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.

Sucker Spawning in Jasper Creek

It was Sucker Fest at Northwind Lodge on May 5th and for about two days.  I was working in Cabin 3 when I went down to Jasper Creek to to see if the suckers had come up the creek in the morning.   None were present.  A bit later in the day, they decided this day to be their day.

The water was low in the creek to begin with so the suckers were pretty shallow.   Suckers like hot weather if they can get it in the spring in northern Minnesota, and they will usually pile up in the creek.  There were some bunches of males and females - males have a subtle to not-so-subtle stripe on their sides and tend to be a bit smaller.  Sometimes, it is hard to tell just by looking at them.

I  went down to the creek with my sidekick, Delilah leading the way and the video sums it all up.

The next day, the temps dropped into the 40's and then freezing and the suckers completely disappeared from the creek.  Then, somebody pulled the beaver dam out of Jasper Creek up at the culvert of the highway and the water became very high.  a major temperature drop combined with fierce rapids pretty much shut down the sucker spawn for 2015.  What you see in the video was the spawn for the season.  This is a good thing as we'd like to see sucker numbers drop as a lake will only support so many pounds of fish and every sucker removed opens up a space for another game fish.

Delilah had fun while it lasted.

Visit our website, Northwind Lodge

Cabin Availability as of May 15 - Call for Up-to-Date Availability

Felling a Big Spruce

At least this time, I didn't have to do the felling.  A two-man crew with a big fancy boom truck  came in a took down a hefty spruce that died due to lighting and was right next to the power line.  They were on contract for our electrical co-op here and their efforts were much appreciated.  My chainsaw bar isn't big enough for the job and theirs was also even a bit on the short side.  It was a shame to have to take down a tree of that size, but either we do it now while in control, or have it fall later while out of control.  It was easily in the range of the power lines and with 7,000 volts running through it, touching the lines is less than desirable.  The tree had to come down.

I haven't yet decided what I'm doing with it but I'll be doing something.

Check out resort website HERE

Last Minute Internet Specials for cabin rentals at Northwind Lodge

And the Loons are Calling...

I went outside this morning at 8 AM and I could hear the loons calling in the distance as a cold, north wind was bashing its way through the woods 20 feet outside our door.  I let Delilah out ahead of me as I do every morning when walking to the office and she was in 3 inches of drifted snow!  It's April 22, 2015 and while this is hardly unusual for northeastern Minnesota, I still find it difficult to write poetically about wind blowing snow sideways less than a month away from fishing opener.  I'm also having a hard time with those computer models that show that we should be watching palm trees grow since this,  with the exception of about four years ago, seems to happen every year for as long as I can remember.  Hence the reason we still haven't take the plow off of the truck.  

Still ready to go.

 The beach on Jasper Lake

 Great Day for a Water Bike Ride!

Looking east down the beach 

Cabin 7 

 Cabin 3

 Cabin 6

 Straight north off the beach

Meanwhile, the loons, who spend their winters in Florida, are back wondering why they came home so early.   C'mon, warm weather!  We all want winter to leave!

Book a warmer summer vacation with us!  Click Here for our website

Methane in the Ice - It's always been there, pumping out of the Earth

Well, here's a shock and something you NEVER, EVER hear being addressed by all the climate change experts.  CO2 is bad for the earth -well, except for all the plants that need abundant CO2 to live - but that doesn't count.  Then, when CO2 loses its shock value, we talk seriously about methane.  Millions of dollars in federal grants have been spent on studies of bovine flatulence - cow farts.  Apparently, the beef industry,  (you know, those people who supply those little round patties at McDonalds)  has been killing Earth with bovine flatulence and something needs to be done, apparently.  At least another million dollar study needs to play out for a good determination of all that ails this greatly suffering rock.

Bearing the weight of mankind in mind, Delilah was bugging me to go outside for a run.  That little dog likes to burn up the ground, and she's been know to produce the occasional methane burst herself now and then, but that's for a different study.

