Scott: Resorts Of The Northwoods is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, from money by the vote of the people.

Minnesota resorts are unique.

Each offers its own special qualities, atmosphere, and even culture.

There's always been a tie for them to be here, if they come to the resort.

Either Uncle Charlie owned a cabin on the lake or Aunt Mabel lived in Pequot.

But there always seems to be some kind of family tie to the area that draws the people to begin with.

[ Scott: Each resort is as distinct from the next as the friendly, fun-loving people who own and operate them.]

We look at this whole land, not only our beautiful piece of property here, as sacred.

[ Scott: Resorting, as a Minnesota industry has evolved from early fire pit fishing camps to rustic cabins of the mid-twentieth century, to a vast range of amenities and activities available today.

Some luxurious, the others, most basic.]

I tell my staff, "Your only job is to see if people are enjoying themselves and to ask them 'How are things going?'

during their visit."

[ Scott: For generations of Americans, a summer vacation spent on the shores of a cool northern Minnesota lake has been an eagerly awaited respite from the rigors of their livelihood.]

We have I think...believe five generations that have been coming here for years and years and they come from all over the country.

They meet one another here at the same time.

[ Scott: The resort industry began before the invention of air conditioning.

as a way for people of the plains to leave their growing crops during the hottest weeks and recoup in a cool lake breeze through pines.]

Our cabins were considered ultra-modern; today they would be un-rentable because most of them did not have running water and ah, very primitive, very primitive.

[ Scott: The industry has experienced both ups and downs, growth and decline, as economic factors and people's recreational whims have changed over the decades.]

Forties and fifties is really the big heyday of resorts in ah, the Upper Midwest up here.

So, that's a typical thing for resorts in Minnesota.

We don't really know exactly how many resorts were around during that day and age.

I've been doing a little bit of research on that.

We do know that there were about 2,500 resorts in the state of Minnesota around 1970 and we know in this day, 2015, there are just a little over 800 now, in the state of Minnesota.

[ Scott: One thing remains the same, resorts continue to provide visitors the best Minnesota has to offer.

Come along with Lakeland Public Television, as we tour a small sampling but vast variety of Resorts Of The Northwoods.

We begin our tour at Pimushe Resort located deep in the wilderness east of Bemidji, Minnesota.

Pimushe, a classic, secluded resort with cabins beautifully maintained along an isolated lake is owned and operated by Ed and Joann Fussy.

I'm Ed Fussy, and we're at Pimushe Resort near Bemidji, Minnesota and got into the resort business in 1994.

I was a billing contractor prior to that and ah, decided to do something different and get ah...not have as many employees [ chuckles ] and still enjoy dealing with people and enjoy the outdoors.

Well the resort was started in 1946 right after the war and the original people that started it was Al and Lori Arndt.

They ran it for, I want to say, about 30 years.

And then they sold it to ah, Nick and Sally Neckolaishen and they had it three years.

The next owners were Tom and Bonnie Schwartzlander who had it for 15 years and we bought this resort in 1994.

So we're the fourth owners.

We'll start with our beach area which is a big draw for families and even if some of them don't have a family, they still like it.

Every year we try to add a new water toy.

This year, our new addition is the big free-fall aqua-glide slide.

It's been a big hit.

It definitely has looks bigger once you get out there so our guests say.

I don't know because I don't swim and I haven't been on it yet so [ water splashes ] Well we accumulated them over years and every year add something and as some of them wear out some go away but we've added to it and made it fun for the kids.

In today's electronic world you gotta have something other that they can come and enjoy other than sit on their electronics so.

[ laughing, water splashing ] And this year we also added some bicycles for our guests to use.

which has been a big hit with some of them and built a carpet ball this spring That's been a real big hit as well as we also have ladder golf and the bean bag toss.

We also have the volleyball, basketball court for those that want to be real ambitious on vacation.

And here we have our cabin 4, which is one of our bigger units.

It will sleep up to 21 people.

It's a four bedroom cabin and that cabin we built around, I think it was 2000.

Ed did up the plans, he sawed all the lumber for the cabins, made all the furniture and then I have made all the quilts for the beds.

Our cabins are a big attraction to the people.

We basically built them all from scratch, sawed the logs, milled the lumber, made the furniture, Joann made all the quilts and stuff for the bedding, so people really appreciate that, the unique portion of all the cabins, how unique they are.

Our dock system, Ed kind of designed those.

That took a little trial and error to get them just what he wanted.

They're a floating system that we pull into the bay each fall and then pull out again in the spring.

Two cabins share one dock so there's like four spaces on each side so we always have ample dock space for boats and stuff for the guests if they bring their own or if they want to rent one of our deluxe boats or one of our three pontoons that we have.

Our resort is a little more set off the beaten path.

One of the things we hear from people how peaceful it is here.

It's a very undeveloped lake.

We have about 3,000 feet of lakeshore.

The bulk of that lakeshore we've kept kind of in the natural state.

A few years ago we purchased some wild flower seeds from the DNR that we put along this part.

Now we've kinda thinned them out a little bit and I threw in some perennials this year because it had gotten so tall that our guests couldn't see over them.

But we still basically kept it all natural with a little splash of some perennial flowers in there which attract butterflies is what we're trying to do.

We planted some milk weed seeds this spring with the hopes of kind of increasing the milk weed along the lakeshore.

But yet you know, even though we have an area for our beach we still feel it's important to keep the natural look of the lakeshore.

People like the lawn groomed but they like to be able to see the beauty of the natural flowers that the environment provides.

The only part that we have basically messed with is our beach area otherwise the rest of it is all natural with the exception of my perennials but... [ laughs ] At each one of our cabins we have a hummingbird feeder that I try to keep filled depending upon the season or the time.

Sometimes the birds are eating us out of house and home almost but the guests really like that cause for some they don't get that opportunity to see um, hummingbird feeders.

Each cabin comes with its own fire pit which gets used quite a bit throughout the summer This cabin we purchased after we bought the resort.

The owner of this one we had always told him when he got ready to sell that we'd be interested in buying it since our yards connected.

Um, and this one used to be a lake home during the summer months and then they went to Missouri during the winter.

This one's a three bedroom.

It's nice and private for those that still want to be on the resort but want to have some privacy.

If they don't mind the little bit of a hill, most of them like, like I said the privacy of it all.

Well we're kinda off the beaten path.

We're 20 minutes from Bemidji which makes everyone feel like they're away from all the busy rat race and life and yet they're only 20 minutes from all the amenities that we're spoiled with in Bemidji.

Being a college town has everything so the antiquing and gift shops and all of that stuff so they're not far away from it for those that don't want to leave it and the ones that want to stay isolated and outta touch, they can do that.

[ Scott: From the natural wilderness of Pimushe we continue our resort tour south to the Brainerd Lakes area at Cragun's Resort.

Owned and operated by Dutch and Irma Cragun, this is one of Minnesota's largest resorts.

In the summer of 2015, shortly before filming of this documentary many homes and businesses in the Brainerd area were struck by a derecho, a violent thunderstorm with powerful straight line winds.]

[ Reporter: The Brainerd Lakes Area is still reeling from last night's powerful storm.

Besides trees falling down, power lines took a hit too.]

[ Scott: The storm damage was being repaired as we filmed at Cragun's.

Dutch and Irma's resilience was evident.]

Well I'm Dutch Cragun and we're at Cragun's Resort in gorgeous East Gull Lake.

And I'm Irma Cragun and I'm joining my husband, Merrill Cragun on the shores of East Gull Lake.

Well going back a little bit of history, my father, in college, he had a good friend at the University of Minnesota in the Minnesota Daily, and they were both advertising pals.

So Jack Madden, his pal, had an interest in the Pine Beach Golf Course up here and his Uncle Tom was the owner.

Jack Madden, as he now owned the golf course, if he'd pay for it, enticed my father to buy some property which we now have as Cragun's but only seven acres and build some cabins to play golf on his course.

And ah, that was done by various means, where eight different families got eight different blue prints.

There were no big construction companies around here in those days and so the eight families made their own cabins and they were completed in 1940 and we opened in 1941.

So, next year is our 75th anniversary.

My name is Nancy Krasean, I'm the director of marketing for Cragun's Resorts.

This was the original building that was the first building that Cragun's built when they moved up here in 1940.

Dutch's father, Merrill Cragun, his mother, Louise, they built this first building to accommodate their first guests.

1941 my dad signed the mortgage at the Citizens State Bank in Brainerd on December 6th.

And guess what happened on December 7th?

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

So, that was my early career.

I was eight years old and my dad said my job now is to run the worms, minnows, and frogs bait department and that I did, through the war.

The wartime was a real challenge because ah, there was a fear that people wouldn't take a vacation at all.

And gas was rationing, so was ah, tires and with a B-Card "B" as in boy, you could make up to Brainerd and back with ah, the ration for that week.

So, we looked out further north from Nisswa on up to Bemidji was beyond that B-Card.

Well um, everything was rationed, including gasoline.

And so if you had a B-Card, that was a little bit more than the A-Card and the B-Card meant about 10 gallons of gas a week.

So, if you were able to save up a little bit, you could leave the "Sin Twities" [ cymbals crash ] accept the pun, take the car up and coast down hill [ chuckles ] and, by the way, the only two routes were around Lake Mille Lacs or up through Little Falls.

And so if you got here, I'd be...you spend about five gallons of gas, keep low speed, by the way they had the speed limit down to 40 so you wouldn't be using a lot of gas and you had enough to get to Brainerd, maybe to Nisswa, the North end of Gull Lake but then beyond that even up to Breezy Point and further north Bemidji, they were...it was out of range.

It was hard for them to make it there and back on that B-Card and so they really hurt.

People in the northern part of the state resorts really hurt and my dad having organized the Paul Bunyan Playground Association, then organized the Minnesota Resort Association.

Ah, with the resorts that already had joined and there were 23 of them and they took out an Ad in the Minneapolis paper which said "We're still running!"

Wasn't very big but it was the best they could do.

Well here in Pine Beach area there was a hotel that was built, there was the golf course, Ruttger's was...had a large property of 32 cabins, little old Cragun's had eight cabins.

