Trail Time – Where Neighbors Are Heroes
Last week the Gunflint Trail was hit by straight line winds or a small tornado — I’ll let the experts debate about that. What there’s no debate about is the fact that the wind caused many acres of downed trees in the Gunflint Trail area and in the Boundary Waters and made life difficult and dangerous for many people. I’m going to tell you just one story about one of the places that were affected by the storm. There are other places and other stories, all about the people of the Gunflint Trail, my neighbors, answering every call to search, to rescue, and to help in whatever way they could.
Around 5 pm on Tuesday, June 18, the lake was calm at Loon Lake Lodge. At the west end of the bay, a couple in a canoe were fishing. Closer to the main lodge, bright green Adirondack chairs sat on the wooden docks of each log guest cabin. Blue and red canoes were in a line by the shore and the bright yellow lily pad floating island was moored to the big dock, as was a fishing boat and a pontoon. Andrea Hofeldt, who owns the lodge with her husband Derek, was in the main lodge, minding the gift shop and the front desk while Derek and their three boys, Dax, Otis and Niles, were cooking a special dinner up the hill in their log home.
The fishing duo got off the water when it started to rain. Just seconds after they got back to the lodge, the heavy wood Adirondack chairs started flipping into the water from the force of a sudden wind. The wind had come out of nowhere, pushing grown trees so that they were lying on their sides. By now it was raining, hard.
Inside the main lodge, the wind caused the skylight glass to blow out. Rain started pouring in from the ceiling onto the gift shop merchandise below. Andrea rushed to move books and gifts, then ran to the laundry room and kitchen to grab every towel and bowl to mop up or contain the water. That’s when the windows flew open on the other side of the lodge, and rain started blowing in on that side.
As Andrea hurriedly closed and latched the windows looking onto the lake, she saw a waterspout hovering above the water, and like a small tornado, it whipped the floating island up into the air. The big piece of foam stayed attached to the dock, but maybe it would have been better if it had got away — tethered, it smashed into the canopy of the pontoon over and over again, destroying the metal struts and the canopy. Three canoes lifted ten feet into the air and started twirling around. One canoe got lodged under the main dock. Another crashed into the boat house and the third canoe smashed into a nearby telephone pole. The long floating wooden dock is attached to a very heavy crib dock filled with boulders, and that was moved six inches by the force of the wind. And the rain still poured down.
Then the power went out. Guests left their cabins and started arriving at the main lodge building asking if Andrea had noticed the power was out. Um, yes, she had and then the guests started helping mop up puddles from the rain inside the lodge.
Up the hill at their house, Derek and the kids were right in the middle of putting batter on chicken when the lights went out. No power means no water, and there were four sets of sticky hands to wash. With that taken care of, and with the boys down at the main lodge, Derek grabbed his chainsaw, got in his truck and headed down Loon Lake Road to clear the fallen trees. From what he could see, he expected to clear maybe two or three trees. He cleared nineteen downed trees in about half a mile. Some of the affected trees were old growth pines and ancient cedars; if you love the woods, this part is especially heartbreaking. Derek was aware that a neighbor of his needed access for medical reasons, so he cleared the road as best and as quickly as he could, cutting the trees just at the edge of the road and leaving the rest for later. Lodge guests helped remove the brush as Derek kept his chainsaw going. Some of the biggest downed trees were at the Crab Lake Trailhead. Further on, a privately-owned cabin and car had been struck by falling trees. The rain was still pouring and now the lightning and thunder began.
Andrea was getting nervous about Derek being gone so long, so a guest offered to drive his car to look for him, but came back when he saw what he thought were electrical lines down on the road. By now most of the guests were in the main lodge seeking safety and comfort. It was a frightening storm. Candles and flashlights illuminated the big main room, but the children, both resident and guest, found enough darkened corners to play hide-and-seek, wonderfully oblivious to the danger outside. Derek safely returned to the lodge.
All the cabins at the lodge were without power, so Andrea and Derek started regularly supplying the guest cabins with “provisions” meaning flashlights, candles, drinking water, and five-gallon buckets of water to flush the toilets.
The next day, Wednesday, Arrowhead power company showed up to fix the power line and erect new utility poles — four poles had snapped due to the extreme wind. So there was a ton of traffic and big, big trucks on the usually quiet Loon Lake Road. Every chainsaw in the area was roaring. The whole community came out to help, guests as well as residents. At one point Derek called all the kids into the lodge and announced, “Free ice cream sandwiches for everybody!” Then, after looking into the freezer, he quickly slammed the door on the melting mess inside, “No ice cream sandwiches today!”
A lot of refrigerated food ended up in the dumpster, not just the chocolate chip cookie ice-cream sandwiches. When the lodge ran out of ice, Andrea called Shari Baker at Gunflint Pines over on Gunflint Lake. Shari supplied ice and made her laundry facilities available (think of all those towels used for cleanup plus all the guest bedding). “I want to be here for you,” Shari said. Electricity was restored Wednesday night, on Juneteenth, a federal holiday, after 28 hours without power.
But before the electricity came back on, a man showed up to ask if someone could help him tow his stuck mini van out of a muddy ditch on the snowmobile trail. His clothes were covered in mud. He had been stuck for four days and had given up trying to extricate himself. Derek and he got into Derek’s truck and went to scope out the circumstances, and see if the truck could even drive to the minivan. The snowmobile trail is not built for ordinary traffic, but for snowmobiles and dogsleds. On snow. In the winter. On a day when Derek had a pretty full plate, he towed the mini-van back to the Gunflint Trail and wished the stranger well.
Thursday was a quieter day until another man walked into the lodge and asked if Andrea had seen two teenage boys. They had been hiking to Bridal Falls with two adults but had separated from the group on the way back and were presumed lost. One of the adults was driving up and down the road, looking and calling for them. Andrea called 911 and a search-and-rescue began about 3 pm. A float plane landed on the water for the search and rescue and a big food truck showed up to supply the lodge with food to fill the freezers now the power was back on. Michael Valentini of the Gunflint Volunteer Fire Department showed up to help with the rescue, and assured Andrea that this storm was nothing compared to the blowdown of 1999. “This was like the blink of an eye,” he said. This was the second search and rescue in two days for the Gunflint Volunteer Fire Department.
About 5:30 pm Thursday, as Andrea was preparing to welcome new guests, the news came over the emergency radio that the teenagers had been found. They had made the excellent decision to go back to Bridal Falls and wait there for help. Smart kids! The incredibly relieved reunited family returned to Loon Lake Lodge. Andrea had promised them chocolate chip cookie ice-cream sandwiches to celebrate. She had made them fresh that day with the new food supplies.
— Marcia Roepke