Anyway, I hopped on the Skidoo and took the little dog out to where my dad and I were fishing earlier that day.  We wandered around out there enjoying the peace and tranquility of Minnesota's great northwoods and I remembered to point out the methane bubbles in the ice.  For the last few years, Jasper Lakes has been belching up methane a LOT.  I'm sure that Jasper is not alone in doing so, but it's where I am all the time so I observe these things in this lake.

Funny part is that the water is about 1 foot low this winter.  This past fall we had more beach than I'd seen all summer with the water being low so pulling the docks out was a bit easier.  Out where we ice  fish in the weed beds, over the years, it has been 7 to 8 feet deep only.  Last summer, the weeds were SO thick, you could barely fish.  It also looked like silt is filling in the lake.  Top it all off with a few really big methane "burps" and I have a theory.

Jasper Lake is maintained mainly by spring activity.  It also has a ton of silt that none of our neighboring lakes have, and that includes even Ojibway which sends water to Jasper via Jasper Creek.  In 1976, that creek dried up for 1.5 years and Jasper dropped 4 feet low and stayed there with water going out still.  There is only one way that is possible.  Springs.

Bearing that in mind, these springs are geological events.  Parameters and conditions deep in the ground can change due solely to the actions of Mother Nature.  The planet does what it wants and that's it.  We can wring our hands and raise taxes and implement ridiculous feel-good mandates all we want, but we have zero effect on whatever the planet decides to do next despite what the believers conclude by consensus.  Jasper Lake has been filling up with sediment.   The only incoming water comes from a spring-fed lake (Ojibway) with no sediment.  So, where is the sediment coming from?  Well it has to be coming from those springs that maintain the lake for real.  Something changed below, and those springs are dumping minerals and sediment into the lake from far away

That is the first part of my theory.  The second part lies in the fact that methane can be made from serpentinization of rock in the presence of water.  The right rocks rub each other at ungodly pressures below with some water mixed in and we get methane building up.  (You can look it up-it happens all the time)  Plus, weeds, fish and bacteria rot on the bottom to form methane as well, but the serpentization method makes more sense regarding the massive volume needed to affect this lake.  It happens everywhere around the planet and methane silently releases after the pressure  builds up, all the time.  Al Gore seems to leave that part and so do all the other enforcers of climate change belief.

The second part of my theory ties it all together in Jasper Lake.  Where we fish, it has been about 7-8 feet deep historically for the last several years.  This year, it was 10 feet deep.  Deeper than we've seen it since I was a kid.  We've also had more methane bubbles frozen in the ice than I have ever seen.  This could also explain why I fell through the ice last winter when all the other ice was good.  We fish in that same area all the time where methane can be observed bubbling up in significant volume with an underwater camera.  It flows up out of the silt and is very visible on camera.

My theory is that we had, deep under silt, maybe hundreds of feet down, a large methane bubble building for years coming out of those springs that maintain the lake.  The bubble or concentration built up pressure and lifted the silt up, thereby lowering the water level by default. Lifting up of the bottom of the lake, allowed the weeds to grow thicker than ever because they were closer to the sun than ever before.  Once that huge bubble got close enough to the surface of the silt layer, it began to bubble up in the water and some of it got trapped in the ice allowing me to formulate this theory.  When enough bubbled out in a lake (that was 1 foot low to begin with), the silt settled back down, and my dad and I are now fishing bluegills in 10 feet of water instead of 7 feet in a lake that is low in the first place.

So, a large methane bubble formed deep enough to be trapped by the silt that becomes denser as you go deeper due to pressure and gravity packing the silt into a fairly impervious carpet - to a point.  The gas bubble lifted the entire bottom of the lake up, the weeds grew like crazy because they were closer to the sun.  Then, the gas released when it overrode the density of the silt, and the bottom has now gone back down closer to pre-bubble years.  