Ah, down the way was Island View Lodge which had 18 cabins and a paved road!

And all of us were able to house about 250 people and we had one party line phone.

'Crank, crank!'

Ours was two long and two shorts.

And so everybody who came during the war wanted that party line phone to find out what's going on and you know they were taking turns "Get off the phone so I can make a call!"

[ Scott: With years of Dutch and Irma's work developing Cragun's the resort has grown as large as a small town.

Nancy uses a golf cart to conduct our tour.]

So these cabins were some of the first structures they built out of the side of the main resort building.

So these little cabins and you can see the wood burning fireplaces were a very important part of a lot of the early structures because they always wanted to go year round, open all four seasons and we are open all four seasons, have been from the beginning.

Well we had eight cabins through the war and they were all housekeeping and right after the war then Jack Madden, my dad's pal, had the golf course and decided to go into the resort business.

And so he opened what's called an "American Plan Resort" where you have all your meals served, all three.

And so he quickly built a larger resort well then us as a matter of fact.

And so my dad also took courage from that, so he started serving meals, added four more cabins.

I joined the Army after college, went to Europe, stayed over there a year and my dad offered the resort to me to buy or he's gonna sell.

And it was some tough decisions to make because I was in Berlin after the war and I was going to school there and I had the G.I.

Bill and he called me up and said "How would you like to run a 12 cabin resort?"

I said "Are you making any money from that 12 cabin resort?

Are you earning a living?"

He said "No that's why I'm selling it.

Do you want to run it?"

[ chuckles ] I said "Well I'm thinking dad, I'm thinking, just a minute."

So finally I came back and for two or three years I tried to build it up a little bit, had another cabin, a couple, three cabins more.

But then one winter I had to be working somewhere in winters to survive, I was in San Francisco and I went to a dance hall, the Avalon Ballroom, and there was a cute little cookie from Canada, a nurse, and I asked her for a dance.

[ That part's true.]

And that's the story of Cragun's.

[ chuckles ] Now we're the largest resort in Minnesota, 305 rooms.

And otherwise except for her there'd still be 15 cabins.

In a nutshell, that's the story.

He makes it sound like I was the carpenter.

[ laughing ] I did help them, but I wasn't in charge.

This is where Dutch and Irma lived.

They've lived on property for 50 years and have last couple of years now they live off property, this house kinda took a hit from the most recent storms so we're just in the process of getting it back together again.

And it'll be a rental unit now but they lived on property so they were very handy for any time there was a problem at the resort or they somebody needed something.

Probably too handy [ chuckles ] it certainly became their life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week but they enjoyed it.

That was the life they made for themselves.

I didn't think about "Well someday we're gonna be bigger."

You just did it!

And so in the winters it would be the time to add on, paint, then we built the lodge and changed it around and well I was painting and sewing curtains and doing all the things that the wives had to do.

We are heading down the beach road.

We're going to the marina area of the resort.

[ Scott: What a beautiful lake.]

It is a lovely lake.

We're coming up on the north beach area.

This is where we do weddings.

Everybody wants to have an outdoor wedding by the lake so surprisingly this year other than our storm weekend um, the weather cooperated for our weddings and I don't think they had to bring any of them inside.

So, we always have a bad weather backup just in case.

But um, this is where the weddings are held under the willow trees.

So, it's a, it's a lovely facility on the lake.

[ excited whooing ] [ excited whooing ] I give a litany every week.

We welcome guests and when I do I tell them "We're having music, we're gonna have a fishing clinic, we're gonna be having bingo at 8 o'clock, we're gonna have a bonfire right after that we're gonna roast marshmallows and that's just sunday.

Now look at the plan for...we got for ya to do Monday."

Our success I think is that there's so much to do that they can't get it all done in a couple days, they gotta stay longer and come back.

So we're coming up on the marina area and this is where our guests come to rent pontoon boats, work with fishing guides, speed boats, paddle boats, the hydro bikes.

The canoes and row boats are free for our guests to use.

On a busy summer weekend you'll see most of these pontoons out and about on Gull Lake fishing or just having fun in the sun In the winter time this whole area is a skating rink.

So, we have a huge lighted skating rink that gets very well used.

Our recreation program has snow bowling and different events that take place on the ice and then we have hockey and broom ball and that's out there if they want to play that.

Cross country skiing, snowshoeing.

Um, all of that is...surprising the number of people that want to be out and playing and having fun in the snow.

As much as people that want to be out here in the summer time.

But those first years we didn't have the money to finish the deck or the area below it, so we said we got the world's largest snowmobile garage.

It was just a big empty space.

But that was a big turning point in our decision to ah make a professional year round resort.

And to have people who were committed to serving year round.

Instead of just summer students who would be here and go.

These are folks that had really made our place, I think, a fun spot for families.

[ water splashing ] [ Scott: From the highly developed Cragun's we head back up north to the Big Winnie RV Park and Campground.

A resort in the heart of the Leech Lake Nation.

We meet with Arnold Dahl-Wooley, a 5th generation owner/operator with knowledge of an amazing history of his resort and the area.]

Well, my name is Arnold Dahl-Wooley, I am the 5th generation to own the Big Winnie Store RV Park and Campground located in Bena, Minnesota.

The history of this resort and campground kind of stems back from 1932.

My great-great grandfather, Ernest Flemming, had this place built, developed and this became a trading post and also a tourist attraction for many people from all the different areas.

In the history terms of the Big Winnie Store RV Park and Campground this is located in the center of Leech Lake Indian Reservation and this was the beacon store and resort in the area.

There were 30-some cabins that used to surround the area and a lot of people came here for living purposes working purposes and also employment.

Ernest Flemming actually, his first wife was a full native woman by the name of Julia.

And that would be my great-great grand...or great-great grandmother.

And they're the ones who had this built, developed, and they wanted to make sure it was near the railroad.

Cause back in the 30's the railroad meant business.

That's where all the shipments it would come in on people were transported on and went to their daily lives and homes and work and etcetera.

And lakeshore actually wasn't very popular land back in the day.

So, in 1932 we did own the lakeshore, but that was later on sold because it was considered not profitable back in 1932.

Which vice versa, you would want it to be on lakeshore today.

But we are close to the lake of Lake Winnibigoshish which is one of the larger fishing lakes in the state of Minnesota.

Throughout history after Ernest Flemming it passed down to his daughter then his adopted daughter which was Katherine Kagly.

And I knew her as mum.

And right now I currently live in her house.

Cause their house was built on the grounds on the property which is just a little ways away from the resort itself.

And ah, she was a wonderful woman.

She lived to be 94.

And ah, but then the resort was passed down to her daughter, which was Marguerite.

And Margurite met my grandfather, Arnold Dahl whom I'm named after.

And he was from North Dakota.

And so, it was sold outside the family actually for a short period of time and that's when it took a nose dive a little bit.

And that was, it was pretty well documented that a resort was in disrepair for a period of time.

And that's when my father got it.

And so he started restoring the building and restoring, ah, certain areas of the land itself.

And then, it came down to me.

My great-great grandfather, Ernest Flemming, the one who had this place built and there's an interview that he had done years ago and I got to read it.

And it talked about him living in the area here and also about how he worked with the Native American people for employment cause he used to get pelts, ah, furs and do an exchange.

Also give them employment to people of different cultures and races and so forth.

And I kind of see things emanating today even of what it used to be back then, that's what's kind of happening today even.

And so things kind of made full circle on that issue.

And then, mum that would be Katherine Kagly which was my great grandmother, who's home I live in right now.

There's a great picture of her in the 20's wearing her native regalia standing next to a tree.

And that's one of my favorite pictures of her cause she's smiling and she was very happy.

And I only knew her as an elderly woman.

But to see her in her youth and knowing that she used to run around in this place and play and it kind of connects me with the history of the place here still because I knew her personally and to see her in her youth, it was kind of a full circle thing for me and my memory and living her in her home.

We do have other pictures inside of the store and it shows the resort what it used to be back in the 30's, 40's and 50's.

And there used to be a lot of cabins here, a lot but a tornado had come through and it wiped out most of the cabins.

And so that was devastating during that time period.

Just for the loss of the structural buildings.

And so today you know, we had restored the original two which I was very happy to save and salvage those and bring them back to their original glory.

To go forward today on a different route which was we put an RV park in and expanded some of the rustic camping and that was for needs of today.

And as you can see, a lot of our customers personalize their own spot.

They always make, ah, bring in their own stuff and decks and so forth and flowers to make another home away from home.

The land that was sold by my great- great grandfather, Ernest Flemming, was sold for ah to the CCC Camp.

And that was a German prisoner of war camp.

And a lot of the local people in the town worked over there.

So we have pictures inside that show the barbers getting their hair cut.

The prisoners here were treated very well.

They were fed very well, they were taken care of very well and a lot of them came over to work on the grounds of this resort itself.

And the ruins are still there.

And we've actually had a few people that were very elderly come back to this area to visit.

And right now we're just right back down to the ruins of it.

Cause it's a part of the history and it's part of...part of Bena.

This camp was here and the employment that offered and this resort offered and then the local townspeople that are still alive, they're descendants of..of the people that used to be a part of that history.

One of the biggest draws for the Big Winnie Store RV Park and Campground is the historical landmark itself, is this...the appearance of the store, the red white and blue.

It...when you drive by you can't miss it, it's a very unique building.

And another draw that would be out here is we're surrounded by five different lakes.

So if you're hunter and fisherman, you can go out and fish all day if... you can try out different lakes.

The area is beautiful.

We're on the center of the reservation so there's all different kinds of experiences you can have.

You can go to powwows, meet the...have the Native American experience and culture and find out what it is to be Native American today.

And find out that there really isn't a lot of differences in between all of us.

Some other of the unique aspects of this area is we're on green routes.

And so we have people that are biking from all over the United States.

And so we're in the center of all of that.

And so this is one of their major stops.

So we'll meet people that are coming from Seattle traveling to New York.

And they'll come here specifically because of the historical aspect of this place.

The historical building and the area itself.

And also it's..it's right smack dab in the middle of...of where they need to go.

And so they're really appreciative of that.

The resorts in the area, when you're coming through a small rural town you don't realize that the population in the summer grows quite drastically.

