Growing Up on an Ely, Minnesota Resort

Jasper Lake from the beach at Northwind Lodge, Ely, MN

Welcome!  This is my blog about "living the life" of an Ely, Minnesota resort owner/operator.   As stories about Northwind Lodge and the resort business pop up from years past up to present day, I will post them here.  Some may be interesting, some are scary, and hopefully, you'll find many of them fun.  My usual style has no particular rhythm to it, so this will be a wide and scattered variety covering all the topics that we encounter while living on and operating Northwind Lodge, located 15 miles northeast of Ely, MN on the Fernberg Road.  We're five miles from the end of the road and surrounded by the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to the north, south and east.

Northwind Lodge has been in the family since 1939 and has operated continuously as licensed resort sisnce 1939.  This blog begins a tribute to our past 70 years of continuous operation under the same family for now three generations.  Northwind Lodge is the "last of the Mohicans" in Ely, Minnesota.  We are the longest operating resort under one family's ownership having never been sold since Grandpa Frank Baltich built the first trapping shack tucked in the side of a hill  overlooking Jasper Lake.

In this blog, I will eventually describe our cabins, post videos, and give you a feel for what it is like owning and operating a family vacation resort in northern Minnesota.  After pretty much spending my entire life here and growing up in the woods, the resort life in Ely, MN is more of a life-style than a living.  It's a lot of work, has some entertaining moments, and requires a fairly broad skill set over a wide range of topics.  Read on if you are so inclined. Thanks!