Saturday, October 10, 2015

Get A Big Larry Light from Nebo at our store, Red Rock





Red Rock's Big Winter Pre-Buy Sale is on at redrockstore.com.  Find out more about getting a FREE Big Larry Light by Nebo.  You'll torch your retinas - don't look at it when you push the button!  You've been warned!

Take part in our Pre-Buy Sale - Click Here to get to the page that explains the freebies and priceing packages.

Unique Gift - only one of these on the planet





Art business has been picking up at Northwind Lodge!

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Ripping a Hook Outta Paul

I guided people for over two decades and we handled fish and hooks - lots of them.  In all those years, not a single one of my guests was ever hooked.  We had a couple of "close ones" but luckily never had a barb go below the surface of the skin.  

That being said, I have now ripped the hooks our of quite a few people in recent years.  One time, Pete Edwards came in with a hook buried in his thumb.  Pete wanted it removed and wondered if I could help.  I proceeded to snip the two points off of the treble hook which were not stuck in Pete using my bicycle spoke cutters.  My cutters were back from my bike shop days and I kept all my bike tools - just in case I decide we need to go back into selling bikes.  These spoke cutters would snip through 12 gauge, stainless steel spokes with ease and they work really well on hardened fish hooks.

So, the first step is to carefully snip any potentially threatening hooks along with the lure so we only have the remaining hook stuck in Pete's thumb. I know from experience, that a finger/thumb injury hurts all the way up to one's neck, so I carefully removed the points trying to not wiggle the main hook.  Pete was understandably wincing.


After I isolated the hook to just the part stuck in his finger, I found some 50 lb. test fishing line and a screwdriver.  I put one loop around the base of the hook where it was sticking out of Pete and took the two ends and tied them around the screwdriver handle to fashion a MacGuyver-esque starter cord like you would find on a lawn mower.  With the ripcord handle in my left hand and my right hand thumb in position, I told the "braced" Pete, that I would push down on the eye of the hook and rip at the same time to cause the hook to roll out in one swift motion.  This maneuver allows the hook to open the skin and give a place for the barb to go that is not catching on skin.  It rolls out in a quick flash of pain that ends usually pretty quickly with very minimal damage.  It sounds terrible, but it does work.

Pete was going to be the first person I've ever done this to, ever....

I was ready, Pete closed his eyes and braced his aggravated thumb solidly on the counter right next to the cash register.   I said, "On three.  One, Two, RIP!"

The hook flew out of the thumb and pinged off the ceiling and walls at least three times.  Pete roared in agony, "Jesus, Jumpin' Jehosphat! Oh MY GOD tell me it came out because that hurt like HELLL!" to which I quickly replied "Oh sorry, Pete - we're gonna have to try it again. It didn't work!"

Pete groaned like a dying lion at the thought of attempting it again and I  quickly added that I was just kidding.  It came out just fine.  He opened his eyes, smiled and said "Whew!".  We both had a laugh and Pete back out fishing.

Well, this is his brother Paul:






I'm really getting my technique down.  LOL!





Sometimes I Get a Chance to Go Fishing

I don't like to leave too often during our season because invariably, somebody needs something or something breaks when I'm gone - at least it feels that way.  But, I do like to sneak away to Wood Lake every now and then.  Here I am with my friend Paul from about 10 days ago.  


It was a good day of fishing.

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Put down your iPhone and Drive Straight Ahead

Well, it's been a moderate summer but there is an endless supply of things to keep one really busy at a resort.  When something doesn't need a repair, someone has a question, or needs help or is lost.  The "lost" ones always fascinate me.

In today's world, so many are completely addicted to their iPhones and the like that they can't do even the simplest task without them.   In my opinion, that is a really compromised way to be, but nobody's listening to me as they line up for blocks to buy a new iPhone when their old iPhone (which was new last month) was perfectly good from an operational standpoint.  I live in the woods.  I can't figure out the obsession/addiction.  However, I can see what it does to people's ability to think and navigate and it ain't good.

Since iPhones really made their way into the America psyche, we experience at least 20 lost souls per year who, despite having the ability to read our instructions to find us, toss those to the wind and wing it with their smart phones.  This inevitably takes them to Winton MN which is just three miles out of Ely on the way to us and their phone then tells them that they have landed at Red Rock/Northwind Lodge.   They usually end up at Brandau Plumbing in Winton or the driveway of Veteran's on the Lake which is a veteran's retreat.  Then they call us up (because they still have cell coverage) with mild panic and irritation in their voices. It says right in our website how to literally drive your car pebble by pebble in the road to Northwind Lodge/Red Rock but that holds no meaning for many. Knowing this, I instruct them on the phone how to get to us from Winton, Minnesota.  