Meanwhile, Mother Earth has just released perhaps millions of tons of methane into the air and no cows were present.   Maybe I could get my Congressman to give me a million dollar grant to study this theory about naturally occurring phenomenon with the "evil" methane being released.

Here's some video:

Come Stay with us at Northwind Lodge this summer!

Born to Run

Delilah, the resort dog of Northwind Lodge (well, and Cookie, too, but Cookie is a bit boring) lieks to run against the Skidoo.  You can just see the bird-dog look she gets when I start the machine.  She takes off for home every time.  Fun dog.

Northwind Lodge Website

Bluegills and U-boats in Jasper Lake

Using what whatever snow is left in the yard to get the Skidoo to the water, I drove out on the ice on Jasper Lake  on March 16 at 1:30 PM to set up a pup-up shelter for fishing.  It was warm out at about 40 degrees but like every other March, it was windy.   Blowing from the south, then the north, we ended up tying the 6 x 8 pop-up off from each end to my Skidoo and my dad's 4-wheeler.  We were 100 yards off the beach of Northwind Lodge.

We made use of pre-drilled holes from the day before when we went fishing with Dave Oliver and Paul Haraldson, so setting up was quick.  We got inside the tent along with Delilah and began paying homage to the gods of bluegills by staring down the hole.  Boy, talk about getting a sore upper back and neck after doing that for 4 hours straight.

We dropped down various jigs a sparkly little spinners and they began to come in.  There were fewer today, but they were running bigger.  Nice sized, fillet-able fish swimming 5 to 7 feet below.  Today's visibility was not as good as yesterday and we can never understand why. 

Conditions were about the same with a partly cloudy day, but nonetheless, the sunnies below were bigger and a bit more picky.  All of a sudden, a 5 lb northern pick glided across in the shallow depths below.  The sunnies blew the popstand at that point and then some really nice sized largemouth bass came in for a look.  Even though the sunnies are good sized, those bass come in and they are huge.  2.5 to 4  pounders stopping in to see if they want that tiny #14 tungsten jig with a little bit of plastic on the hook.  It gets your adrenalin flowing because these are really nice fish. But nope, they swam by. After all that fish activity going by, it takes the bluegills about 30 minutes to come back after the head bluegill declares the coast to be clear.

I have 5 rods on the ice floor of our living room on the lake.  Each is rigged with a different jig & different plastics.  Most of the stuff I use is tungsten.  When the school is passing through, one must keep their interest for them to stick around.  So, if they are slow moving to one lure, crank up fast and drop another.  Must have been the air-pressure, but they were only moderately interested in what we were offering.  There was my dad setting the hook and saying "aarrggh!" and and me doing the same while declaring  "dang it!".  The fish below would suck in a jig completely. To hook them requires an immediate hookset.  You're like a coiled spring with a trip wire.  Trouble is that inexplicably, you can set the hook and miss them time and again despite their having inhaled the entire jig.  We call it "flipping them"  when we set a hook and it pulls them up and they flip a sideways somersault and swim away dazed but unharmed.  To avoid frequent flipping, we tried letting them take it for one second and they spit it out in slightly less than one second.  Their little bluegill tongues must quickly identify plastic.  We finally moved to tungsten bead head flies made by Cortland with no plastic and caught a few, flipped a few more.

Then, in a blast of sunfish panic, those slow-moving fish dispersed in all directions like spokes on a bicycle wheel.  Big northern coming through like a German U-boat on the hunt.  The bluegills beneath his level could hear the "ping" as the big green U-boat glided methodically overhead.  To hide, they descended deeper & deeper, closer to the bottom, holding their breath, beads of sweat rolling off their gill covers.  Minutes changed to hours as that big predator swam between them and the two faces staring down the holes in the ice above watching and waiting.  And waiting. And waiting.