Cause all the people that have their vacation homes or RV sites they come to this area so a small town of a few hundred can grow to a few thousand during the summer time.

And all of us are connected by four-wheeler trails, ATV trails hiking trails.

And so we're all interconnected in some form or fashion.

When you're in a rural area, all the resorts and supper clubs, we're all connected.

And we all rely on each other too, for different purposes and needs.

And this is the reason why a lot of our customers come from all around, is for Lake Winnibigoshish.

Lake Winnibigoshish is one of the largest lakes in the state of Minnesota.

The fishing's great here, the swimming is great.

Just the outdoor living aspect of Winnie itself.

It's a beautiful lake.

This is the place to come to.

Winnie is great for this is because there are sandbars so you can be way out there and the water will still be like waist high.

Parents used to say, "Come on in!

You're too far out!"

But the water was only here.

It's a beautiful lake, it's very peaceful, it's calming.

You can't ask for anything more.

[ Scott: Far across beautiful lake Winnibigoshish, from Mr.

Dahl-Wooley's resort is Bowen Lodge.

Owned and operated by Bill and Gail Heig, Bowen Lodge is perched high above the waves of Lake Winnie and a short walk to a smaller secluded water, Cut-Foot-Sioux Lake.]

Hi, I'm Gail Heig and I live at Bowen Lodge on Lake Winnibigoshish in northern Minnesota.

My husband Bill and I have been in the resort industry for 33 years.

We first came into the industry when my father-in-law bought the resort in 1982.

And we have been here ever since.

It is an awesome place and we're fortunate that we have so many people that come back year after year.

And it becomes a tradition in their families and...and...it these kids, look at them, they're riding their bikes for the first time without having their parents being right with them.

Parents say over and I've heard it many times, that this is the first time they can really ever let their kids run around in freedom to enjoy just, you know, that they don't worry about what's going to happen to them at Bowen Lodge.

So Herb and Jessie Bowen came over here from Cut-Foot-Sioux Inn and then to Eagle Nest.

When he died over at Eagle Nest, Jessie Bowen who they also called Ma Bowen came over here to Bowen Lodge.

They ran Bowen Lodge with ah, her and her daughter and son-in-law.

And then they sold it in 1946 to George and Rose Goodwin.

And the Goodwin family ran the resort for, probably 20 years before selling it to one other couple and then they sold it one more time.

These were just short term ah, stays for these people.

And then in 1982 my father-in-law bought the resort and we have been running it ever since.

So from 1982 until now 2015, we've run Bowen Lodge.

Well, I can't decide if I love my front yard better or my back yard better?

It's spectacular.

And I love these days with these billowing clouds come in like this.

And these idyllic days of summer where you can just kick back.

I have two boys that grew up here, and they lived in a dream world.

I mean, look at this is what they grew up in every day.

Sand castles on the beach and hangin' out and making friends.

And swimming.

And tubing, jumping on the trampoline.

And it's pretty...pretty good stuff.

There are a few things that make Bowen Lodge unique.

I think a big drawing factor actually is that it is an owner operated business.

When they come here they are going to see Bill and Gail.

They are going to ask about our kids.

Being owner operated we spend a lot of attention on details and we listen to our customers and we make changes when we have to make changes.

The lake itself is unique to this area.

It's a 70,000 acre lake that is 96% undeveloped.

And never will be.

So when they go out fishing they're guaranteed to see bald eagles and loons.

There won't be jet ski's, there won't be docks.

There won't be private homes along the shore line, it's all very undeveloped.

I love trees and and I have a real reverence for trees and this is my favorite tree on Sugarbush Point.

It's a old, old grand daddy sugar maple that the Indians used to tap.

You can see all the butt swells from where they used to it.

And I love to do a core a sample and see how old it is, but it's hollow in the middle.

So it's ah, hard to actually age it.

But I mean it's just you know I mean I just love just to walk over and put my hand on it and think of all the things and what happened with this tree.

It's pretty amazing.

I think when people come here, they know that there will be changes every year because we upgrade and we do changes every year but we still keep the core values of a family resort.

And their tradition of Bowen Lodge.

They have to know that they are cabins they're not lake homes, they're cabins and they have to enjoy the fact that they are cabins.

And we really like that.

One of the things that I'm really proud of that Gail does here is that ah, she plants tomatoes at each cabin and then she has herbs.

How many places have ah tomatoes at each cabin?

Well, this area that we're in is also bordered on a research natural area, it's called the Battle Point Research Natural Area.

Is designated for old growth hard wood old growth oak, bass wood and maple.

And it was designated in I believe 1991 by the forest service and the nature conservancy as a protected forest.

So there is no motorized traffic around us.

It is the largest stand of northern hardwoods west of the Mississippi.

So there is no other stand like this of these old growth hard woods west of the Mississippi.

You can go over towards Cass Lake and you won't see any hard woods like you have right here on this stand.

It's never been logged and it's never been damaged by fire.

So it's extremely unique there are protected plant species here that you don't find anywhere else in the United States.

Seems kind of funny I'm going to take some time to show you a septic system.

But one of the things that happened in the shore line zone is that you know, over development is really hard on the lake and so you want to make sure that the septic isn't flowing.

So we took great measures to build a system well way way from the lake.

So that we could still develop and make Bowen Lodge what it is without harming things.

And so all everything collects and comes here.

And then these black pods that you see are full of Irish peat.

So all the affluent that comes from all the cabins get pumped back here and treated.

The Irish peat actually treats it and then sends it into the ground.

And then flows away from the lake so nothing ah, goes towards the lake at all.

And it's really interesting cause a lot of people come here and they spend their money and I love to take them here to say this is where your money goes, this is what we do to our do our job to protect the environment.

So we like to keep that really pristine and beautiful.

We're surrounded by the Chippewa National Forest.

We actually are bordered in all areas by the Chippewa National Forest, it's over a million acres of national forest land.

We're also within the Leech Lake Indian reservation, so we are private land on the reservation in the national forest.

And on the um the upper Mississippi watershed.

So this is all very very unique, the Mississippi river runs through Lake Winnie.

And ah, 3 other water systems feed into Lake Winnie.

So it's really a unique area, we love it.

It's absolutely beautiful.

Scott: Our tour takes us back south to Nisswa, Minnesota where we visit the historic Grand View Lodge on Gull Lake.

My name is Mark Ronnei.

I am the General Manager here at Grand View Lodge.

I've been here for 38 years.

I was in Hotel School in Marshall, Minnesota.

And ah, after I graduated there I came here to do 3 months and I never left.

I started here as a summer intern.

I think my internship was almost over.

Grand View Lodge was founded in 1916 by a gentleman with the name of M.V.

Baker.

Mr.

Baker, his ah goal in life was to be a real estate developer.

And he put Grand View together as a way to get people to come up here, stay at the resort and buy some real estate.

He owned 2 1/2 miles of shore line on the north shore of Gull Lake when he first moved up here.

Today, the value of that is incalculable.

But he was ahead of his time.

Ah, he sold 50 foot lots on the lake and his wife ran the Hotel.

I'm Steve Hanson, I started at Grand View Lodge in 1981.

I manage the garden pro shop that's just a few feet away from this spot.

I've always been interested in history.

Especially Grand View's history.

About 3 years ago I started putting the archives together a bit on my own.

And then a couple years after that Grand View embraced the idea of our centennial that was coming up very soon.

Now we're looking at next year, 1916 was the key year for Grand View to begin with.

And of course 100 years later we're in 2016.

Behind me is our cottage, I call the Baker cottage.

The founder of Grand View was Marvin V. Baker.

He and his wife Harriet started this business.

Initially it was supposed to be a real estate business according to Marvin.

But Harriet was a great hostess.

They could see the compatibility of the two businesses working together.

And it was a hit.

It's ah, lasted all this time every season's been covered for 99 years right now.

When they arrived here in 1916 as owners on the property was a lodge that had built by ah Sheriff Spaulding and he owned Grand View for a year.

He didn't call it Grand View it was just going to be a hunting lodge.

But the Bakers saw that as a place where they could entertain people.

That was the start of it.

There were a few rooms.

In what we would now term like a small hotel.

Inside those walls was the homesteaders cabin of the Berg family.

They tried to make a go been here for about 10 years, right around 1890 to 1900.

Didn't work out.

There was some turmoil about the property, just no body seemed to know what to do with it.

But when Marvin Baker saw the property he could see what it would look like in a few years.

Gull Lake was still in a point where it was ah low yet.

Ah the primitive dam was just been built, so it was filling up into the reservoir we now know as Gull Lake.

So when Marvin Baker and Harriet Baker started Grand View it was simply the large hotel that was just over my right shoulder.

June 1st 1921 the Lodge opened for business.

It created a center piece for this lodge that we've developed through all these years.

Initially it was used for dining, small kitchen, large dining room, lobby and a ball room upstairs.

It was actually maybe the hottest place around for a decade in the 20's.

Regular dances a beautiful setting on a great lake.

We're at a time of prohibition so it's a little complicated as far as the culture.

Um, there were ah people from Chicago that were in the boot leg business.

I think Minnesota was mostly used as a place to get away from the trouble.

And ah, the violence for the most part.

Ah, they all had gambling and alcohol.

And ah, it was a time that ah, deserves further study.

But it is a part of the area.

It went on throughout the 20's into the 30's.

In 1937 ah Judy and Brownie Cote, ah a couple from Edina, Minnesota bought Grand View Lodge primarily as a place to house the parents of the kids who attended the camps that they owned on the next lake over.

They owned Camp Lake Huberts and Camp Lincoln which were founded in 1908.

These are world renowned children's camps and they needed a place for the parents to stay when they were dropping off the kids and sometimes for the whole time.

So they purchased Grand View at that time as just another one of their businesses.

Mr.

And Mrs.

Cote had Grand View Lodge and the children's camps and those were summer businesses.

And then they got into the ranch business.

Right now they own Tanque Verde Guest ranch, which is one of the nations largest dude ranches.

And that's in Tucson, Arizona.

Now they have opposite seasons and they started to get into the ah, resort business a little more earnestly.

Ah, once they got in the...the ah ranch business.

