V is for Victory

Way back in 1939, my grandpa Frank Baltich decided he wanted to settle on Jasper Lake with a trapping shack.  The land here had all been logged off in earlier years and it was making a comeback as it always does.  The shack that he built was a small, one room, vertical log building that he heated with wood. Of course, Grandpa had to dig it into the side of the hill and my uncles Frank and John helped move the dirt from the steep hill towards the lake,  Then, after digging out a hole right up to a a huge rock, he built the cabin's corner RIGHT next to the rock.  He also did that with Cabin #5  and Cabin #8 much to my chagrin, that of my dad's, and my brother Bernie.  What would it have hurt to build it three feet from the rock so the grandkids wouldn't have to wonder how they are going to dig it out 68+ years later?

Anyway, Grandpa decided to add a porch to the nice little log cabin overlooking Jasper Lake.  As he was adding the porch, Dec. 7, 1941 rolled around and Japan came up with the crazy plan to bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.  When the news made it to Ely, Grandpa said ominously that Frank, Jr. was going to end up going to war via the draft.   It was a sad realization.

Frank, Jr. got the call by Uncle Sam and ended up in the Battle of the Bulge in Germany.  Grandpa was worried sick, and he was still working on that porch.  

He had traveled from the old country to America to build a better life.  Like most immigrants, he carved out his existence in the Land of Opportunity working for 16 years deep in the underground mine that is now Miner's lake in Ely  During his time here, he adopted the United States as his home and his land.

That brings us back to the porch of that log trapping shack.  If you paddle by it on the water, you will see it, but if I didn't tell you, you would never notice it.  In the logs, there is a  big log "V"  that Grandpa built into that porch.  The logs were painted in a pattern of red, white and blue that I remember seeing as a small child.   It was his way of showing support and hope for our country and his kids.  It must have been a favorable talisman built into the wall of Grandpa's Log Cabin overlooking Jasper Lake.  All three of his sons were drafted into two different wars and all three came home alive and  went on to build their own  long lives here in Minnesota.

So, if you are paddling past an old log cabin on the southwestern shore of Jasper Lake, look for the "V".  There are many stories behind those two logs.