Dang northern scared everybody off.  We sat for another 30 minutes with 5 bluegills on the ice and nobody was returning back to that spot.  My dad and I finally gave up.  We knocked down the tent, loaded the sled and cranked up our machines and headed home.   Had we caught every fish we saw including some very large perch, we'd have had fish laying all over the ice.  There certainly is no shortage of fish in Jasper.  Keeping them on the hook is the tricky part.

Adventures in the Big City - Shakopee, MN - Alehandro is a Dead Man

It was the end of the day at the sportshow, Fish Fest Minnesota at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minnesota.  I got in the car and navigated the mile or so to my hotel. It was going to be a late check-in and I'd called ahead.  The woman at the counter was young, pleasant and bubbly despite it being 8:30 at night.  I dropped my stuff off in my room and headed outside to find some place to eat.  Conveniently, there was a strip mall across the busy street and I spied the Dragon Cafe and some pasta place.  More adventure in Chinese food I figured, so Chinese it was.

I walked in to the relatively empty cafe and was greeted (if you can call it that) by a short, wide Chinese (I would guess) waiter in blue jeans and an ill-fitting yellow polo shirt.  He asks me "One?" and I nod at the obvious, and he said, "Follow me!" in a thick accent.  We walked about ten feet total and he pointed to a booth and queried "OK!"  and I answered "Sure!" not that I really had a choice.  I sat down and he abruptly slapped down the plastic coated menu and I sensed some urgency in the air.  I began to speed-read through the two million choices because I just knew he was returning with a red plastic tumbler with ice water.  Sure enough; he was back.  He set down my tumbler and said, "You ready, orhda?"  I could feel beads of sweat building up on the back of my neck as the fireplug stood at the booth table edge, his rough cheeks and fuzzy, short black hair pointing at me, demanding an answer.  "Errrr - I'll take #12", I told him quickly.  "Soupohsahda?", he asked very fast.  I had to ask him to repeat it three times in which he never, ever altered or changed his presentation.  It was "soup" or "salad" and I opted for the chicken soup.    "Anyting to drink?", he added.   "No, water is fine", I answered quickly.  "OK!" and he disappeared in the kitchen from where tinking noises were emanating.

As I waited, I noticed a Chinese young woman eating soup or something on a round table next to the cash register.  She was eating so slowly and looking down, I figured she was reading something good.  Upon observation - nope, nothing in front of her but her food in some large bowl.  Meanwhile, the fireplug brought out my "soupohsahda" and it was water, with snow white strips of chicken, and handful of chopped chives, white rice and salt.  Didn't really put a lot of effort into it, but it tasted OK, I guess.  The fireplug also gave me a plastic replica of one of the those ornate and highly-irritating-to-use, ceramic spoons.  It was like a mini bowl with a handle and hard to use at best.  Right behind the soup event came the #12.  It was 4 big puffy balls of breading with a slightly dried-up shrimp hiding in the middle of each.  They laid on top of flied lice and next to a pile of chowmein that buried yet another pile consisting of chowmein noodohs.

While digging through my no-calorie-no-salt Chinese meal, I developed a thirst and was blasting through the ice water.  The fireplug was back with a pitcher of water in his meaty hands, twice.  I looked over my shoulder and noticed that he was standing, arms crossed, watching over the patrons like a prison guard with an ax to grind.  He was efficient, I'll give him that.

When I was done enjoying my Chinese-adventure-on-a-plate, he was right at the table with the bill and requisite fortune cookie.   He asked, "Ow done?" and I affirmed.  "Tank you." and he set down the cookie and bill and disappeared through the kitchen doors.  He was gruff and to the point, but he did his job well.  I left a tip.

I got up to pay and there was party of two before me, paying their bill to the woman who had been concentrating on her bowl of food.  She stood and rang them up and thanked them pleasantly while I stood two feet behind them and was taller than both by a head.  One could not miss my presence if one tried.  As the couple stepped out, I stepped up and the woman looked right through me and went back to her seat to continue slowly eating her bowl of food on the round table next to the register.  I had become a ghost.