They realized that, you know, they could expand Grand View to be something more than just a spot for some campers parents.

And Grand View grew from being open 100 days a year, which is what it was when the camps were it's primary mission, to now being open all year round.

The lodge was built where it is right now because down by the lake it's quite low.

And they needed to get it up on a spot where they could view the lake and it would be safer from the changes in elevations of the lake.

The flooding that was potentially there.

The permanent dam was built on Gull in 1912.

And steadily throughout the teens, the lake improved as far as appearance fishing, it's a higher elevation than it used to be often.

But it gave the beautiful lake that we now know.

The uniqueness of Grand View is in it's atmosphere.

People have told me hundreds times, a thousand times, they're not on vacation until they turn into our front door.

When they turn into the entrance of Grand View, everything melts away.

They're on vacation.

Things change.

Grand View has grown from 200 guests to a 1000.

But our atmosphere, the feeling of a family resort which we were first of all the feeling of being truly up north in Minnesota it's a Minnesota resort, the trees are here, the atmosphere is here, the obviously with the main lodge being configuration it is out of logs people come here from all over the world and they just have this unique experience of this is northern Minnesota.

We've kept the trees, we have multiple multiple 150 year old trees around here.

They love seeing that.

We haven't over developed the property.

But it's that feeling, they feel safe here.

They feel like time stands still just a little bit.

When they're walking down to the lake, they're walking on the same path that someones walked for 100 years.

And they're looking at the same lake that someones looked at for a 100 years.

They're coming out of the same front doors of the lodge that someones come out for a 100 years.

That's a pretty unique experience.

For me the excitement about this centennial for Grand View is going to be the fact that's going to mirror American history.

Well as a historian I appreciate that these 100 years were the 100 years of the greatest development in the world and especially in our country.

The whole age of technology started about the time Grand View started.

The radio, television, everything we know the computer age, everything developed during these 99 years and we'll be celebrating next year.

Hi, I'm Frank Soukup, director of marketing.

And welcome to Grand View Lodge.

Behind us is the historic main lodge of Grand View built in 1921.

So let's take a tour of Grand View Lodge.

This is where everybody's vacation begins.

This is the front desk in the main lodge.

And of course everybody's favorite place to get their photo taken right in front of the fire place below the moose.

We actually had so many people asking us to take photos of their family in front of the main fire place that we had to actually put a photo booth here.

This way they can share it via social media.

And just send it to themselves and take a photo at any time of the day without any body's help.

And before Grand View actually became the golf club that it is now, we were also known for tennis.

And tennis we were known nationally.

And that was our main seal.

This is every body's favorite sweet spot at Grand View, the Chocolate Ox.

The Chocolate Ox is an ice cream shop and of course everybody's favorite candy store.

Toffee, chocolate, fudges truffles.

Every type of candy you could think of.

And of course a fantastic staff right behind the counter.

[ Hi!]

This is our Lodge dining room and originally the historic lodge was built as a meeting place and also as a place for our guests to dine when they stayed at the Inn.

So this is where they would come in for dinner, breakfast and lunch.

Now it's just a restaurant for dinner.

1979 we were labeled as a historic lodge, so it's important whenever we re-do or try to re-fix things up that we're using things from the era, ah, to actually make the mends.

But when we turned this into it's own restaurant we tried to keep with some of those traditions and utilizing things and art work from the area and the state.

Many of our guests prefer not to sit inside especially on a nice summer day, so of course we have this beautiful outdoor patio for everybody to enjoy dinner.

To my left here is actually the grand staircase and the main artery for everybody staying on the main property to get to the main lodge while they're dining.

And as you noticed, there's lots and lots of flowers.

Over 10,000 flowers are planted every single year at Grand View.

Ah, it's just unique to our whole property.

As you can see, the flowers really enhance the view.

And it makes you just happy, they're coming to dinner or going back to your cabin.

So this is the grand staircase.

So the grand staircase here, we'll do over 100 weddings a year just off of these staircases.

Lot of weekends we'll do anywhere from 5-7 ceremonies that are literally off this staircase.

And the bride will come down the stairs, people will sit to the left and the right and the vows are actually spoke where we're standing.

So the most important and most popular area of our whole resort especially in the summers, is the beach.

And the beach contains 1,500 feet of sandy beach on north side of Gull Lake.

As well as our small restaurant Loonies, and then our waterpark which is open year round.

[ sounds of kids playing in back ] So we're looking at Roy Lake cabins which are some of our most popular cabins, especially for romantic couples.

They're one bedroom fully modernized cabins that sit just feet off of Roy Lake.

Because Grand View sits on 640 acres, you can have easily a 1,000 people on main property over here at the Roy Lake area, without really realizing that there's that many people.

The Roy Lake area has it's own private little marina and beach.

A lot of our families really prefer these areas because they're not on the main beach or main property there's a little seclusion and a little more quaintness to them.

So at Grand View we have two professional golf courses, champion style.

One is the Preserve.

But we're gonna go check out the Pines.

So my name is Jeff Munneke, I'm our Vice President of Fan Experience and Basketball Academy with Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx.

Ah, this is an annual outing that we have every year called the TImber Slugs Open.

Which is a portion of obviously our Timberwolves staff our Lynx staff and then several other assorted members that come along from the University of Minnesota, Nike golf, as well as a couple of other friends.

And so this is an annual event that we do, get away from the office for a couple of days before the season.

We call it the Timber Slugs open and we play for a pair of green rubber work boots.

And we inscripted the names of the winners into these and so these are fairly recent.

The old work boots got a little bit weathered and tattered.

Ah, but ah these are the new work boots.

Our champion just donned these and put these on and this is our traveling trophy on a year to year basis.

Golf is huge.

Spa is huge.

Laying on the beach, reading the newspaper is huge.

Walking around with a cup of coffee is a huge activity here.

All the fitness activities.

Bicycling, I mean there are more bicycles than people here sometimes.

You see people just relaxing.

We have six restaurants and they want to be taken care of so that includes the fact that no body has to cook.

But they can come out for dinner in a different experience without leaving the resort.

Scott: Crow Wing Crest Lodge in Akeley, Minnesota is our next visit.

Kim and Big John Bowen own and operate this resort at the headwaters of the Crow Wing chain of lakes.

My name is Kim Bowen and my husband Big John and I bought this resort called Crow Wing Crest Lodge here in Akeley back in 2001.

This is our 15th season in resorting.

Wonderful years, challenging years.

And we are still happy at what we do.

That has to say something.

Ah, we feel pretty strongly that we are just stewards of this place, there's a lot of history here.

A lot of folks that have been coming back year after year.

And ah, we're really just here to take care of the place and give it on to other folks in the future, so.

Ah, one of the interesting things about this place is our lodge was built in 1898 as part of the Red River Logging Company.

That was an Akeley project with a big lumber mill.

It was started in a partnership between H.C.

Akeley and T.B.

Walker.

And ah, the lumber mill in Akeley was about a 17 year run and they came up to this area for the white pine.

Ah, one of the interesting things that we found when we were putting dryers and washers in the back part of it, is we were drilling through the wall to put a vent in and all of this saw dust started coming out and that is what they used for insulation.

Because that's what they had!

An abundance of saw dust.

So that was kind of an interesting start.

Once the mill burnt down in 1916 this was sold off to a number of different owners until World War 2.

Ah, another interesting aspect before World War 2 was a lady named Annabelle Carins bought it and ran this place as Aunt Polly's girls camp from 1931 to 1939.

And we have this wonderful photo the oldest one that we have of two young ladies in the driveway with little pinafores and handkerchiefs on their heads, so.

I don't know kind of a strange little thing, girls were shipped in here by rail to learn etiquette?

In the middle of north woods Minnesota, so that was kind of an interesting part of the history.

And it was nothing for a couple of years during World War 2 due to a gas shortage.

And then a couple named Marv and Edna Richmond bought it in 1946.

And they are the ones that really turned this into a family vacation resort.

The very first time we drove in this resort when we were looking, it was the middle of February there was 4 foot of snow on the ground.

Kim and I saw the owners home, looked at the bridge and we looked at each other and we said, this is it.

And this is after looking at 70 or 80 other resorts.

You just kind of had the feeling that it was sacred ground.

And it was just so beautiful.

The trees the road, the entrance to the resort.

And right now, we are crossing the actual headwaters of the whole Crow Wing chain.

11 lakes, 60 miles of river.

And just like Lake Itasca, it's in my yard.

And the sound of a babbling brook all spring is quite a gift.

We just love it.

It's not just a place to vacation with your kids, that's important in and of itself.

When you get away from your home environment and you're patterns of behavior, there's a a big gift in that.

You're doing yourself a gift.

In your mental health and well being.

This place in particular, I think really entrenches the idea of relaxation and getting off the grid if you choose.

I love some of these photos to illustrate that.

So I look at this photo from maybe 1953 of a bunch of adults sitting on hand made swings, watching their children frolic in the lake.

On paddle boats and canoes and row boats.

And if you walk down there today 2015 you will see parents sitting on the swings and watching their kids playing in the lake, frolicking, laughing.

Flipping around on stand up paddle boards now and still kayaks and paddle boats and things.

[ People talking in background ] One of the nicest things that was in my wish list when we looked at resorts was being on the northeast side of the lake to catch the prevailing wind to keep the bugs off.

Another great thing about this piece of property is the common area everybody gets to use is next to the lake shore, which so many resorts the cabins are lined up right on the shore and you wake people up going fishing, starting a boat.

To where we have the swings, the basketball court, the volley ball court, the beach.

And we have two tiers of cabins.

All with lake view.

But where everybody gets to play there are no cabins and ah, that's pretty rare as far as resorts in Minnesota.

Ah, it's a beautiful gathering area and that's what we people do.

We do a pot luck luau every Thursday night where we dress Hawaiian, play Hawaiian music.

Sometimes that's the only good meal a resort owner gets in a week is the potluck luau, so.

That's one of our favorite nights, and a good way for everybody to get together and know each other.

We are traditional resort we offer traditional things here, cabin by the lake.

Activities that we do, traditional things like bingo and kids crafts and pool table tournament and sand castle contest.

My husband Big John and I, we had a vision of what we wanted to create here.

