A New Adventure

It’s the beginning of the year and I have started a new adventure. Sometime during the summer Bruce went on Facebook. As part of his page he opened a page for “Gunflint Lodge in northern Minnesota.” Then he let it sit there. So now I have gotten into the page as an administrator and will be trying to write short whatevers regularly. It is going to be most interesting. If you wish, look for the page in the quotes above otherwise you just get Wikipedia’s listing or so I have been told. Meanwhile, I will be continuing to also write this blog. We are all going to find out together how much stuff I can come up with and if it is interesting.

All of this writing would be much more interesting if you would share your stories of Gunflint with me. We all know that I have a lot of hot air for stories in me but you must also have some good stories to share. Don’t you get tired of just listening to me? I get very few responses to my blog and people who may know more than I do say that I should promote discussions -- who knows. Sometimes I feel like I am writing for the blue skies. Bruce says that his statistics show that about 100 of you check in on any given day. I have no idea if that is good or bad.

Meanwhile the lodge is busy this week. Our ski trails are in excellent condition. We have enough snow that today South Rim and Magnetic Rock were track set. People are out exploring. Unlike many early Januarys, we have not had the bitter cold weather. It makes everyone willing to go out a bit more. Adam and his dogs have been particularly busy with rides. People seem to like the shorter 15 and 30 minute jaunts into the woods.

There have also been people out on snowmobiles. Of course, they are on separate trails from the ski trails. The most interesting story came from a family who rented one of our machines and had some of their own. They crested a hill and found a pack of six wolves right in front of them! Five of the wolves immediately took off but the sixth one was not the least bit intimidated by the snowmobilers. He just sauntered off at a leisurely pace.

It reminds me of the story Bruce tells about trapping minnows. As you may know, Bruce traps all the minnows for the lodge. I am sure we could buy them but he likes being out in the woods. Bruce is not much on just taking a walk. He needs a job in the woods. At any rate one day he was driving over to some of his traps on Kings Road. Around the corner were two huge, black wolves who just looked at him. Bruce said that it was one of the few times when he was glad he was in a vehicle.

Another current story I posted on Facebook (I think it may have gone away into cyberspace.) was about several sightings of lynx that guests have had around the lodge and the back side road. I have lived here 42 years and have never seen a lynx but we had about three parties who saw one over the holidays. It will be fun to see if guests continue to spot this lynx.

As with all animal sightings, it is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. In other words – luck.