It goes like this:

Me: Are you ready?


The Lost:  Yes

Me: Take your phone and go outside the car.

The Lost:
 OK

Me: With your left hand, place your phone on the ground, approximately 1 foot in front of the driver's side tire on your car.

The Lost:  Errr..OK

Me:
 Now get in your car and drive ahead one foot.  Go get a real paper map.

At this point, there is usually laughter from giggles to guffaws OR the occasional snort of derision on the other end.  I then assure them that they are to continue forward on that same road for 12.1 miles and they'll hit our driveway RIGHT across from the Ojibway Lake Public Access.  At times, even this doesn't work and they shoot right past ending up at Lake One, the "default" end of the road.  They then turn around and find us on the way back.

 Many times, they walk in TOTALLY confused as to the fact that our location is wrong in Google or on their Tom-Tom and tell me all about it.  I know.  I've tried for years to change it and I've just given up.  Computers and the internet are not as smart as everyone gives them credit.  In fact, your smart phone is dumber than a bag of hammers, so don't rely on it so heavily.  We're living proof that it can be completely wrong and very unreliable.

Now, I, too, have been lost in big cities and had to re-trace my steps but that was back in the day when we took notes and looked at a map.  Well, actually I still use maps.  Being lost is aggravating and unnerving when you end up in a bad neighborhood, so I understand it well.  The part I don't understand is that the Fernberg road is a dead-end road that terminates at Lake One which is a Boundary Waters Canoe Area entry point.  You can't get lost looking for businesses which are right on this road, right?   There is no where else to go, right?

Sigh...

Here's our website's instructions on how to get to find us:  Click Here  It has worked well this summer with many positive comments.  I prefer "blunt".


Friday, August 21, 2015

Bears and Guns

This morning, one of our guests, prior to his heading out to Wood Lake for a day of fishing, asked me if he should bring along his .45 caliber pistol for bears on the portage.  I said, "nah" because I haven't carried any sort of pistol out there since I was a kid.

When I was 14, I started guiding on Wood Lake, and my dad made me carry an old military .45 semi-auto with me in a leather holster.  I used to put it in my pack and upon setting up in the boat at Wood, I would take it out and clip the belt around a gunwale stay on the seat.  Every time I did that, there would be the sucking of wind and sputtering by my new clients as to the realness of the gun.  "Yup - it's real" I would respond.  Upon their questioning as to why I would bring such a gun along in my pack, I would always tell them it was for bears on the portage.  That response would elicit "Ooooohhhs" of understanding and then the day would progress like any other day of wilderness fishing in northern Minnesota.

As it turns out, the real reason I carried such firepower was not so much for bears as it was for people.  Yes, as shocking as it sounds, my dad wanted me to be scarier to the strangers I was guiding.  With no way to know who they really are and locked in a confined space like a small boat with a 14-18 year old kid, nothing says, "Easy there big fella" like a .45 strapped to the seat within the immediate grip of the kid guiding the boat.  Sounds cynical perhaps, but a healthy dose of cynicism and pistol makes for a consistently peaceful, fun-filled trip all the time.  And, again, the other reason for carrying that 5 extra pounds of weight was bears on the portage.  Ironically, I had no idea that my dad had a two-fold reason for bringing and displaying that pistol until I was about 40 years old when he told it to me.  I always simply thought it was for bears.  I don't believe I ever unholstered it even once in all those times I carried it.

Once I got bigger and stronger as is what happens to kids, plus having seen but never been bothered by a bear ever on the portage, I decided to lighten my load a bit and I began leaving the pistol home.  Spending as much time as we did in the woods growing up, if bears and wolves were ever going to be a problem, we should no longer be of this earth any more.  Don't get me wrong, all of our family members have had some pretty wild times with black bears here around the resort, but under much different circumstances.  I respect bears, but I'm not afraid of them.  Give them space, let them pass.  Don't smear bacon grease on your chest and run around like an idiot and you should do fine.  It's simple common sense and it seems to work since I know of nobody with any bite marks or the more obvious signs of being disemboweled by a bear.  Being in the resort business, that is a good thing, I figure.   I still get the sense that bears would much rather not be interacting with us and that's just fine with me.

I more or less explained this to my guest about going to Wood Lake.  He's from out of state in a large urban area, and I've noted people sometimes are a little on the jumpy side while here in the woods.  I always felt it was a bit more than required because we really don't have animals that attack people as a rule. There are no grizzlies and the wolves (so far) have  attacked very few people world wide.  Now that is not to say that these parameters will never change, but they have been the status quo for the last 50 years that I have been hanging out in the woods.  Plus, sending countless numbers of people on canoe trips has only resulted in about a half dozen bear attacks of their food packs only and that is from 1976!  

