In the 1970s, Mildred began
coming up to the Gunflint Trail and staying with friends on Poplar Lake. In 1977 this friend, Dr. Brill, persuaded
Mildred to buy a lot on Poplar Lake – currently the lot owned by Richard and
located on Moose Ridge Road.
When Dr. Brill retired and
moved to Kansas to live with her sister (she died a few years later of a
stroke), Mildred bought her cabin in 1980.
In 1981 Mildred went to St. Lucia, met a urologist from Georgia, and
invited him and his wife to come up to the cabin. In preparation for their visit, Austin went
up and cleaned out the cabin – it had an old Franklin stove in it, no
carpeting, no garage, no doors on cabinets in the kitchen, and the bedroom next
to the deck was the storage room for the boat, motor, and gas. Mildred decided it needed to get fixed up –
doors to cabinets were put on by John Kurkowski (who often helped improve the
property over the next 30 years). Austin
built a cabinet and microwave cabinet, installed carpet from the Holiday Inn on
Nicollet Mall, moved all boats, motors, lifejackets, and oars out of the
storeroom (and stored them next door in the Beattie’s garage) to make a second
bedroom. Water came in from the lake –
the cabin had a bathroom with seasonal water.
An outhouse was dug and built by Austin.
Also in 1981, Austin built
the second cabin; just the current living room section. The garage was built within a year or
so. The second cabin was finished
several years later by Kim Linnell by adding a bedroom, bath, and kitchen along
with water and electicity.
In 1982,
Austin bought the lot next door from the Meyers family from Blue Island, IL (he
was a milkman and they drove up each summer with cases of soup; they had one
son) and tore down the cabin. Austin had
talked to Mr. Meyers about wishing to buy the property if they ever thought to
sell it and when the time came, the purchase was made; Mr. Meyers died a few years
later of appendicitis. Later, Mike
Roehrick built a boathouse on the property.
Late in the
1980s, Austin bought Peewee Lake from Olar Snevets’ church after Olar’s death
(Olar had wanted to hold onto the property and build a marina on the lake but
ended up giving it to the church upon his death.) Mildred gave
Richard the Moose Ridge Road property in the mid-1980s. In the early 1990s, he added to the property
by buying a piece that bordered his and had shoreline on Little Ollie Lake;
this small piece was sold in 1997.
In 1991
Austin, with a promise to caretake the property, bought the solar-powered cabin
on Lace Lake from the Hoffmans, who wanted to move closer to town. Austin put in a driveway and had an addition
built by Isak Hanson and Son in 1992.
Austin and Mary bought more property on Lace Lake from Duane Johnson in
2007.
Mildred
retired up there for the summers starting in 1995 until 2001. It was her great pleasure to be part of the
community on the Gunflint Trail and to introduce the magic and lessons of the
woods to her friends and, later, her grandchildren (Claire, Alexandra, Jack,
and Paige) Along with her vigilant
maintenance of the buildings, her legacy was the hundreds of red and white
pines she planted on these properties.
Austin and Mary, in addition to the maintenance of the cabins, continue
the legacy of planting white and red pines to reforest what time and wind takes
down. The family takes great pleasure in
being a small part of the community on the Gunflint Trail and looks forward to
the time when they can spend long periods of time retreating to the woods.
