Arrowhead RV Resort, Ely, Minnesota
Today was “Let’s check out the town” day. They have this ‘brochure’ that’s an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper that’s printed on both sides with the teeniest, tiniest print you can imagine. It’s called . . . you guessed it, 100+ Things To Do.
And you’re in luck! We didn’t do all of them, but over the past few days, we knocked out a few. Today, we specifically did a few more.
Like visiting the Post Office to check out the murals. We were surprised to find not only an old Post Office building, but the murals (which look brand new) were done in 1938! I’ll let you read about them for yourself.
Then we went in search of “Explore the islands across the wooden bridge at Semers Park”. It took some doing, but we eventually found it. It’s more than just islands and a park – it’s also a swim park, and quite a few were taking advantage of it!
These things were really neat!
They roll them out on the water and then run and jump on, or dive off of them.
No idea on the weight limit.
The bridge to the island.
It’s good I’d actually seen it from the road, otherwise, I’m not sure we’da found it!
View from the island
This seaplane was on the other side of the bridge.
Blaine really wants to ride in one of these!
Then there was the Dorothy Molter Memorial Museum.
That flower bed is an old boat.
This map shows where she had to travel to get her supplies.
She had trained as a registered nurse and until visiting the area once with family, she’d never been outside of the city before. She fell in love with the place and eventually, the lifestyle.
Believe it or not, Dorothy would stuff two of these with about 50# of supplies, and then carry them – one in front and one in back. Sometimes while portaging her canoe as well! Ugh!!
Known as ‘the root beer lady’, she was the last non-indigenous resident of the Boundary Waters Area. The US government decided that the boundary waters area needed to be preserved, so they made it part of the US Forest Service. I don’t remember when, but it was before 1948, because in 1948 a man named Bill, got sick and eventually died. As a registered nurse hired years previously to watch over and care for him, she lived on the property, eventually running his resort business for him and doing practically everything that needed doing.
This is Bill and his dog, Nebs.
Unbeknownst to the Forest Service, who as you can see by the letter I photographed, was quite eager to get their hands on this property, Bill had left the whole of his property and possessions to Dorothy. By now, she loved living here and refused to give it up, however she did put an end to the resort. It was just too much work for one person.
Dorothy fought with the USFS for a long time before finally being permitted to stay until her death. That didn’t happen until 1986. : )
Although, as you can see by the Saturday Evening Post article, they gave her the title of “loneliest woman in America”, she had visitors constantly – most notably Julia Roberts! – who stopped by with a canoe group when she was just 16 years old. She was far from lonely.
In an effort to reuse everything, she had a bunch of broken paddles that people had left behind, so she decided to mend her fence with them.
Shortly after, the visitors began bringing painted ones with their names on them, until she had more fencing than she needed. : )
The Memorial staff, brought all the paddles here and put them back up.
She used to serve her guests pop when they came to visit, but when the Forest Service banned air and motorized vehicles, it made toting the heavy bottles impossible. She was only 30 miles from “civilization”, but without motors, it was really difficult to transport anything – especially in the winter. One day, she ran across all those empty bottles and when thinking about how to reuse them (she redid or reused everything!), she came upon the idea to make her own root beer. And so she did. And it got to be so popular, she’d make about 10,000 bottles every year! I think it was root beer extract, yeast and Knife Lake water. But now, the Memorial place has a local bottling company make it for them, and of course we had to buy one. $2.50 per bottle, but it was really good! And all proceeds go to the Memorial.
She had several quotes that they made into tee-shirts and other souveniors. One that took me a minute to get was “Kwitcherbeliaken”. Think about it for a bit. I have every confidence you’ll figure it out. 😊
Dorothy never married and when asked why, “When I find a man who can chop more wood, portage heavier loads or catch more fish . . . I’ll marry him.” After 56 years of living on Knife Lake, I guess she never did. 😊
Incredible!
When she died in 1986, so many people loved her that they began the process of memorializing her. They dismantled her cabin as well as another one on the property and brought them here to Ely. And not only her cabin, but all the things that were inside it, too!
Beautiful!
Picture of Dorothy in her kitchen
The Memorial kitchen
HaHa!
The Point Cabin
Must have been short people back then!
Isn’t that gorgeous?!?!?
Her cabin from the back yard.
It would seem that someone stealthily left these two snowmobiles on the property at some point.
She was an incredibly strong, resilient, creative, kind woman! Great museum stop!
Because it was a slower day, and we’d had a hankering for it for quite some time, I made fried rice for dinner. My Okinawan aunt taught me how many years ago. The only change I made, was adding Spam since I have no way of making her ‘signature dish’, Geosa around here. There are no wonton wrappers and no Chinese cabbage. ☹ It was still really delicious, though! And we also had some Nick Anthe’s Kidney Bean Salad! I put the salad recipe at the end, if you want to try it. There is no recipe for the rice, except to cook rice, sauté a variety of vegetables and garlic, add soy sauce, and mix it all together. That’s it. 😊
After dinner tonight was another walk towards town. We went for Lemon Custard tonight, which was terrific! But we still had one more stop to make. We hadn’t found the ‘Pillow Rock’ yet. It’s supposed to be this rare, ancient, green rock formation and it was on our way home (a different route). We found it! In kind of an unusual place, but there it was. And as you can see, I still had most of my cone to keep me occupied for the rest of the walk home. Maybe Blaine should feed me when he wants to walk after dinner – you know, like the dog chasing the rabbit in the race, or dangling a carrot in front of the horse. . . .
KIDNEY BEAN SALAD (Nick Anthe’s famous recipe)
3 cans (14 oz.) red kidney beans
¾ C. diced celery
¾ C. diced spanish onion
1 C. diced sweet pickles
½ t. salt
1 t. white pepper
¼ C. Helmann’s mayonnaise
¼ C. Miracle Whip
2 ½ T. sweet pickle juice
Rinse kidney beans thoroughly and drain very well. Mix with all other ingredients. Chill.
Serves 10
HINT: This kidney bean salad was an Anthe’s staple in Akron. People would go just for the salad! They agreed to put the recipe in the paper years ago, and even though I couldn’t find tiny beans like they use, it still has the same flavor. Yumm!!