And that was to incorporate our more holistic healing kinds of things into this environment.

We felt it was a really good fit for us.

And we immediately started as soon as we bought, boom went right into him, in fact right now what he's doing is working on two people back to back doing reflexology in our basement.

So he'd been doing that for about 40 years before we moved here.

And so I teach aroma therapy classes.

I started drumming circles 15 years ago.

We do retreats in the spring and the fall.

Lots more friends of ours come up and provide massage services.

We do yoga on the lawn every week and ah, we have a lake side sauna.

We have a little bit deeper opportunity I think for people to really heal if they want to.

And we're not pushy about it, just like if you don't want to come to bingo well don't sign up for it.

We have a sign up sheet for everything.

If you don't want to do origami frogs with the kids on Tuesday, well don't sign up for it.

Go read a book in your cabin, do what you want, pet the chipmunk whatever.

If you want, you can come to aroma therapy class if you want, you get your feet worked on.

Ah if you want you can have an ionic detox foot bath or get your ears candled.

There's opportunities here that ah make us a little bit unique, I think.

Looking up is our 250 year old white pine that we call Luna, which sings in any small breeze.

And this is also a very popular cabin with the spirit of the big white pine.

That's the ancient mother, yes.

It's ah the only one they left when they cleared all the forest and maybe it's cause she was so gnarly and so many lower limbs compared to the ones that they liked to cut down were 150 feet up to the first limb.

So maybe being the old gnarly mother is what saved her life.

There's two or three others on the property and one of them died of old age just a few years ago.

But it's ah quite the canopy here at the resort.

We love it, so.

Scott: It's a short distance as the crow flies to Huddles Resort on beautiful Leech Lake.

Roy and Kay Huddle own and operate this multi generational resort.

Well, my name is Roy Huddle and we're here at Huddles Resort in Whipholt, Minnesota.

That's right on Leech Lake.

I'm Kay Huddle, I'm Roy's wife and ah, I've only been up here 34 years compared to the 70 some years that Roy's been here.

Roy and I met here up at the resort.

I came up here on a vacation to stay in my brothers place here, and we just finally fell in love with each other and got married a few months later.

So we took our time and married after we had met each other two and half to three months.

[ Laughing ] And ah, it's been great since and now we've been married 34 years!

Kay: 34 years later!

Well, I came to be in this line of business because back in 1928 my grandfather and father came up and started this resort.

There was nothing here at the time.

Just the woods.

They built the lodge, a small part of the lodge.

And added cabins over the years.

So it's been a growth period of over many years.

When they first came up here the main highway went right through the resort and now it's south of it.

But the roads coming from Brainerd and that were all gravel even through Brainerd, when they first came up.

So, a long time ago in history and it's just grown over the years.

And here we go!

Now we're on the west end of a little area called Whipholt.

That it's used to be a couple resorts down that way, but now it's all just summer homes and cabins.

And privately owned.

So this is our end cabin right down here.

And then we have a triplex unit here.

And cabins like I said, spaced along the lake shore.

And that we're going now, heading west.

From the resort.

And there are points out that we do have a restaurant we do serve meals.

Breakfast, lunch and the evening meals, so.

That's our lake shore down there, with the swimming down there.

And this is primarily swimming in the lake or pulling water skiers and tubers.

This area down in front.

Again, we're going by the lodge.

The old part is with the peak this way, that's where the old part of the lodge was.

We also have that's the pool area.

We have RV hookups for RVs.

We have ten of those.

Spaced out around the resort.

Not in with the cabins but in their area.

And this is a duplex unit that has 2-4 bedrooms in it.

But there's some of the older cabins that have been placed along the shore.

And that over the years, so.

It's a lot of history, a lot of fun.

I mean it's one of the oldest continuing operating resorts in one family in the area and in the state even, you know.

There's other resorts that could be older but they've changed hands and so it's the draw of people coming to see us and getting to know us so well and that is a big draw to here.

Leech Lake is an exceptionally beautiful lake.

It's got a lot of shore line, lot of points and islands.

And a lot of variety in fishing.

And at first fishing was the main attraction.

It would have been a lot more not the families, it would be guys coming up fishing and doing that type of thing.

But it's grown into a whole family type of resort, operation.

Not just ours but other resorts in the area.

[ waves ] And we're on the road that takes you to the harbor which is about a block from the lodge, or a little more.

And here's part of the crew of kids coming up.

There's kids all over the resort.

And the family.

Hi kids!

[ Hi!]

Having a good time, that's what counts.

Hi!

So down here is ah, there's an area that we park boats and that on while they're launching them and putting them in the water to go fishing.

That little bridge goes across to a cabin we have in the woods.

And that is part of the resort.

And this is a little crick that connects us to a little lake that we have a couple cabins on.

Called Linda Lake.

That's an excellent crappie, bass, northern sunfish type lake.

And this is a shot of our harbor.

There's a lot of the boats are out on the lake.

But it's a good protected harbor, room for about 25 boats, and that.

And this is our the layout of the harbor.

We have gas, bait, minnows leeches, night crawlers anything you need for fishing.

There's a shot of just another part of the harbor.

Scott: That's beautiful!

Roy: It's beautiful you're looking down Leech Lake now towards the big public beach area that's a lot of fun to have.

And this is Bear Island out there and Pelican.

So, just a scan of what there is in the area.

[ waves splashing ] The lake was here first.

And then we followed the lake.

And because we like the area like the lake, so that's the connection of this resort being pulled here, my folks did.

And it's a big draw for our guests because you can go out and look at the lake and you can go one day to this area, one day to another area.

The lake is a connection to Walker.

We can go by boat or by car.

How are you doing kids?

[ ..can we have a ride?]

Roy: Can you have a ride?

[ Yeah!

We're just that lazy!]

Roy: Jump on the back.

I get a lot of good riders when I go around announcing activities and that.

So and the kids are always welcome.

But they had a long ways to go, they had about 50 feet.

So we don't want them worn out.

I think they expect that Roy's going to be pulling tubers and skiers every day.

I think they expect there's going to be a family dance a talent show night, we have bon fires.

Turtle races.

Once they've experienced that they come back and expect those things, you know.

Look...oh boy!

[ Laughs ] Scott: Madden's on Gull Lake was struck by the same storm that damaged other homes and businesses in the Brainerd lakes area.

Clean up and restoration was under way as we visited with the owner operator family.

Hi I'm Brian Thuringer.

I'm the general manager owner and general manager of Madden Resorts.

We are celebrating our 86th year at Madden's.

This is my 42nd year.

This is my wife Deb on the left.

So my wife Deb, has also been here 42 years.

And she is in charge of the design of the resort.

Both interiors and exteriors.

Her father was the founder of Madden's with his brother.

And they came to the Gull Lake area in the mid to late 30's.

The first building at Maddens, the Roberts Hotel, which was built in 1929.

And we look at that as our starting stake which gives us the 86 years.

Maddens sits on about a 1,000 acres of land.

We've got a couple miles of shore line.

And we are a summer seasonal recreational resort.

We have 63 holes of golf.

And out of the 63 holes of golf we have one golf digest top 100 golf course.

We were Conde Nast top 100 last year in the world, which is terrific for a Minnesota resort.

We're very proud of that.

My dad is..was Jim.

Um, both gentlemen are deceased now, but.

The original people that ah owned most all of the property on this end of the lake were from Kansas City.

Mr.

Harrison and Mr.

Start.

They built the old hotel that Brian referenced.

Opened in 1929 as well as the first 18 holes that opened in 1929 as well.

Jack was about 26 and my father was 19 when they considered getting into the resort business of which they knew nothing about.

Well, they were both at the University of Minnesota.

And they had an uncle, uncle Tom Madden, who had a bar on 371.

And he told them, Mr.

Roberts was looking for someone to run his golf course so Jack grabbed at that opportunity and came up to run the golf course.

He invited Jim then to help him.

Of course, we're talking about the depression so as all developments or as many developments during that period of time they were first hired on a day by day basis.

And then were offered to lease it the following year because the developers could not afford to pay them.

So the first year, or the second year they were here they had the opportunity to lease the golf course for $500 for that season.

They could not afford to pay them the $500.

But yet, Mr.

Roberts...Harrison and Start saw something in those two young men and decided to deed the golf course to them if they would operate it.

So that's what happened.

And then from there, everything was built as they could build it.

Ah, Mr.

Roberts...ah, his son or his daughter actually, followed in his steps.

Ruth Gedding and Ruth and Lett Gedding, they ran Roberts Hotel until 1965 And then in 1965 the Maddens bought the Roberts Hotel.

Then in 1970 there was another resort on Wilson Bay, that was owned by Max Ruttger.

So in 1970 the Maddens bought Ruttger's resort and Max Ruttger's resort.

So all of the building here has been done since 1929 through the years and about every 10 years there's an expansion.

So the resort is a little different than most in that it was not built at one time.

So there really isn't one theme.

There are many themes.

The golf courses that we have each were built in a different period and during a different golf philosophy.

Which makes it very interesting.

So, we feel we have about 300 units and because as we have as we're sitting right now at Madden lodge, which is colonial.

And then we have Wilson Bay which is typical Minnesota log lodge.

And then we have Madden Inn, which is more of a 50's feel.

So, guests coming here have an opportunity to choose from whatever design they would feel most comfortable.

And we have all the recreational amenities from croquet lawn bowling, golf, fishing.

Ah, we have a full blown marina.

We have a full blown recreation center.

We have 3 dining rooms and 2 additional restaurants.

We have a restaurant of pizza...restaurant.

And then we have The Classic which is in our Classic clubhouse.

We have a restaurant that is about 1 mile away from the resort.

So we have many dining options for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Hi, I'm Abbey Pieper we're at Maddens, we're down at the Lodge.

I'm the Vice President here.

I'm Ben Thuringer, we're at the ah Madden Lodge at Maddens.

I'm the Vice President and Madden Lodge manager.

You know our grandfather expanded this area and really put the foot print of Maddens here.

Our parents put The Classic in place, put our golf villas in place.

And ah, each generation has contributed significantly to why Maddens is still here.

So that really brings up the question for Abbey and I, in which, what are we going to do to continue that legacy.

