Indritz family cabin (continued)

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.