes.

Finally, after no reports of moose calf sighting we had sightings reported by groups in four different areas south of our Lodge. We were getting a little worried about the lack of young moose but the latest reports from visitors to the Boundary Waters have been encouraging.