And what do we have to offer to Maddens?

I think it's an amazing amount of pressure.

75% of businesses, family businesses, fail in the 3rd generation.

That is a stat that Ben and I are very acutely aware of.

And have set ourselves up as best we can and I think my parents would say that they have done everything they can to put us in a position where we aren't part of that part of that statistic.

You know, you grow up in the business it's not like someday you show up and you you know, are in a new business.

We grew up here, but then we've taken additional steps to ah, provide us with the tool set that we need to create the next you know, 40 plus years of amazing hospitality.

[ Ready?]

[ We're ready!]

Alright, I'm inviting you to come with me to tour Maddens.

I am Kathy Reichenbach, I am the marketing director at Maddens.

I've been here for 34 years!

My job description is about 25 pages long.

I do everything from marketing the resort to people outside as well as marketing all of our services on property.

We are heading up to the historic Roberts Hotel that Brian and Deb talked about in their interview.

It was built in 1929.

I meet with a lot of travel writers, media people do a lot of tours and showing off this beautiful property.

is probably the best part of my job.

We are going into the Roberts Hotel that was built in 1929.

You have a view of Steamboat Bay on this side on the other side of the hotel you'll see the Pine Beach east golf course that was opened in 1926.

This was the original lobby and dining rooms and also guest rooms on this floor.

There are 3 floors in this hotel.

There are 40 guest rooms in this building right now.

Some were small hotel rooms that we have made into like where we took two small hotel rooms and made them into one big room.

So some of the rooms are very unique they have may have two bathrooms in them.

Or we have suites.

Some face the golf course, some face the lake.

This was owned by Arthur Roberts who was a hotelier and owned many properties around the country.

Rochester, Florida, ah different areas.

And he sold it to the Madden brothers in the 70's.

One of the comments that we hear from our guests is, this reminds them of Dirty Dancing.

We are going into the golf club area of the Madden Inn.

We are starting to use a lot of our historic photos in our guest rooms and our dining rooms, more of our public areas because we have an awesome library of wonderful photography.

So we are over looking the Pine Beach East golf course.

This was the course that was built in 1926.

So from this view you get a back side of the hotel.

As well as Wilson Bay.

Almost from every vantage point you can see water.

And Madden lodge, the dining room is surrounded on three sides by water, which is very unusual.

And water has a very calming effect.

If you took two dynamics of Maddens, which I feel are super important, it's going to be water and golf.

So, water and turf we take both of those and accentuate them so that the public can use them to their to the maximum ability.

And we're very fortunate that we have a clean lake.

And we have a lakes association that takes keeping our lake clean.

Fairly good fishing.

Um, certainly the views are lovely no matter where you can take a boat about 17 miles up and ah, have a lovely day on the lake.

We have an experienced culinary staff.

Our director of food and beverage has been here for almost 40 years, over 30 years.

And so we keep a culinary staff on a year round basis.

Ah they're in training in the winter.

But that certainly stabilizes our food offerings for a seasonal resort.

We really try to support our local economy through buying as much local food as we can.

And we found that a lot of times these local local products, whether it's the chickens that we get out of Pequot, the ducks that we get out of Pequot, some of the beets that we get out of south of town are ah far better product that we can get.

We really really really make an effort to not only to be green but find the best ways to supply the ultimate guest experience and be green as well.

As you go around the property you'll see our chef's gardens where we're growing our herbs and yeah, you can have better herbs if you grow them yourself.

So we really put a focus in our restaurants on the green initiatives as well.

Having creative dishes, that have proteins that have been well respected through their lives and all the way to the plate.

This is an inlet off Gull Lake, so a lot of our guests bring their own water craft.

Park them right here, or they may come in um, just general public out on Gull Lake may come in, park their boat and go to our pizza shop for lunch or dinner.

So we take what we do very seriously.

We work on a year round basis to make sure that those people staying here on a seasonal basis have a great time.

Scott: We visited Black Pine Beach Resort near Pequot Lakes, Minnesota on an unseasonably cool August day.

While the beach was empty guests and families took advantage of the other amenities Lynn and Bob Scharenbroich's resort offers.

Hi, I'm Bob Scharenbroich.

I own Black Pine Beach Resorts since 1977.

We're on the Whitefish chain of lakes in the Brainerd lakes area.

And it's just a great area to be in.

We're the 3rd owners of the resort.

Lynn and I bought the resort in 1977.

Moved here in early part of 1978.

The ah, resort had ah, 6 cabins.

So it was a start for us.

Lynn's mom and I came up driving around looking for resorts and we just happened to stumble across this one going down the road and there was a little sign out there that said for sale by owner and we drove in and the rest they say, is history.

So welcome to Black PIne Beach Resort, I'm going to take all of you along on a tour and we'll see what the resort has to offer and what it's like and give a little glimpse into the history of this property.

So we like to point out that we've got this garden area here as kind of a welcome.

Some people that had been customers of ours years ago had said to me, oh you should make a big smile when people come in.

So we did that.

We took a part of our property there and made it into a nice smile garden.

And that's what that is, a smile to welcome everybody when they first arrive.

It was 1977 Lynn and I had been looking at resorts primarily in the newspaper.

We had looked at a few resorts over the years.

But we hadn't found anything that we liked.

We'd been talking about getting into the resort business for a few years and Lynn actually grew up at a resort.

And moved when she was 12 years old, so it was already in her blood.

And ah, it sounded like a good endeavor to me as well.

So right now, we're getting to a part of the resort that was not originally part of the property.

When we purchased this was owned by another family.

Ah, they decided to sell and when we bought it, this part and then um a little ways over further that you can't see right now beyond that tree, was the property that we bought.

We found out later after we purchased it that this cabin, number 9, was in fact once upon a time, part of our resort and they added two wings onto that property which now makes it look a little different than the other cabins.

But it was fun to find that out.

The history of the resort goes way back to 1938.

People by the name of Marion and Anne Arnold from Salem, Nebraska built the resort from scratch.

They had people build the resort for them which was kind of unusual in the time.

The banker ah, made them use ah, western lumber instead of local lumber which was unusual.

And also that the resort owner didn't build the resort himself, he had a construction crew build it.

The Arnold's owned the resort until ah, 1967 or 68' and then a couple by the name of Stewarts Bill and Amy Stewart bought the resort.

They ran it more as a hobby resort, it was only open from ah, July 1st until August 15th.

So it was kind of a hobby one.

And they had it for about 9 years and decided to put it up for sale and that's when we happened to come across it.

Now we're getting to where the secret garden area is.

This is the secret garden meadow and we've had two weddings in this secret garden meadow area.

Both of them were with no plan B which made me nervous, but they did fine there was no bad weather and everything worked out really well.

This is the first entry it's hard to see this but it says Secret Garden ahead.

And we're coming into the secret garden area itself.

Now this is a bridge that goes over a little water feature and that little water feature is in an interesting and historic location.

It used to be county road 16, which is our road.

This is where county road 16 used to run.

And it's all over grown now because it hasn't been the road bed for a long long time.

But it came up behind what is now our home and right through here and all the way down to where the first island is in our lake.

That split our resort that is no longer a resort either on that end, in half and the owners of course didn't care for that.

So back in the 20's when it was easier to move a road, they talked to the people who were out working on the county road and they moved the road.

So it no longer was the road bed, so that's kind of a little snippet of history.

So we now have a water feature right here in this spot that was years ago county road 16.

And this is the entrance into our secret garden.

One of the special things about this secret garden is the secret garden mail box.

We'll go look at that and then we'll go on and look at the rest of the cabins.

Children who are here at the resort and sometimes adults too, like to write to the secret garden elf.

So they do that they put their little note to the elf here in this little secret garden mail box you can see there's a little reply in there right now.

And that is a reply that the secret garden elf wrote over the night to a child who had a question about something within the secret garden area here.

Another real fun thing about this garden even though it's in the woods, it's just one loop that goes all the way around you can't get lost.

So little children who want to come into the woods can just walk in the woods alone with no fear.

And they do that a lot.

So we're gonna go back out now and take a look at the cabins.

We're coming up now to cabin 11 this one and the one on the other side of cabin 11 are identical cabins.

Those were built when the Americans with Disabilities Act came out and we needed to comply with that.

We made them so that you could move between the two of them easily.

So if someone was here and were in a wheel chair they could visit friends who might be in the other one as well.

In fact we had a visit from an advocate for handicapped folks right after we did this and that was one of the features that he was really impressed by.

Often that isn't the case when people are vacationing.

If they are handicapped they can be in one cabin but they can't visit any others, so.

That was impressive for him and he said that was a real attractive feature for those folks.

So we're glad we did that.

Our guests are all unique.

They come from ah, a long ways away sometimes other countries.

Ah some come from as close as Brainerd or even Pequot Lakes.

They all have different life styles.

We have people who work at grocery stores, we have doctors we have lawyers we have people who build houses.

It's just endless as to what they do as far as making a living.

I think they, the main thing they all have in common is they love to be at the lake.

They love to go to the beach.

A beach is always important at a resort.

Ok, now we're going to switch from the cabins to the beach and we'll take a walk down the walk way and I'll tell a story about that.

Ok, so this walk way does two things of course, it's a walk way.

It also channels the run off from the rain so that we don't have a lot of washouts and difficult walking.

And it's worked really well for that.

Ah, we just repaved the whole resort last year and had all of the run off water and everything um from both walk ways and driveways reoriented so it goes into either a rain garden or off on to the yard itself.

So right now we're at the beach and you'll see there's a retaining wall here now that wasn't always a retaining wall.

Before we bought the property people who are still guests of ours tell us a story about a huge tree that was down here and it got cut down I'm not sure what year, but it got cut down before we had the resort so it was prior to 77'.

For many years after we bought the resort, roots would come up in the swimming area and we would be pulling huge roots from that tree out.

Every time we would pull a root out and those people who recalled that tree were here, they would tell again the story about that huge tree.

And how much they loved it cause it was a shade tree at the beach.

We'll have people playing volley ball, we'll have people down on the beach of course swimming.

We'll have people that have done pig roasts down at the fire pit.

We've had people doing fish fries on the fire pit or up outside of the cabin.