So, bears are not really a problem in my opinion.  I suggested he leave his gun at home as it was just extra weight.  He hesitantly agreed and quoted "safe than sorry" and I suggested he'd be fine without it.

He drove off to Wood Lake.  In 10 minutes I saw his car coming back down the driveway.  Did I forget the boat key?...the oars?...nope.  He came into the store and said when they got within 150 feet of the Wood Lake parking lot driveway and he was signaling to turn, a large bear crossed the Fernberg road going north right in front of his car and headed right down the Wood Lake portage.

He decided to come back and get his gun.  I hope he doesn't shoot his foot off or his wife in that panicky, jacked-up, shaky hands adrenaline rush that one gets when being charged by a large bear.

My money is on him never again seeing that bear.  I'll know more tonight.

Free Advice for what it is worth:  Unless you have extensive training and experience in shooting charging bears/animals with a pistol, I STILL say, leave the pistol home.  Shooting targets at the range and shooting a charging bear are not even closely related.   Plus, if you shoot a bear that is not on top of you trying to end you, you may find yourself in a world of hurt legally in Minnesota.   I just think its a problem waiting to happen.  I don't carry a pistol and have spent a lot of time in the woods.  It's never been a problem.



Come get the crap scared out of you by bears at Northwind Lodge (kidding) Click Here


 

Saturday, July 18, 2015


Nothing says "fun at the beach" like a polka in northern Minnesota.   This is my dad playing the song that I remember most as a child growing up, the Tick Tock Polka.  I was always fascinated at how loud his accordion was back then, and like comfort food, that particular polka is very meaningful to me.

My Dad learned how to play while still a 12 year old kid and I remember the story of how when he was in the army in Korea, some of the brass found out that he could play and they miraculously dug up an accordion for him.

In this video of 2015 he's now 83 years old.  So, for as long as Northwind Lodge (Jasper Lake Resort) has formally been a resort in Lake County, my dad has been playing his accordion.

That's a lot of history at this Minnesota resort.
 

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Painting Dogs in Northern Minnesota

July 5th and another laid back day at Northwind Lodge.  Looks like I'm heading backing to my former life of painting.  I kind of missed it, actually.  It's nice to be back in familiar waters once again.  




Spectacular weather, beautiful days. good fishing and a little bit of paint.  How come you aren't here?

Click Here to see the finished painting of Delilah & Cookie

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Monday, June 29, 2015

Chair #2 for Incredible Ely is finished - Fire!

Chair #2 for the Charish Fundraiser Auction by Incredible Ely is done.  In some ways it was easier and harder than Chair #1 the moose, but I was happy with the end result.  I've noticed that people react differently to different scenes (well, duh) - what I mean is that it is interesting to watch them.  People focused on the eyes of an animal and stay there.  They look at the other parts, too, but the eyes are the center of concentration.  

Scenery with different aspects in the picture, require more time to study it (duh, again), but they focus on the fire and then move around the scene for several long seconds.  The surprise for me was noting that even a painted campfire draws in humans, particularly those who like the outdoors.  A campfire is like a magnet whether real or depicted.

I think that attraction goes back millennia as the fire is where the warmth, food and light were and remain today.  It's in grained into the instincts of humans.  When in trouble or having fun, a fire is a source of comfort and protection.  Hence the reason for the long observances by several people in the store here while I was painting.




Sunday, June 28, 2015

Painting Chairs for Incredible Ely

It was a really slow Sunday at Northwind Lodge today, so with a never ending list of things to do, I got caught up on an Adirondack chair painting that I was doing for Chairish, Incredible Ely's fundraiser.  I shot some video while I was working on it.  I still have a ways to go, but it's starting to turn out, OK.   These are pretty nice chairs built out of cedar buy the shop class at the Ely Highschool.  Rob Simonich is the teacher and he's doing a pretty good job with these kids who build all of these chairs.


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Wednesday, June 24, 2015

A Landing Net's Life


My dad turned 83 years old yesterday and just to make the younger world feel diminished, I dragged him all the way down the Wood Lake portage and forced him to catch fish on Wood Lake for the day. The portage is 210 rods long or .58 miles long and it was muddy and rugged after yesterday’s heavy rains which is par for the course on portages. For an old guy with a fake knee and a double bypass some 15 years ago, he does pretty well. Of course, I brought along my sidekick Delilah.

