Category: Life at Tuscarora Lodge

It’s Halloween and as seems apt, this morning dawns dark and misty, with a mild threat of snow.

It doesn’t always snow up here on Halloween, but it’s a frequent enough occurrence that when we woke up to a good inch of wet snow on Thursday morning, I hummed “It’s beginning to look a lot like . . . Halloween” to myself and got on with my day.

It’s little wonder that I associate Halloween with snow. When I was six years old, the Halloween blizzard of ’91 dumped two + feet of snow over Minnesota and completely shut down my trick-or-treating plans. Although the Halloween blizzard was definitely an anomaly, with an average temperature of 39 degrees in Grand Marais and along the Gunflint Trail on October 31st, there’s an omnipresent threat of “inclement weather” each Halloween in the Northwoods.

Much to my parents’ amusement (bemusement?), I spent much of my trick-or-treating years steadfastly refusing to believe that the weather would be cold for Halloween. Yet each year, it was down to the low 30s, if not upper 20s, by the time we were out masquerading for candy on the dark streets of west Grand Marais. This was a problem, since I insisted on such practical Northwoods costumes as . . . hulu dancer or . . . ballerina. In turn, my parents insisted we bundle up for trick-or-treating. (I guess they figured if they were going to end up with tired, cranky, sugar-high children by the end of trick-or-treating, they could at least avoid cold, frostbitten children.)

When you’re dressed as a ballerina, you can’t really pull your tights over your snow pants. A bulky jacket covers up all of your leotard and is long enough that it pretty well disguises the frilly tutu you’ve managed to squeeze up and over your snow pants. By the time I was dressed for trick-or-treating, my tutu just barely visible, I looked like the kid who couldn’t bother to get a costume together and is just looking for free candy. I met with many a raised eyebrow when I knocked on homeowners’ doors – a candy bag in one hand, an orange cardboard UNICEF box in the other – snowflakes settling softly on the top of my stocking cap. “So . . .,” they said. “What are you dressed up as?”

By age 10, I’d given up. My Pierrot costume pictured above could easily accommodate a full snowsuit underneath. Unfortunately, in 1995, when you told your friends that you were going as Pierrot for Halloween, they expected me to arrive for trick-or-treating dressed as Ross Perot. So much for doing away with costume confusion!

But from those chilly, snowy Halloweens, come some of my warmest childhood memories. Even as I carved our pumpkin this Halloween, I can still feel the weight of my UNICEF box growing heavier as we collected spare change along with treats. I can feel the cold nip of the breeze against our cheeks as we trooped up and down the streets and cut across frosty lawns. I can definitely remember the excitement of dumping out our bags of fun-sized candy on the living room floor when we got home. And every once in a while, I still find my mind wandering to the topic of snowsuit appropriate costumes.

I doubt we’ll have any trick-or-treaters tonight, but if we do, there’re some full-sized Snickers and Milky Ways in the pantry, left over from this past summer’s outfitting food.

Happy Halloween!

Robert Frost famously penned a poem proclaiming good fences to be good neighbors. But we don’t really “do” fences around these parts and the fences that we do have are usually attempts to keep rabbits and deer out of our veggie gardens.

We kind of think that Robert misspoke when he wrote that poem. Did he mean benches? We’re pretty sure that’s it. Benches. He meant benches all along!

Case in point – just a couple weeks back, we got a really good bench from a really good neighbor.

We’d noticed that bench on the office front porch had done its job well, but was ready for a replacement. Andy mentioned that maybe Bob Sr. over on Gunflint Lake could make a couple new benches for Tuscarora. Ada and Bob know each other pretty well from their time working for the Gunflint Trail Historical Society and Chik-Wauk Museum. (You might also have bumped into Bob if you’ve ever been down to Gunflint Pines.) In fact, you’ve probably seen some of Bob’s benches if you’ve ever stopped in at Chik-Wauk. But we weren’t really sure if Bob was still in the bench making business, so to speak, but figured, hey, it never hurts to ask.

