A Brief History of Kloek's Island- Poplar Lake

Jim Kloek-The history of the Kloek family on Poplar Lake began in October of 1937 when my parents, Dell and Mernie Kloek, spent their honeymoon at Rockwood Lodge. The cabin they rented is still there, and still being rented. After the war ended, they returned to Poplar Lake, and in 1947 purchased from the owner of Northwoods Lodge a rustic cabin at what is now 7991 Gunflint Trail. (At the time the lodge owner was gradually reducing the size of Northwoods by selling off cabins at each end of his property.)

Poplar Lake was very different in the late 1940’s. There was no electric service on most of the Gunflint Trail. If you wanted electricity, you needed to have your own generator. The Gunflint Trail was paved only as far as Swamper Lake; the remainder was gravel. The cabin lights and stove were powered by propane, and we had an honest-to-goodness ice box. We would buy blocks of ice from Carl Brandt, Sr. at what was then Balsam Grove Lodge. He would cut ice from the lake in the winter and store it in an ice house which would last all summer. After a few years, our family’s purchase of a Servel propane fired refrigerator was a significant upgrade. The cabin had no running water, and my brother and I were in charge of hauling 5 gallon buckets of water up from the lake when needed.

My parents quickly introduced others to the Gunflint experience. In 1948 his brother, Ken Kloek, Sr., bought the cabin next door (now 7997 Gunflint Trail) from Ben Katzenmeier. Ben had two lots, so he moved to the westward of the two and built a new cabin at what is now 8005 Gunflint Trail (currently the Moe cabin). Ken’s original cabin was quite similar to ours. Eventually he built a more modern cabin on the same lot, and tore down the old one. Ken’s family still own and maintain the cabin, and my cousin, Ken, Jr. has a lot more stories to tell of those early days.

The Young family lived in our neighborhood in Minneapolis (Morningside) and attended the same church we did. They visited our cabin, and subsequently bought their island from the Grewe family. The Jolly family, who were related to my father, also visited, and now own a cabin at 80 Fireplace Point.

Summer life on Poplar Lake in the 1950’s was a great experience for a kid. Many of the cabins were owned by families with children, so there was always a lot of activity. Swimming and water skiing in the afternoon were popular. It seemed like there was always a gathering at someone’s dock if the weather was good. In addition to my brother and I there were Ken (Jr), Judy, and Linda Kloek; Ann, Mary, John, and Marcy Waugh; Ted, Tim, and Nancy Young; Sue and Arnold Swenson; the seven Bridgeman siblings (more about the Bridgemans later), and sometimes Carl Brandt, Jr. At times we had as many as three boats pulling water skiers.

My family also took portage trips. This was before the BWCAW was created, and many of the original docks and signs that the CCC had built on the portages were still in place. In 1954 the Minneapolis Star sent a reporter and a photographer to accompany us on a camping trip to Winchell Lake. The result was full page feature story in the newspaper about a family enjoying the Minnesota wilderness. We still have a reprint of the article and prints of all the photographs the photographer took.

By the middle of the 1950’s electric lines were being run up the Gunflint Trail, and plans were in place to finish paving the entire road. Two islands in Poplar Lake came up for sale, and my father bought them both in 1956. He sold the smaller of the two to Truman Smith (whose son Doug was the same Boy Scout troop as I was), and in 1957 built the cabin which we still have today.

At the time my father was managing the Bridgeman Ice Cream store in downtown Minneapolis. He had two bus boys working for him that were also training at Dunwoody Institute to be carpenters. He hired them to build the cabin, and sent my brother and I with them to help. At the time, my brother was 17 and I was 12. In two weeks, the four of us roughed in the cabin. My job was to bring the lumber and all the other materials from the shore out to the island in a boat (actually two boats lashed together for a more stable platform), while the other three built the cabin. They did it completely by hand since there was no electric service to the island. When we were done, we had a completed box: a plywood floor, four walls, a roof, windows and doors. The inside was completely unfinished.

The cabin features seven very large windows in the front and side walls, and they are a story in themselves. The entire front wall of the Bridgeman store my father managed was glass, from sidewalk to ceiling. This was very thick architectural glass, but even then, from time to time, it would break. When the glass people would come to replace it, my father would have them cut large, square pieces of the waste glass, and store them in the basement of the store. He had a picture in his mind of the cabin he wanted to build one day, and by 1957 he had collected enough glass for the windows he wanted. The panes of glass were moved from downtown Minneapolis to Poplar Lake in a trailer towed behind our car, and then moved out the island via boat. They all made it without breakage. Then we made a mistake. We leaned one of the panes against a small tree while we were getting ready to install it. It was a windy day, the tree swayed, and the glass cracked. We had to make a sheepish call to my father back in the Cities. Fortunately he had a spare pane, and was able to drive it up to us over the weekend, so we could finish. As of this writing in 2008 the original windows are still in place, having held up to 51 years of rain, wind, snow, and bird strikes.

