A New Ceiling for Rental Cabin #3

Last fall, we needed to put a new roof on Cabin #3.  That cabin was there since the 40's and as a kid, my brother Bernie and I put at least two new roofs on it years ago after our dad had done the same prior to that.  It finally developed a leak and I patched it but the whole roof was shot.  I decided to insulate it and put a layer of osb sheeting over the top.  Curt and I did that last fall.

I discovered that there were five layers of rolled roofing on that cabin!  The roof itself was simply made out of ship lap pine and that also made the inside of the ceiling which had turned that really dark brown like old, varnished pine usually does.  While walking around on the roof on 66 year old boards we were careful to make our feet bridge two boards while walking to prevent cracking or even going through an individual plank.  I'm always amazed that lumber from 66 years ago still even has structural integrity.  The boards were still springy and after a ton of running around, not one even cracked a little.  I don't think any type of plastic would have held up the same.

I installed a simple framework, laid down the foam insulation, nailed down half inch sheeting and roof edging that I had to build for this job and put the felt layer on along with the shingles.

Upon inspection of the inside, I could see where some of the nails we shot down in the framing became an issue and I decided to put in a new ceiling in the spring.  Well, spring sprang and in between rain, snow and bad weather, I videoed a condensed version of that particular job along with the end result.  It turned out OK.

While I was sitting in Cabin 3 tuning my radio I happened to look outside the window at the spectacular view of blue water on Jasper with a backdrop of wilderness while an eagle soared overhead and one of our loons protested in the distance.  I said to myself, "yeah, I could live here for a week or two!"

It's a pretty cool place.

Bring your wife or hubby!  Come stay in Cabin #3 at Northwind Lodge!   Click Here for our website.

Ely Minnesota Resort - Here's what you get at Northwind Lodge

Are you looking for more information about cool places to stay with nice cabins next to a lake in the woods?  How about a laid back resort setting on a jewel of a lake next to a creek with a waterfall? I'm pretty sure you'd appreciate nice clean cabins where you can cook your own dinner and take a hot shower.  Plus, with a quick walk down to the water you can get in your boat and head out on the lake for the evening.  Listen to the loons while you fish.  Watch the beaver swim by and see the eagles soaring overhead.  Smell the air.   It's ultra clean and you'll sleep like a log at night.

I grew up right here at Northwind Lodge and we still hear that all the time from our guests.  Complaints such as," I overslept.  I couldn't get out of bed.  I don't usually do this at home", and on and on.  Our guests are constantly oversleeping and don't want to get up because it was so comfortable under the covers with the fresh air and quietness.  Then, when they finally get up, they kick themselves for not getting up sooner because the day is beautiful and the deep blue water was calling them.  It has always been the conundrum - a Northwind Lodge "vacationer's guilt" - if you will.  I guess that's part of the great wilderness vacation experience at our resort NE of Ely and surrounded by the Boundary Waters.  Part of you wants to get up and go, the other part of you wants to enjoy the "sleeping-like-a-log" part.  You, like the thousands of guests before you in the last 70+ years of  Northwind Lodge operation, are going to have to figure out how to resolve this "problem" on your own.  We, in the family-operated resort business, have no solution for you.

If you'd like to see some of our resort's rental cabins inside, the following links ought to get you started in the right direction.  Just give em' a click and off you go!

Cabin 8

Cabin 7

Cabin 5

Cabin 2

I'll add more videos of our cabins as time permits.

Check out our Lodge Cabin Availability for this summer - Click Here

Visit our Red Rock Gear Review Site

Runaway Ice in Jasper Creek

It's one of those years again at Northwind Lodge.  Last year we had too much snow and brutally cold weather.  This year we're having mildly cold weather (in relative terms) and not enough snow.  For those who don't know it, we rely on snow to be an insulating layer against the cold.  With low snow levels, the cold can penetrate the ground something fierce.  In this neck of the woods, our frostline for building code purposes is 84" or seven feet down.  Unfortunately, that is easier said than done and I do recall a few years back with low snow and cold temps that some people had their septic tanks move upwards from frost making it beneath the tank and freezing the water in the dirt.  The lifting of the tank would result in either breaking the main sewer line to the tank from the home or making the main line now move upwards thereby affecting the flow into the tank.  The residual water remaining in the sewer line, would freeze and plug up making for many unpleasant moments in the homeowner's basement.  With no simple remedy, this sort of thing makes a long winter feel much longer because our frost doesn't usually leave the ground here until mid-May.  So, when I hear our southern brethren tell me that it is just as cold in the Twin Cities, 265 miles to the south, I don't really agree.  Seven feet of frost is just one of the indicators as to the differences in global reality.

