Trail Time – Marcia Roepke
The Gunflint Trail is a special place and it’s not easy to explain how and why it is so unique without sounding hackneyed or boosterish. I mean, hasn’t everything been said about the mystery, the beauty, the stillness, the grandeur of this place, these deep woods and waters at the boreal edge of our nation?
The answer is no, for the simple fact that each person experiences this place on both an individual and a corporate level. I don’t mean corporate like a big company with suits and offices. I mean we experience it together as a community, like when we came together last week to honor the people of the Trail who had died this past calendar year — people who lived here their whole lives, people that moved here and those that come back year after year after year because of what this place does to our minds and our souls and our bodies. We acknowledged those who have died in two parts: the first was at the July membership meeting of the Gunflint Historical Society. The second was at a memorial gathering in honor of Bruce Kerfoot, son of Justine Kerfoot, who, along with her parents, bought and ran the lodge through the early years of the 20th century.
At the Schaap community center, thirty-one people were acknowledged by Barb Botger, a Trail resident and a person who feels called to facilitate sacred spaces. She read about each person from obituaries and notes from loved ones of the deceased. Thirty-one times the singing bowl rang out its round clear tone as we silently honored those of us who have gone before who cherished this place. If you also share that love, then you have a special bond with everyone else who does or has, now and forever.
I didn’t know Bruce Kerfoot well, but I know enough to recognize the huge hole he has left behind. He was well-known for helping others and for lending a hand (he helped Lars and I build an addition to our 600 square foot cabin; thereby increasing its size to a spacious 800 ft!) He was also part of the Sawdust Seniors, a group of strong and handsome men who build anything the Historical Society asks them to build. Bruce and his wife Sue ran the Gunflint Lodge for decades, adding electricity, then indoor bathrooms and kitchens and saunas before letting a new generation take the baton. The good he did for others besides running a lodge lives on in the memories of all the residents, visitors and lodge owners — large and small — he helped over the years. He will be greatly missed.
As one era ends, another begins on the Trail with two new additions. The first is Luke and Sean Woods business, Woods Brothers Property Services. They live in a family cabin that has come down through the generations. It is a replica of famed Sigurd Olson’s cabin except that it has a bathroom addition that the family calls the Kerfoot addition, because it was Bruce Kerfoot who insisted that the Woods boys’ grandmother had gone long enough without a bathroom.
The second new addition to the Trail is the Big Back Eats food truck at Trail Center Lodge, run by Sarah Hamilton and the Oglalas. It opened last week (the pork belly spicy noodle bowl was amazing) and will be open Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the restaurant is closed. You can check out the food truck menu on Trail Center’s Facebook page. Diners can eat inside if it’s raining.
Which it seems to be, most of the time lately. Raining, I mean. Believe me when I say I am so not worried about wild fires right now. I am more worried about the woods closing in around my cabin more and more each day. The lush growth is phenomenal this year. The lakes and rivers are full. Some trees appear to have already doubled in size and it’s just July.
I rarely report about town matters, but after all, the Gunflint Trail begins in Grand Marais. Last week an art show opened at Johnsons Heritage Post with work from The North Shore Artist’s League. It’s a really full show with fabulous works, some from renowned Gunflint Trail artists like Kim Dayton, René Zweifel Block, Nancy Seton, Kris Kiefer as well as Howard and Bonnie Gay Hedstrom. Full disclosure: The show also includes a few works by me.
On the day we brought our artwork to town, we saw a woman standing on the side of the street pointing a car, calling to us “There’s a goose in the van! There’s a goose inside that van!” And indeed there was — a full grown Canada Goose right there in the passenger seat. The windows were almost closed and he pecked the glass soundly as I stood there grinning at him. How did the goose get in there? The owner of the van then appeared and solved the riddle for us. They met at a campground when “Pooper,” as he is known, was a tiny gosling with no mama goose in sight. They have been traveling together since. Apparently the goose is in a delicate stage of molting and has to be confined for his own safety while he remains incapable of flying.
I’m so glad I live here.
— Marcia Roepke