Over the rest of the summer of 1957 and early 1958 we finished enough of the inside of the new cabin to move in. We sold the original cabin to Bill and Phoebe Bridgeman in 1958. The original cabin continued to be owned by the Bridgeman family until August, 2008 when Dan and Paul Bridgeman had it torn down to begin construction of a modern cabin.

The new cabin on our island was still rustic - no electricity, no telephone. One improvement, however, was running water. We built a log tower behind the cabin and put a large water tank at its top. This tank was filled by a water pump powered by a lawn mower engine at the lake shore. It was my job to “pump up the tank”. The water tower would then provide us running water until in was empty, at which time my mother would tell me to go pump it up again. So we had faucets that ran, and a flushing toilet, but still no hot water.

Over the course of the next 15 years the inside of the cabin was gradually finished off. In 1961, a second building was started. My father and I built a pole shed behind the cabin to keep lumber and other supplies covered in the winter. This was a simple shed built of logs, with a roof but no sides. As usual, finishing this was a last minute affair. On Labor Day, we still had to nail on the roofing. We had to leave that afternoon because I started school the next day. I remember very well my father and I nailing on roofing, while listening to the Twins game on a portable radio. My mother was fretting because it was getting late, and continually asking when we would be done. Oh, did I mention all this was going on in the middle of a snow storm? Weather on Poplar Lake is never dull.

The next big changes to the cabin took place in the mid-1970s. My father retired and he and my mother began to spend their entire summers on the island. Electricity and telephone service were run to the island with underwater cables. With the help of Ted Young, the pole shed was enclosed and finished inside to become a bunk and tool shed. The cabin was enlarged with the addition of a bedroom and a utility room which held, for the first time, a hot water heater. Luxury had arrived on the island when a shower was installed and connected to the hot water line. Electric appliances replaced the old propane stove, refrigerator, and lights.

Another improvement after their retirement was the purchase of a lot at 46 Voyageurs Point to serve as a parking area and boat dock. My father and John Kurkowski built a small boathouse on the lot to store the boat for the winter.

My parents continued to spend their summers together on the island through the summer of 1997. It was a long and happy retirement for them, and they had many visits from friends, relatives, and grandchildren. In 1998, my father passed away. For the next three summers my mother was able to be on the island for part or most of the summer with other family members staying with her.

My wife Lynne and I are now spending our summers at the cabin. When my father passed away we were living and working in Rochester, New York, so our visits were limited to three weeks each summer. But by 2006 we were both semi-retired so we moved to Anoka, Minnesota to be closer to the island. We have spent the last three summers enjoying the lake and all the usual Gunflint Trail activities, and catching up on a lot of the continuous maintenance that a cabin requires. We are about to the point where we are going to start making some improvements, so stay tuned.

Growning Up on Youngs Island

Nancy Olmem-My family purchased our Poplar Lake Island cabin on Memorial weekend in 1952. Neighbors of ours in Minneapolis, Del and Mernie Kloek, had a cabin for sale on Poplar Lake and invited us to check out their cabin. It was not what my parents were looking for, but after looking at many properties they were shown the island. It was love at first sight and became our new summer residence.

That summer we spent some time on the island, but did not know that it would be the last time that our family of five would be together on a vacation. The following fall my dad suffered a stroke and died. It could have ended our trips north, but the following summer and many summers after, my mother loaded my two older brother, me and our collie dog into into our car and headed north. We were fortunate in many ways. After my dad died Dar Noyes who was owner of Rockwood Lodge and our Realtor, held the mortgage and called my mom and told her that there would be no interest and if she had trouble making the $15.00 any month, not to worry. Mother’s boss also felt that it was important for us as a family to go to the island so she was given two months off every year.

I was very young, 5 years old when we bought the island, and have wonderful memories. There were many other children who had cabins or resorts on the lake and also there were many resort guests with kids close to our ages. We spend our days playing in the woods, hiking, picking berries, swimming and doing many other outdoor activities. We were inside only on rainy days. As we got older, water skiing and surf boarding (behind a boat was also added to out list of activities. During high school I worked as a cabin girl at Balsam Grove Lodge (now known as Norwester).

