Cabin #4 - From 1948 to present

Back in 1948, my Grandfather built the first half of Cabin 4.  It was a small cabin made from logs and shiplap pine lumber with parts of the inside, plastered by some guy he hired.   Like all of our other cabins, it had no indoor plumbing but for a sink drain.  For running water, you needed to run to the well by the lake with a bucket and hand pump your own.  For restroom needs, Cabin 4 shared the outhouse with Cabins 5, 2, and our house/Office on that side of the Jasper Creek.  One time, as modern things began to creep into life in the northwoods, resort guests began to request crazy stuff like indoor plumbing.  One guy, opened the door and asked my grandpa with a room full of lodge guests present, if our resort offered indoor plumbing. My grandpa, never one to mince words, yelled at the man that we are “civilized and not pigs –  We S**T outside!”  That guy didn’t stay.  After my dad built Cabin 7 when he was 17 and added a flush toilet and everybody wanted to rent it, Grandpa decided that indoor plumbing might not be so bad. 

Later in life, Grandpa added on a small front porch on Cabin 4 but then passed away with the porch unfinished.   Upon his passing, my dad finished the small front porch when I was a little kid.  I remember his  exasperation with the odd-sized, unfinished little addition.  In trying to modernize by moving away from the outhouses and having plumbing with running water inside of pipes,  my dad sectioned up the little porch and stuffed a shower, a ¾ size lavatory and a regular toilet in a room that was a mere door’s thickness from the kitchen table.  Even as a kid I thought that being able to sit at the dining room table and open the bathroom door and then shake hands with the guy sitting on the porcelain throne was a bit awkward.   We rented Cabin 4 like that for many years and nobody seemed to mind.    Many of our customers would request that cabin for years to come. 

Back in 1998, I decided that the little dining room/bathroom was coming off.  With the help of my employee Curt, I tore that little wing off.  I’ll never forget a plaster wall that served as the base for  a small counter top and my trying to remove it.  It was plastered by a mad man that my grandpa hired.  A mad plasterer of sorts   One inch and thicker plaster covered a heavy mesh and logs.  It was  darn near impossible to smash out of there.  I wrecked a couple of sawzall blades when I finally brought in a 12 pound sledgehammer and began tenderizing it.  I took out that wall in crumbs and slivers.

I ended up adding my first ever, all-by-myself, addition to a cabin.   I made the room a lot bigger, added a bathroom that you could turn around in with much better lighting.  I used big windows in the living area.  I also added a sky-light to the roof for some natural light and then paneled the entire room in native knotty pine I bought from a John Latola on the Iron Range.   Outside, I built a wrap-around deck that would fit a picnic table.  Cabin #4, because of its size and layout is now our most rented cabin. 

The fun part for me in this cabin is the 50 year span.  Built in 1948 by my grandpa and then remodeled by me in 1998. I attempted to meld the 1948 portion to the new wing so there was a seamless transition of logs meeting stick construction and it seems to have worked. 

Best part is that it in 2014, it’s still standing and still level.  Numerous Northwind Lodge guests have stayed in this cabin and request it every year.

In remodeling the cabin, for lack of knowing what to do with it, I turned a bedroom window into a curio cabinet of sorts.   There was nothing in it but I figured people could use it for personal effects as there are never enough places to put stuff in small cabins in the woods.  This window shelf took on an interesting  twist as a lot of our guests began leaving notes and little ditties behind – mementos of remembrance for others to see.  Things they brought, bought, had, or wrote ended up behind the glass.  The oddest thing left in window-turned cabinet  was a couple of .357 caliber live rounds – hollow points, no less.  (I pulled those)  Meanwhile, the figurines change all by themselves as I believe they come and go from year to year.

Cabin 4 was remodeled to accommodate our winter cross country ski business back in the day when we cut, maintained and groomed about 15 mlies of ski trails.  I designed the wing to be able to accommodate a  wood stove as all our winter cabins needed the extra heat.  The first year with brand new carpeting, a guy and his wife stayed there for a weekend. On Sunday, after he checked out at 8 AM and went skiing on the trails for few more clicks before they left, he told me he cleaned out the wood stove.  Years of experience taught us to NEVER allow any guests to clean out a woodstove, ever so other than a poker, there were no shovels or fireplace tools available.  He casually said as a parting thought that he put all the ashes from the woodstove in a Zup's paper grocery bag and set it on the floor by the door before they went skiing.  His car didn't make it out of the yard before I made it to Cabin 4 on foot.  When I got there, I picked up the bag and the hot coals burned right through the paper and landed in a pile where the bottom of the bag was.  It only burned a 6" X 8" hole through the brand new carpeting into the subfloor.  Fortunately, the bag didn't flare up and light the wall on fire and if nothing else cause a bunch of smoke damage.  A lifetime of moments like these has developed my more cynical side about people, I must say. 

Cabin 4’s popularity with two double beds and one twin bed in two bedrooms,  makes it a little harder to reserve but if your schedule is flexible, there are plenty of openings in the early/later parts of summer.   June is a nice month for those seeking cooler temps, high water, and really blue skies.  The fishing’s pretty good then as well for primarily bigger largemouth and small mouth bass along with ferocious northern pike and the occasional walleye.  June is also a good month for spotting moose both on Jasper Lake and along the Fernberg road on your way out to Northwind Lodge.  We've had a cow and calf spotted on Jasper and down the road from us in Fall 2013.  There are not a lot of them, but they are here.   Mid-August and later see less people and very temperate days.  The fish will be biting then, too.  But you’ll see lots of sunnies and bass with more developed weed beds than in June.  

Late in the season in 2013, we added new mattresses to Cabin 4.  Nothing is more popular than sleeping  on a comfy bed next to Jasper Creek.   Cabins 2, 6, 4, 3, and 8 all hear Jasper Creek as it pours ts way through the resort property.  We are always amused buy our new lodge guests who over-sleep and wake up all confused.  Most think that it’s raining outside so they roll over and go back to sleep.  When they finally crawl out of bed and are greeted by sunshine and blue skies, it dawns on them that they were duped.  With the exception of one woman who asked my mom years ago if we could turn the water off at night (we really can’t), everyone seems to take the authentic white noise in stride.  It is one of the most beautiful sound barriers that exists and you can only find one at Northwind Lodge.  Our water fall is perhaps the most photographed set of falls in the region.  

Staying at Northwind Lodge is not just a place to sleep, it’s more of an experience that can’t be found on any electronic gadget.  To live next to the creek on Jasper Lake for a week is an experience that few have ever had.   It does not exist at any other resort in the Ely area.  Our lodge guests have loved, enjoyed and daydreamed alongside Jasper Creek forever. 

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