I stood there in silence feeling a bit stupid wondering how fast these Chinese could run if I bolted out the door to my immediate right, but then, another Chinese woman appeared and in absolutely perfect English, said she would take care of my payment.  No sooner than I gave her the cash, she started in on the woman eating at the round table. "Odoh, sukinitchy hoooooooyyyy dohwooooh!" she said while she completely ignored my departure.  Sheesh.  Out into the winter air I went and decided that I needed a  can of pop and a candy bar for dessert.

I saw a gas station on a corner and headed towards it.  There was a yellow taco truck parked outside with a bright "open" sign at the door.  Steam was rising from its vents while it sat there with greased up windows closed.  I wasn't sure how one ordered since it was winter and they wouldn't be sitting with the windows open.  I walked past it and into the convenience store.

I took a right to see a large display of incense sticks and things that I normally have not seen in a convenience store.  One was the large, very visible display of adult magazines with covered up front pages.   And, right next to them, was something that I've never seen before: the equivalent to  Mexican Twinkies, Ho-Ho's, Ding Dongs and other assorted artery clogging delights.  There was one that was called Creme on Toast, and from the package, it appeared to be a toast sandwich with layer of creme where PB&J would normally exist.  It was intriguing to say the least, but visions of ground up cockroaches in the creme left me looking but not consuming.

Well, this store piqued my interest.  I began to wander around and noted both the "un" and "usual" snacks in the store.  Having just left my Chinese adventure, I was now in Mexico but couldn't make up my mind as to what I wanted for dessert.  I knew I wanted a pop so I found my flavor of choice and pulled it out of the fridge.  Then I heard the yelling from the check out counter of the store.

I was the only customer in the place and there was a short bald guy with a mustache  wearing a huge blue and white basketball (?) jersey behind the counter.  He was surrounded by a sea of E-cigs, paraphernalia, and tobacco products.  From the back of the store, despite the loudly whirring coolers, I heard him yelling on the phone, "Alehandro!  I gonna _ _ _ _ YOU!   ALEHANDRO!  I GONNA  _ _ _ _ YOU!    WHY ALEHANDRO?  WHY?!!!  BECAUSE YOU'RE MEAN, ALEHANDRO - AND A LIAR!!!   YOU JUST COME HERE RIGHT NOW ALEHANDRO AND I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU!!!!"

Holy crap (!) I thought to myself!  I just wanted a pop and a candy bar to conclude my earlier Chinese adventure.  Now, Alehandro is most likely on his way to crash through the store windows his low-rider car with its ridiculously thin tires and  over-the-top hubcaps.  Then he was most likely going to shoot the place up with a stolen Tec-9.   I'd be there looking for cover behind the Mexican Ho-Ho display.  Screw the candy bar, I concluded.  I took my Diet Coke and headed to the counter to the crazy fool who was fully planning on doing something very obscene to Alehandro.  I set the can on the counter and the bald Mexican looked me in the eye and said, "Did you find every thing you needed, sir?"  I nodded,  "Make that just a dollar-even for the soda."

I handed him a dollar and then noticed another politely smiling mustachioed Mexican sitting on a chair in the cigarette sea behind the counter. He had hair.  The bald check-out guy politely thanked me with a very professional tone and added "You have a good evening, now."

I walked out listening for the sounds of distant squealing, smoking tires of Alehandro's roaring low-rider to tear through the streets of Shakopee, Minnesota aiming at a Mexican convenience store in the dark of night.  None came.  Heck, had I been Alehandro, I would have skipped going there as well, at least for tonight.

Back to my room I headed and locked myself inside.  Tomorrow night would be different.

The next evening, I decided to change up my dining adventures as last night was rather involved.  I decided to go to Cub Foods and buy some turkey and Swiss cheese and the other components for a delightful evening in my room - alone.  I just didn't feel like putting up with the trappings of dining out.