Just the visiting with people is kind of interesting.

People don't know each other sometimes when they come here but they become friends.

And with the social media they can stay in contact with each other so much more.

There's a real ah, involvement I think in most resorters mind set to making their beach area not just a wonderful and beautiful experience for sand castles and the customer fun but also the environmental side of it.

And you have to try to balance that a little bit.

Um, no one wants to play in gooey junk in the water.

So you have to make sure that you don't have that everywhere.

But also, you want to make sure that you're filtering as much of the rain water and any of those kinds of things as you can and doing what natural environmental growth will do.

We have let an area on this end of our beach grow into a natural area.

And that is our boat launching section.

That area now this year, just sported some swamp milk weed and we had a monarch population there which was just fabulous to see.

So even just a little area like that can do a lot for the natural side of things.

Scott: Our final stop in Resorts of the North Woods is Ruttger's Bay Lake Lodge near Deerwood, Minnesota.

Father and son Jack and Chris Ruttger offer insight into their families historic legacy.

Hi, my name is Jack Ruttger and I'm from Bay Lake, born and raised here and I love it.

I've worked here all my life.

Went away to college, went in the military for a couple of years came back in 1955 married and I've been here ever since.

Working at the resort, I'm the 3rd generation Ruttger to run this resort.

You carry a lot of pride.

My grand father was the first obviously, he died when I was about 10.

My father came on and he's a tremendous operator.

Operated through the depression, the depression of 1930.

And made this business go.

He told one time of on August 2nd the heart of the season he had two people in the house.

August 2nd in 1931 in the depression.

He existed and held on and he was a fantastic operator.

So he's a..he's a mentor.

Father was a real mentor to me.

And my grandfather came into this area back in, well he came to America in 1882.

Gravitated up to Bay Lake in 1888 where he homesteaded the main island on the front.

Father was born there in 1892.

Moved to the main land traded the 45 acre island for this property and about 1895 had a berry farm here and grandpa worked in the saw mill.

People started to come to the resort because of good fishing.

Grandma was a great cook, good German cook.

And the people then started to come from the plains states it was so hot down there.

And so we say that our first registered guest was in 1898.

So that we are 117 years old.

And we are the oldest resort in the state of Minnesota still owned by one family.

It's always been in the Ruttger family the whole time.

[ Scott: Jack's son, Chris Ruttger, took us on a golf cart tour later that autumn as the air cooled and the leaves warmed.]

I'm right now in the middle of what used to be highway 6.

And back in ah the 50's it was moved.

But back in the day this was highway 6 and we're in the middle of what was Bay Lake.

A little town.

Old historic buildings.

There was a gas station, service station general store and then as things evolved it become part of our business.

So now it's a little retail district.

The Garage, we call it now, is ah clothing and gift shop.

And we're just in the middle of some renovations so we've been repainting...these are buildings that are hundred years old so always lots of work to be done so carpenters are working on that in preparation for repainting of that building.

Now we're coming around to the back of the country store, that's gonna get some work done to it also.

But that was built by my great- uncles, again, over a hundred years ago as the Bay Lake Store.

It's now mostly clothing and gifts and other things in there.

And then the next building coming up is the Fine Line Salon and Spa.

It's an Aveda concept salon that we have here at the resort for guests and ah, the local community.

It's one piece of the resort the one piece that's open all year around.

So, even in the winter their regular clients come in.

As we continue down the former Highway 6, on either side here, to this side, the spa used to be the home of my great uncle Max and his family and then across the highway from them was the home of another great uncle Bill and his family.

So, these families ah, eventually had their own resorts, there were five Ruttger resorts.

So, these different family members branched out.

But I find it interesting to remember that in the winters when these summer resorts are closed a lot of the families, we kinda regroup back at Bay Lake at the original home base and have their homes here in the winter time.

So, as times gone on one house is now the spa, the other house is kind of a hospitality guest suite that we have here as part of the resort.

So a lot of ah, history so woven in along with the new.

A lot of pride and a lot of pressure.

A lot of pride and a lot of pressure.

My father's three brothers all went in the resort business.

The nephew went in the resort business at Ruttger's Birchmont Lodge in Bemidji also.

So there were five resorts at one time, it felt a lot of pressure, always a lot of pressure to try and live up to their legacy and do well.

We're gonna go down to the shore of Bay Lake and get a look at that area.

Bay Lake's the reason for our existence.

Now this is fall cooler, you can tell just by the light of the water the sun shifted south.

And the beach which even a month ago was full of people bathing and sunning is now pretty abandoned because it's gotten cool.

Here's a great view of Bay Lake.

And we're on the north shore of Bay Lake.

You can see out here where the fall colors are just starting to come out Isle of Pines, now called Malcerson Island, the island where my great grandfather originally homesteaded when he came here from Germany so through the long story of our history he ended up fortunately for us here on the main land and now we have it as a gorgeous view.

The family that lives there has developed parts of it but they've been so nice.

Our end of the island is pristine so we love our view here so much natural green shoreline all around.

Bay Lake actually goes about five miles in that direction but it's split up in to bays, hence the name.

And a couple of big islands and so you don't really see that much of it at one time.

Fun lake to navigate.

Good lake to fish.

Well it's Bay Lake so it has lots of bays.

So the scenic value of Bay Lake is what one thing that is very, very valuable to our people.

They love it.

Fishing has always been a major draw from day one when this resort started fishing was a main thing that brought people here.

But now golf has come on.

We had one of the first resort golf courses in the state of Minnesota in 1922.

We had a little golf course designed by Zig from Junction City, Kansas on a piece of cardboard.

Today when you design a golf course you'll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He took a piece of cardboard and a straight edge and lined out a golf course and that's the golf course we have today, called it Alex Nine after my father.

Had five greens, nine tees and in 1930 he re-did that and put it on four more greens.

So now it had nine sand greens and nine tees and you could see the greens are fenced in to keep the cows out.

You could see the cows and the horses in the background in the pasture and the fairways.

So there's no need to mow the grass because the cows and the horses did it and they fertilized the grass besides.

So, we had fertilization and grass mowing with the cows and the horses on the fairways of the golf course in those days.

But we then had a golf course to go along with the fishing.

So those were our major draws for the activities for peoples activities.

I think what sets us apart in some ways is just it's a quieter area then some resort areas.

We're on a lake that's gorgeous, good size but not as developed as some lakes.

You look out and see so much natural shoreline here.

A lot of people can't believe they're only a couple hours away from the Twin Cities.

Certainly there's boat traffic but not crazy like some lakes where it becomes almost a skating rink of boats going around in precession you know.

So it's a fun lake.

There's stuff going on but it's not as busy and crazy as some lakes.

We are now gonna head over to the golf course.

Two courses, Alex Nine and the Lakes course and take a look at things out there, some fall colors and pretty scenes.

The Lakes course is ah one of my favorite spots because it's a lot of natural terrain and natural lakes out there, so.

[ motors rumbling ] [ motors rumbling ] Get some footage of Aaron driving on the green.

[ chuckles ] Evidence.

[ wheels rumbling ] [ wheels rumbling ] [ wheels rumbling ] [ wheels rumbling ] " " " Come up over the rise here and we'll see hole number 18 that comes across Bass Lake.

Kind of a tricky shot and I don't see anybody teeing off so we're OK.

This is Bass Lake.

Now the clubhouse here is...overlooks the 18th green and Bass Lake, beautiful view, people love to sit there and ah, have a cocktail and watch their friends try to hit ball across the lake.

[ Scott: Kinda looking for swans, if you see swans.]

Yeah I haven't seen them lately but they said they're out there.

[ Scott: Are those swans right over there?]

Maybe they are.

Good eye, I think they might be up on land [ Scott: Yeah ] I'm used to seeing them floating on the water.

We'll probably scare them up when we go over there, we're coming around that way.

Tees right along the lakeshore here and then the pro tees are even on another spot and a little tougher to hit.

It comes right next to Alex Nine.

So, the two courses are easily accessible from the one clubhouse.

[ club striking ] Our little friends, the swans, are right up ahead here by this little pond.

[ wheels creeking ] Across this little bridge.

[ wheels rumbling ] [ wheels rumbling over wood planks ] [ wheels rumbling over wood planks ] And just up over the rise is Goose Lake.

A little bigger lake than the other one.

Well hope we can preserve the natural feeling of this course.

We have not built any housing on the course.

So, like here, this is one of my favorite views of the whole course is across this number 15 green and looking out at Goose Lake fall colors coming out now.

So we don't have any housing units along the course and I'm hoping that we can keep it that way.

It just gives it a natural wooded feel that you don't see as much anymore.

[ Scott: With our tour concluded, we have visited ten resorts in Lakeland Public Television's viewing area.

Each has shared a brief glimpse to what makes them special.

With so many activities offered.

So many visitors from near and far.

How has the resorting industry affected the culture of the northwoods?]

The resort business, and I know Grand View since I've been here this long, has had a profound effect on every element of our community.

People, they come up and they have no other reason to come to Brainerd then to come up here and experience the lakes.

What they end up doing then is buying a cabin on another lake.

Um, they become long time summer residents.

That moves into being up here maybe after they retire so they're here all summer or they're here half the year or they're here all the time.

We've had numerous instances where people have come to the area, stayed at one of the resorts and moved their business to the Brainerd Lakes Area.

It's added to the quality of life because as we've added more amenities the local um, residents take advantage of those.

It has had a tremendous impact on the area over the years and that is that resorts themselves have grown and changed a lot.

They're not just fishing camps, now they're more rounded and take care of families and a lot of different activities, and that.

And the impact on the area has been big economically because it draws a lot of people from out of our area plus a lot of people from out of the state come in.

And these people not only come to resorts but in time learn to love the area because of the beauty and so they in turn will build like summer cabins or even come up and live year round up here.

So, the resort industry has helped add tremendously to the growth of our area.

What I value about resorts in northern Minnesota is um, is the sense of community and coming up here and no matter how much your life has changed in everyday world, or in what you do everyday, you come up here and you know everyone and if you don't know em you get to know em very quickly and so yeah it's that sense of community.

I have been coming here for, lets see 23 years.