When we floated the bench building project past Bob, he said, “Sure!” and called it a “win-win.” He got to use up some materials that had been clogging up the back of his workshop and we got a brand new bench.

We weren’t sure of Bob’s timeline with the bench project, but we figured he’d give us a call in the next few months when it was finished and we’d trundle down to Gunflint Lake to pick it up. But just 10 days or so after we’d initially asked, Bob and grandson came rolling up with a new bench in the back of the truck. Such service!

After spending a little time in the Tuscarora workshop getting varnished, the new bench is now ready to be enjoyed by you as you wait for the rest of your group to finish up in the office. It would also be a good place to have an ice cream or cold pop (or beer) at the end of your trip.

Thank you Bob for the beautiful bench and thank you for being such a good neighbor.

Jerry Vandiver, a good friend of Tuscarora and canoe country in general, will once again be in concert at Tuscarora Lodge and Canoe Outfitters. Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 8 at 7:30 p.m. when Jerry and a few Tuscarora crew members will tune up their guitars and fiddles for a night of paddle tunes.

Here’s Jerry and some friends when they stopped by the Visit Cook County booth at Canoecopia 2014 in Madison, WI. Ada and Andy happened to be staffing the booth that year and Jerry was kind enough to swing by for an impromptu concert.

Jerry’s an award-winning singer/songwriter based in Nashville. He scored a Billboard Top 5 single on Gene Watson’s “Don’t Waste It On The Blues,” a Top 20 on Wild Rose’s “Go Down Swingin’,” and #2 on Tim McGraw’s “For A Little While.” Jerry has songs on over 15 million records, two of which are hanging on the walls of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

His collection of paddle inspired songs, True and Deep is a available in the Tuscarora trading post and we feel lucky that he’s made his August concert at Tuscarora a tradition. All are welcome to attend the August 8th concert. We hope to see you there!

We’re at that rare point in the summer; that point where all staff members for the season are here at Tuscarora.

In early May, the staff members started trickling in and now, with the arrival of our last housekeeper, Kenzie, in mid-July, all 11 staff members are finally together . . . at least for now. But in just a few days, the staff members will begin dispersing, heading back home to spend some time with family and friends before returning to college or their next adventure.

We knew it was now or never for getting the 2015 staff photo, so on Sunday afternoon, right after lunch, we trooped everyone out onto the outfitting office steps to sit in the midday sun on one of the hottest days in the last five years to smile pretty for the camera for a couple minutes.

2015 Tuscarora Staff
Front row (L-R): Sean, Liz, Dan, and Mack the Dog
2nd row (L-R): Jack, Kamille, Kenzie, and Mitch
3rd row (L-R): Frank, Shelby, Carter, and Emma
4th row (L-R): Ada and Andy

Special thanks to Andy Ahrendt for serving as this year’s staff photographer; we just wish he and Sue had hopped in the photo too.

We’re thankful for a lot of things this summer, but at the tippy top of the “things to be thankful” list is this year’s staff. Our hats go off to Andy and Sue for hiring such a smart, committed, and lovably goofy crew. We’ve so appreciated their willingness to tackle even the least glamorous of jobs and to step up when necessary to keep everything going swimmingly.

We hope if you’ve been up this summer that you’ve enjoyed their company as well. Maybe you had French toast served and/or prepared by Carter, Emma, Kamille, or Kenzie. Or you’ve been outfitted with paddles, lifejackets, and transported to your entry point by Dan, Frank, Jack, Mitch, or Sean. If you got camp food with us, your food pack was probably filled with smiley faces, compliments of Liz, the food packer. Behind the scenes, Shelby has kept the whole crew fed and happy in her role as crew cook/cheerleader.

It’s hard to imagine life at Tuscarora with this crew, but if we’re lucky, hopefully at least a few of them will return for a second season next year.