Once we hit the trail, she began her Wood Lake portage routine of blasting ahead at full speed, turning off the trail into the woods and running parallel back along the trail only to come out behind me. From that point, she snorts past me again, tongue flopping and nothing but a blurry streak of fur to do it repeatedly for the entire trail. I figure that she runs about three times the length of the trail every time we walk it. In the back of my mind, I’m waiting for the moment she drives out a momma bear and cubs to meet me, but that hasn’t occurred….yet.

As I walked the trail carrying my oars, our rods and my pack, I noted the fresh tracks in the mud – two people ahead of me. As a boy, I was trained to not leave tracks – not in the figurative sense connected to symbolically saving the BWCA, but instead, for real. Hunting and trapping as a kid, we never wanted to be followed and the best way to avoid followers is to never leave tracks as best we could and we still do this to this day. As a result, I observe this telltale “flaw” in others all the time and today’s tracks in front of me were no different. I could tell both were men, in their late 30’s to early 40’s, weighing about 185 lbs. each. They wore big floppy hats, mosquito head nets, blue, white and black, paddling gloves, and brand new long sleeve, nylon button-down shirts with brand new nylon, zip off pants. 


As Delilah blasted silently down the portage, about 150 feet in front of me, up a hill and around a curve, I heard her let loose with the most ferocious, attack-dog bark her nine pound body could muster! First I thought ” bear” but that was immediately corrected. There was a scream and panic as a voice-in-terror yelled, “Gggaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! GET OUTTA HERE! GO AWAY!!!! ” as Delilah stopped them in their tracks. I tried to call her off, but she was unrelenting, so I picked up my pace to see two guys decked out in nylon shirts, zip-off pants, trail boots, blue-white-black paddling gloves, big hats and bug nets. Delilah finally shut up as her job was done attacking the space aliens. I chuckled and said when they passed, “I bet that scared the crap out of you!” to which one replied “Maybe a little…” Delilah looked back at me all proud and alert for taking down the “aliens” with a good, solid whoopin’. Then, she blasted down the portage once again. 

When we hit the water, we endured a beautiful day with moderate catching but enough to keep up busy all day long.   In a pretty true test, we found that live bait and artificial lures ended up producing about “neck and neck” . There was no real, obvious gain in using live bait over lures. Later in the day, the wind picked up and screamed from the west making for about 1.5 hours of tough rowing with a significant chop and some whitecaps.  I put together this video called “A Landing Net’s Life” since the I had the camera stuck to the net. 

Upon returning to the parking because not much wears Delilah out, she took off and chased a 70 foot long semi roaring past on the Fernberg Road. The present road crew tried to catch her but she blew past them, returning to me and prompting a parking lot visit by a concerned, but laughing foreman looking for “a little brown dog that was chasing one of their semi’s down the new asphalt.” Delilah stood up on the truck seat and smiled at him. 

Good dog, Delilah. Never give up.



Sunday, May 31, 2015

Life on the Island on Jasper Lake

Kelly & Joanne arrived today along with their young son, Walker.  Today's journey for them began in Memphis, Tennessee.  They boarded a jet plane bound for Duluth, MN and buckled in for a ride at over 500 miles per hour from the land that is hot to the land that is not.  Duluth, Minnesota which sits on the shore of the world's largest air conditioner had to be a change from the ambient temps of Memphis.  It was at Duluth that their journey northward continued to their final destination of Northwind Lodge or more accurately the island out on Jasper Lake.

Kelly and Joanne first made it to the Island for their honeymoon, many moons ago.  We've know them for every last one of those moons. When we first met, Kelly was in a residency for psychiatry and Joanne was working on a higher education in mathematics.  Today, she teaches and Kelly probably analyzes and assesses or whatever psychiatrists do.

For year after year, this couple stayed on the Island in the small cabin that my dad built in 1962.  It was to be his summer home and for years we called it "the shack".  It's a nice little cabin and when I was a kid, we spent many weekends out there in the winter, ice fishing on Jasper, flying kites in the winds of March and being really hot with that old wood stove that would almost drive us out even at -35 F below zero.  When we stayed there with no electricity or running water, our entertainment was whatever old magazines we had to read in the din of the gas lights.  We also had an old,black,  massive, battery-powered,  radio we had that pulled in shortwave broadcasts and AM signals from around the world. There were hardly any FM stations back then and after dark, the AM signals almost always came in stronger from great distances. It had a five foot tall antenna on it and about fifteen different radio bands that changed by pushing one of the fifteen buttons.  We used to listen to Quito, Ecuador and Little Rock, Arkansas, and somewhere in Texas.  Every now and then, an outside noise would demand that we turn down the radio and listen to what was making noise under the sparkle of endless stars through the crisp, but biting winter air.  Wolves on the mainland again, or maybe on the ice.  Sounded like five or six of them howling in jubilance.  It's always a slightly unnerving sound to humans after their taking down a midnight deer and celebrating their victory.  We'd know more the next day with the telltale signs marking the not un-gruesome event on the ice.