So, I proceeded into this massive store and bumbled around with everyone asking if I would like to order from every counter before I even got a chance to look at what was there. (Can I help you? Can I help you?  Are you ready to order?)  I decided to observe the contents of the deli counters from afar lest I be bugged by every employee in the store with a white mesh cap.  I should have brought binoculars.    I finally find something suitable, place my order and pick up a box of Little Debbie's Swiss Cake Rolls to complement the Swiss cheese in my sandwich-soon-to-be.

I proceeded to a check-out where there was only one guy in front of me. After numerous attempts to swipe his card, the cashier leaned over and started swiping and pushing buttons as well.  This went on for about 6 minutes.  I just stood there watching until the card finally went through.  The cashier said, "There was $1.47 remaining on that gift card", and the guy nodded.  I secretly rolled my eyes.  Then, gift-card guy turned to me after he noticed my Swiss Cake Rolls.  He then proceeded to tell me about how, as a child, his uncle bet him that he couldn't eat a whole box of Swiss Cake Rolls.   I looked around wishing that I'd gone to a restaurant or at least back to the Mexican gas station.  Thinking that I was fully engaged in his wonderful story, he laughingly concluded that as a result of the "bet" he ended up eating two (2) of the Little Debbies and promptly threw them all up.  "There was barf everywhere!"   It was clearly a highlight of his growing up in the big city.  I was just hoping he wasn't planning to follow me to my hotel room to share more gripping tales of his childhood.

I finally made it back to the confines of my room and securely locked the door.  I made it through my sandwich and two (2) Little Debbies and everything stayed down with no problems.  I should have made a bet with someone.  Heck, I should have bought a lottery ticket after that.

On the final part of my return home, I stopped at an Arby's in Cloquet, MN which had four total patrons sitting down.  I approached the counter with an 80 pound girl who was as cute as a bug with pouty little lips and a round face that reminded of "I tat I taw a puddy tat" Tweety.  She was young with dark, shorter hair and the shining example of someone who would have a vibrant personality and intelligent charm all mixed together with downright interesting good looks.  And then she opened her mouth.

Instead of saying the usual "Hi, can I help you?" upon my approaching the counter, she snarled, "For here or to go?".  That was it.  That was the greeting from Tweety at Arby's.  I ordered the fish sandwich and she snarled, "That'll be $5.37." with the personality of whale snot.  Another smiling, friendly girl from the back brought out the sandwich instantly to Tweety, who snorted and dropped it on the tray along with the fries.   I took it away from the counter with the angry bird behind it,  found a spot in among the 75 open spots in the dining section, ate my run-of-the-mill fish sandwich with greasy curly fries and left.  As I was throwing away my beverage cup, I couldn't help but notice on the side of it was a big blahbitty-blah about how Arby's wants my dining experience to be "more than awesome".  I'm going with "underwhelming", actually.  Tweety must have been having a bad day.

From there, I went to another gas station to top off my tank right next to Arby's and thought about getting a pop and a candy bar for dessert.  There were no swearing Mexicans so I felt somewhat vacant. Plus, there was a Walgreens next door, so I went there instead.  Wouldn't you know it - there were Valentines chocolates on sale for 50% off!  I picked one up along with a few other items and went to the check out. When I got there, the 17 year old boy was having an issue with the scanner and the register so an older lady came out and was pushing buttons.  They moved me to a different till and I set down my stuff.  He scanned it all in and I paid the $9.57.  I left with my sweet deal in hand and about 9 miles down the road, I'd realized that I never got the 50% discount on the candy.  SONUVA!!!!

The cities (everything south of Duluth in my book) are an odd place.  It was nice to come home to the woods.  Everybody was happy to see me & nobody was shooting up any convenience stores with angry Mexicans inside.

As of this writing, we are now out of Little Debbies, too.

Visit Northwind Lodge's 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