As I entered adulthood, my love for the Gunflint and for the island continued to grow. In my early twenties I married Terry Olmem who also liked the area and the island. In the early years of our marriage, it was difficult to go north for long periods of time, but our love never lessened. When it was possible, we exposed our three children (Andy, Sheila and Matt) to the island. Now that we are older we are able to spend more time on the island and enjoy having the kids visit us. Andy, our oldest, is the fondest of island living and Sheila’s husband, Matt Lichty, also enjoys it. Our Matt live too far away to spend much time.

Summers for me are now mostly spent on the island. I am north as much as time allows and enjoy my alone time and family time on the island. People often look at me like I am crazy when they find out that I stay out there by myself. Yes, I need to take a boat hauling necessities back and forth, I do not have the modern conveniences and there often are animals that I share the island with; but that is what makes island living so special. If I want to be alone I stay home. If I want to be with people, I go to shore. It is my decision and I love it!

There are many stories that I have about life up the trail. When I was very young I can remember almost burning Rockwood Lodge down. The Noyes (the owners) went to town and left Sandy, their teenage daughter, in charge of the lodge. Sandy left the lodge for a while leaving Janet, her younger sister, and me in charge. Neither of us were even close to being teenagers. We got bored and decided to light the cigarette in mouth of the moose that was mounted above the main fireplace. We discovered that if we blew on the cigarette, the end would glow red. Everything was going well until the moose’s whiskers caught fire. We threw water and 7-up on the moose and were able to avoid the moose and the lodge from going up in flames.

A favorite story about a former resident has to be about Phoebe Bridgeman. The Bridgeman’s had 7 children of their own and had a very small cabin on Poplar. The Bridgeman’s were very generous and also let their children bring up friends to their wilderness retreat. I always felt that Phoebe and Bill’s philosophy was that there is always room for one, two, or three more. Yearly there was a lake picnic on Blueberry Island that was on the other side of the lake from their cabin. In order to get everyone to the picnic or any other place that they went as a family you would see a boat towing another boat both filled with people. Phoebe also realized that there were lots in her group and would come loaded with many dishes to pass.

Ollie O'Brien Greco- Red Pines Outpost

The mid 1930's -the Gunflint Trail was a winding dirt road, electrical power and phone service along the trail was still decades away. Mainly loggers, CCC workers, and several resort families populated the area. It was during this era that Ollie O'Brien and her future husband, Jimmy Greco, purchased property on a remote point of land between Little Ollie and Poplar lakes, south of the inlet from Poplar into Little Ollie Lake. Located one half mile from the nearest road, their new property was accessible only by traveling across Poplar Lake.

Ollie and Jimmy spent the next few summers building a log cabin home on the property. Some seventy spruce logs for the cabin were cut near the building site. The logs then skidded to the site by a timber horse rented by Ollie and Jimmy from a local logging camp. The logging camp was most likely Sam Seppala's sawmill. Trail Center Lodge and Restaurant is now located on the site of this mill. As the cabin neared completion, it was christened Red Pine after a large Norway Pine located near the new building. With the cabin completed,
Ollie and Jimmy spent their summers there; returning to Chicago for the winter. In later years they moved to Red Pine year around.

Another two cabins were built in the 1950's and 60's which the Greco's rented out to friends of theirs from Chicago. The name of their rental business became Red Pine Outpost.

Ollie wrote about her experiences on Poplar Lake. Two of her articles appeared in Outdoors Magazine; " I wanted a Log Cabin." April 1939 and "Red Pine" July, 1939. Among Ollie's many other writings were the following written in August of 1935:

The greatest joy anyone can have is to learn to appreciate nature and learn to be comfortable in the world of nature. To live in a simple way--to learn to take care of oneself and be adequate-

Living in the out of doors brings health and strength of both body and character.

A deep sincere love of nature is the surest guarantee for true character building.

Many meet people socially for years and never recognize their true nature-- but live with them a week camping and nothing shows up so quickly as their character.

Olive died in April of 1973 and is buried in Grand Marais' Maple Hill Cemetery. Little Ollie Lake is named in her honor. Her beloved Red Pine Cabin and the majestic Norway Pine, by the cabin, still remain much as they were some seventy some years ago.

A collection of Ollie's poetry, much of which written at the Red Pines Cabin, was found after her death. This poetry has been reproduced and is available at Poplar Creek Guesthouse's office.
Ollie O'Brien Greco: 1887-1973