For Northwind Lodge, our low snow presents a different kind of problem.  It is mainly in Jasper Creek.   As it flows so beautifully through our property in the summer, it haunts us and taunts us all winter long with threats of overflowing its banks to threaten several cabins. The last major event required taking a chainsaw and cutting a 600 foot long ditch from the bottom (at the lake) all the way past the top of the falls.  We cut the ditch about 10 inches wide with one guy on the saw and another guy on the chisel, popping these huge blocks of ice out of the 16" deep ditch.  When the block gets pried out of the ditch, it sometimes would slide like a 75 pound bobsled down the ice.  We had to watch so we didn't wipe each other out with plummeting ice blocks.  Then, the excess water on top of the glacier gets routed into the big ditch to better focus it's erosive qualities.

When, this first appeared that it was going to happen back in the early 2000's as I expressed my fear about having to solve the problem to Annette, Jackie and Curt, Annette lightly scoffed and told the employees that "Joe overreacts."  She did not realize that "Joe" had done this disaster preventing maneuver long before we had been married and was far from exaggerating.

When the day came that Curt and I began to chainsaw the river, Joe showed Curt how the whole procedure is done.  We take the oil out of the oiler and loosen the chain on the bar.  The saw has to cut backwards in order to be effective.  If you've never cut two 600 foot lines 16" deep into ice climbing up a veritable glacier in screaming wind with your wool pants turned into ice stove pipes, you have not lived.  After Day One of the ice attack, Curt reported to work the next day with stories of brushing his teeth by jumping up and down while Jackie held the toothbrush to his teeth.  His arms were so tired from sawing, chiseling, prying, and sliding huge blocks of ice, that he couldn't hold his tooth brush.

We would finish with the ditch and in less than two days of -20 F, the ditch we cut would disappear completely as if we weren't even there with chainsaw in hand.  Then, we'd do it all over again.  I would cut, chisel, and ditch for hours after the employees left for home, trying to stay ahead of that incessant water.  Some nights I would go out with a head lamp and work some more in the dark.  At the time, we had the lodge open for skiers and the water was heading so hard to Cabin 8, that we put down sand bags that the county gave us to fight the onslaught.  Nothing says "wonderful experience" more than hand-shoveling salt-sand into jaggedy sand bags in a county gravel pit with the wind howling in below zero temps.  

We stacked the bags to re-direct the water and it built up against those bags almost immediately.  The ultimate was when a party from the Twin Cities arrived at an ungodly hour on a Friday night as opposed to a sensible check in time because they don't realize the issues that can surround wilderness existence.  I watched and waited for them and somehow they sneaked by me and parked their Subaru in five inches of ice water, front wheels right up to a row of stacked sandbags.  At midnight, I decided to get out of bed, get dressed and go over to their cabin to see if they arrived.  Sure, enough, they had been there, meeting up with the rest of their party (who KNEW all about the river, the ice, the water, etc.) and they parked their car and were in the cabin "shooting the bull" for hours.

The water was freezing almost to the rims of all four wheels and had to be encroaching the differential on the vehicle.  I knocked on the cabin door and suggested that the owner move their vehicle to a place that is high and dry for the 25 below night we were having or we'd be chiseling that car out of the ice by morning.  They thought it was kind of funny while not realizing how bad it really could have been.  I could not believe that they would park their car with their wheels in the water -anywhere- let alone at a cabin deep in the northwoods.  I just shook my head at the obliviousness that permeates so much of city-dwelling humankind.

One day, when the river was really kicking our butts and we couldn't get ahead of it, I asked 
Annette to don ice creepers and help with chiseling ditches.  She did; it helped immensely and that evening she was completely shot from pounding an ice chisel and climbing up and down a veritable mountain of unforgiving ice for about 5 hours.

And, by that point, nobody thought I was exaggerating about the creek anymore.  

Here's a video of our New Year's Eve efforts to try to stay ahead of the potential nightmare that it could yet become.  This is plan B and it should work.  I don't know what Plan C is yet and I hope I won't need it.

Happy New Year from Joe and Annette Baltich at Northwind Lodge, Ely MN.

visitnorthwind.com

Red Rock Outdoors Blog - Product Reviews