For Your Information

Those of you in the Twin Cities (and perhaps elsewhere) may have seen that there was an evacuation on the Gunflint Trail today due to a forest fire. This is true, however, we anticipate that it will be very short lived. Here is the story:

Due to lightening last week, a forest fire was started at Famine Lake which is just north of Winchell Lake in the BWCAW. Up until yesterday it was not doing too much. Yesterday the afternoon the south wind came up and the fire started to run north. It came about 2 miles north. The south wind came up again this morning.

At about 1:00 p.m. today the decision was made by the local sheriff, Mark Falk, to have a voluntary evacuation. As a very conservative precautionary measure we decided to evacuate all our guests. However, Bruce, Lee, Eva, and I are staying home tonight. Also most of our staff decided to stay even though they had the option of leaving.

Tonight the winds have died down. The pilots of the USFS planes acting as fire spotters land at our dock. As a result we sometimes know what is going on before anyone else. Right now the fire is 4 1/2 miles away from the Gunflint Trail. Tomorrow our weather forecast is for cooler temperatures and possibly rain if not tomorrow, then Sunday. Everyone we have talked with in the USFS anticipates that this fire will die down dramatically tomorrow. Also we know that there are several swampy places in between us and it.

As it now stands, we think tomorrow Gunflint Lodge will be up and running as usual. One of our groups who left (40 women from Eau Claire, WI) have aleady called us to say that they will be back tomorrow night. We still have lots of fall color and Indian summer weather to offer guests coming our way.