For the Baltich family as is the case for all families, life evolved and got in the way of staying at The Shack.  So, there it sat lonely for many years until we began to rent it out to lodge customers because, for more than any other reason, it seemed like such a waste that someone wasn't able to enjoy the sounds of the wind in the needles of the white pines that towered overhead and the feel of the cool breeze as the wind cut across the water and through those trees.

Many, many couples stayed on The Island over the course of numerous summers and winters.  Cross country skiers spent the weekends and our summer visitors would spend the entire week.  It was a common occurrence that we did not see the Island People but more than once or twice per week in the summer months.  The vast majority went into "vacation hiding".  Every now and then, someone from the resort would head down to the beach to see if there was movement or signs of life by their canoe having shifted positions or their gear sitting on the shore

Kelly and Joanne were similar but would stop in more often than some.  They were always enjoyable to talk to and we all shared many laughs as we traded life stories over the years. One story included the blowdown of 1999 at 12:15 on the Fourth of July.   The two had just stopped in having paddled across from the island only minutes before.  Then the wind picked up.  Annette was in the house closing the windows and could hear and see the Island fade completely from view as the wall of wind, picked up water from the lake like horizontal rain.  She said it sounded like a freight train driven by banshees going by the house only a quarter mile away.  I ran down to the lake and saw the water being lifted up with massive white caps roaring to the east where whitecaps have never been before.  Kelly and Joanne 's canoe was on the beach and I thought about grabbing and pulling it to safety.  It was all of 30 feet in front of me, but as the wind and the rolling waves increased, I chose to stand among the limber ash trees and not risk stepping into the fray. A bent up canoe was a small price to pay, I figured.   The canoe never moved while the lake behind it was in complete and utter pandemonium.  The wind blew so hard, that the mixed-in rain passed through the zipper of my raincoat leaving me completely soaked as if I'd worn nothing at all.  I went back up and found that Annette already with K & J in the basement of our home for the 15 minutes that the straightline winds attacked our region.  We waited and listened unsure of what was going to happen next.   And then, like it began, it was finished. We all walked out into the silence of normalcy wondering what just had happened.  Fortunately, it just missed us but wreaked havoc and devastation on the roads and homes just beyond Northwind Lodge.   Everybody but us was without electrical power for almost 2 weeks.  We were very lucky. 

As the years passed,Kelly and Joanne were blessed with their son Walker, and for a while, staying at The Island at Northwind Lodge, had to take a back seat to growing the kid into a more mobile unit.  But, Walker got bigger and back to Northwind Lodge they came.  The Island has had less people set foot on it than most of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  It is a veritable pristine island with a very low human impact.   Part of that is because we really protect it from humans and we've never been really big on developing property.  While it probably has great value, that piece of land surrounded by water is part of our home.   Over all the years of renting the cabin, we only allowed  up to two people to stay there at a time.  It's seven acres of  land with very few human feet on the vast majority of it.  We've also never allowed pets with the exception of our dogs Rex (deceased) and currently, Delilah who set her feett on it for the first time on May 30, 2015.

It's a small, hand-made cabin and it is crowded with more than two people.  The one and only exception to the rule is Walker.  He is now grandfathered in since his mom and dad well know and accept the space limitations plus, we know them and they understand the Island.  Over the years, we've been very fussy about to whom we  rent the cabin.   It's a magnificent experience and we would not want to see that changed.



Looking at Northwind Lodge

Just Offshore of the Island

Looking east to the narrows of Jasper Lake

Looking north to the Island from Northwind Lodge beach

The deck on the cabin and looking west


Western view outside of the cabin



Approaching the Island on Jasper


Inside the cabin

Standing at the water's edge facing north

Another view


Kitchen living area

Island Log - many stories

Hand written tales of adventure

From the deck looking south east

From deck looking northwest

Trail to the outhouse

Trail to the outhouse

Standing at western  shore looking east

The heat source - don't need it in the summer

Island table and window facing west


From deck looking south to Northwind Lodge


You could stay here, too!  It's like camping in a really solid tent with screens windows and a kitchen.  "Roughing it" means no running water or electric lights, but we now use batter lanterns and the gas lights are still there as well.  The water is quasi-running water.  When you are out, you have to simply run over to the mainland and fill up right at the beach.  It's pretty simple and still a terrific experience.  You'll be amazed at how much fun you'll have there!

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