I started coming here when I was 12 years old so my parents came here and I have an older sister and two younger brothers and I was kind of at the perfect age to come here as a kid and just kind of went all the way high school through college and now I'm married and my husband comes now with us so.

We come for two weeks, which most people only come for a week but we come for two weeks every year and it's just knowing that you're going to be able to relax and be at the same place, like I love the fact that you get up everyday and you're like, "What do you want to do today?"

"Well, we could go for a bike ride, we could go canoeing we could go kayaking.

You want to go swimming?"

And when you're here for a chunk of time, you have enough time to just relax and sit by the lake and actually really enjoy what you're doing and not feel so rushed.

It's just something you look forward to all year long, I feel like my year is broken into two halves.

You've got the first part of the year which is you're looking forward to Minnesota.

And then the second half is Christmas and New Years, and that's what break up my years and when you look for your time off.

I picked this place this year over going to Sturgis.

Because I thought it was going to be so packed with people being there being that it's...was the 75th anniversary out there this year.

I wanted to stay away from that.

Again, you know, it's getting out and being able to do some of the things you like to do and not feeling pressure to...of large groups of people.

The people who come to the area have affected it quite a bit.

The retail industry has grown immensely for a small town area.

We have a lot dining we have a lot of attractions in the area a lot of golfing.

There's so many people that come, that is seems to be able to support all of these businesses during the peak of the summer.

There is some winter businesses well it doesn't compare to what summer businesses is, but a lot of people depend on the tourists.

We really appreciate people coming to the area.

Ah, I think sometimes people would wish the summer would slow down a little bit who aren't directly involved with the tourism but they know that that is our life blood up here.

There's a lot of contractors house builders, people like that that are working on people's homes in the areas who have come..live in the area um you know, after being introduced to it, by a resort.

My name is Dennis Stoye, we're from McMillan, Michigan which is up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

And so far we've been here a couple of weeks and it's been very nice.

It's quite, convenient, with the laundry and the store because we stay in it once out of the year.

Basically it's for work.

My...I'm retired, my wife still works and we travel where ever the work is for her.

Well, I have two little dogs to start with which are in the camper now and you have your own it's like your own home.

When you're in a motel room you're confined.

You can't go outside and grill out supper or do you know the dogs have a place to run.

I don't like a motel room.

I'm retired from staying in motel rooms.

I like to have my house with me.

Well it's had a huge impact for instance here we've seen people come here and on rainy days they go to town, buy souvenirs, we all know that Bemidji increases its population in the summer time.

We see people that came and vacationed here, moved our business to the area retire here, kids that come and enjoy the area here, go to college here, pick Bemidji as a college.

We've had people that buy big ticket items, boats, cars, pickups and one thing about the resort industry, it's a renewable resource.

We sell somebody to view the the lake and the trees and next week we renew it and sell it to them again.

So it's a real renewable resource.

Most of the lakes have been surrounded by private residents.

So the resorts have done a great job of maintaining space for the public.

Without the resorts there would be very little public access to the lakes, to enjoy our natural resources.

So, I think the resorts play a particularly important role in that.

Economically of course the Brainerd lakes area tourism is probably it's number one industry.

I don't know what it's added to the culture, I don't know, it's just we've used our lakes and I think we've tried to maintain quality lakes, it's to our advantage to maintain quality lakes in Minnesota lakes.

It's a land of lakes, 10,000 lakes I think we all are wildly interested in making sure we have quality water in our lakes because that is what really draws people to Minnesota to our resorts.

Right now we're in very good shape.

Our Leech Lake Tribe and the community, we're all working together and we're doing things to promote good fishing and good reaction on the ah, lake area and that.

And ah, things are going well on Leech.

We're having good fishing and good communication and that's very important.

My grandfather said something, he was standing up on the first tee and he said, "Look around the water that you're seeing is far more valuable than oil will ever be."

And it's the truth.

We take a lot of pride in preserving our lake.

We have what's called "Green Way Program" here for our golf courses.

And low and behold doing the old way of maintaining golf courses ah, the way they still do it in Scotland with very little fertilizer and it's complex process that we won't go into but it's a far healthier process for the environment and low and behold it provides a better product for the golfer as well.

Ah, golf has become a big thing.

Ah, once golf started to grow, we saw a lot of people who...who...Brainerd was not on their radar in the past because golf wasn't available up here.

And I'm not talking about just resort guests but people who were looking for a place to retire.

So, it became a much more desirable destination for people to retire to or build their summer house.

You can draw very strong correlation between the expansion of golf in the area and the expansion of they year round housing market and the population in general.

Golf was a real catalyst for growth in the Brainerd Lakes Area.

Yeah, if you're having an outing with your family, ah, you know relatives family reunion, ah a work outing, pick this place.

I mean, it has everything.

It's got an incredible lodge with incredible meals, unbelievable golf courses the hospitality here is incredible, it's outstanding.

You know, we're on a Tuesday ladies league so we're here every Tuesday morning and there's usually many more than us today but it's like a great time to get together and walk the nine holes so it's good exercise it's good comradery, it's a great place to go on Tuesday mornings and hang out with the girls.

I think it's about mental health ah, mental well-being and spiritual well-being, and not only physical well-being of getting off the grindstone of daily life but coming to a place like this.

Nature is such a wonderful teacher.

You can look at the ducks and a learn a lesson from them.

You can listen to the loons at 3 o'clock in the morning and learn a lesson from them.

I was speaking to one of my guests a few weeks ago, an educator, and we had this long conversation about nature being a teacher and he had related a story to me about how worried he was for his eldest son who had just gone off to college for a year and as is typical with that age kid, he didn't really talk about how he was doing, they would call him up, "How you doing son?"

"Eh, I'm OK, I'm good."

So of course this gentleman was really worried about his son, how he was doing.

And at the end of the year come to find out this kid turned out to get on the Dean's List.

He had done incredibly well and he said he was here that morning watching the ducks, baby ducks hopping up on our little duck dock where we feed them everyday.

And what he was noticing is that out of five baby ducks, two immediately jumped up on the dock and the other three were struggling.

Could not seem to get up on the duck dock, just couldn't do it.

And what did mama duck do?

Nothing.

She just allowed her children to do what they did.

Whether it was to succeed or fail.

And he said, "That's just like where I'm at, right now.

I think I need to stop worrying about my children at this point.

And there's a little lesson for me in nature, you know."

I thought that was a good illustration of an example of what nature can teach us I value north central resorts mostly just how far they are north and just how you really have the northwoods feel here.

And I also think the way Kim and Big John have really made this resort just very homey, you do feel like you're at home.

It's always hard for me to imagine that there's other people that stay in these cabins during other weeks.

It's like, "that's our cabin!"

You know, you get used to that and they really create a feel that you're at home and it's comfortable.

And you think of this as being your place even though you're only here you know a week or two out of the year but you know it'll be here when you get back and you know you look forward to seeing everybody every year.

It's just...it's a really good feel up here in general.

And as far as, like, logistically just being this far north in Minnesota, the woods to me are just beautiful.

You can always tell when you've crossed that half way point in Minnesota where you go from what looks more like plains and stuff to really deep, northwoods with tall pines and you can hear it in the air when you can smell it, you can hear the wind.

It's just a neat, really nice feel.

We have a lot of traditions, actually on the way up here we kind of stop at the same rest stop on I-29 for lunch and we stop at the same place before we get here for dinner.

And then once we're here we have a family fishing plaque.

It's just a fun deal, who caught the biggest fish in the amount of time that we're here?

And that's been some controversy over the years, even between family members where one thinks they got the bigger fish than the other one and ah, we don't weigh anything, we just kinda look at it and pick a, a winner.

But yeah, stuff like that I mean, it's just little things.

It's something that everyone in the family looks forward to every year.

I'm not sure if my dad touched on this or not but this resort in particular, it's so old that when you look around, I always look around and think, how many different families have been here?

And how many families have continued to come to this resort?

I mean there are people that have been coming here for over fifty years, you know!

We're at year, I think, 23 now.

We've been coming here for 23 years!

And I sit there and think, that's just a barely a drop in the bucket compared to some of these families that have been coming for so long.

And I just think it's incredible.

This resort is really neat, 19 cabins.

That's a huge undertaking.

And it's just a beautiful resort.

It's well laid out and you think of how many memories have been made here, of my goodness!

You know we enjoy fishing, we enjoy coming up here.

We enjoy the family time.

It's the type of lifestyle that I remember as a kid.

Maybe you're trying to relive your childhood, I don't know.

But when people are up here nothing is locked.

Everything's open.

You don't have to worry about your neighbor.

I guess it's the way life should be or used to be at one time.

And ah, we're going to continue to do it as long as we can.

And our families, we're on our third generation now, actually fourth generation coming up here so.

I think it's really valuable and really works.

It works out really well and I'm glad it's a tradition that my siblings have wanted to carry on, too.

You know that we can all still come up here as a family at least once a year, especially where we live in different states now.

Um, it's really something that I think is...will be good memories even for more years to come.

Well this time I brought more of the family and grand children so it's kind of fun to shut off the internet shut off the phones and that's our tradition is just kinda getting away from stuff a little bit.

Introduce some of the young ones to fishing and of course they like the water, they live in the water about half the time, so.

Gosh, you know, that's one of the things that has been nice, is that not much has changed for, in our experience.

You know, we...the kids have changed of course and ah, and they're ability to be out on the lake and has changed but the resort has stayed very much the same.

Which is that consistency is something it's been really good.

Well, a big sense of nostalgic, um, like I said I've been coming up here my whole life for every summer.

And so all of the experiences come back because this is the one place that sort of hasn't changed that much in 30 plus years.

Just being able to experience what I experienced as a child with my kids is ah, something that's really special to me.

I think that because it's been around so long it's something that is easy to take for granted that this is like a hidden gem.

But it's funny how many people I run into down in the Cities or even all over the country, that I'll be wearing a Huddles shirt and somebody will come up to me and say that they've been to Huddle's or their.. a relative has been to Huddle's or a friend has been to Huddle's and they had a great experience there.

And so I just think the impact that this resort and small resorts all over have had throughout the country and throughout the world is under-appreciated.

Most of my vacations, me and my wife's are used to get away from people not bunches of people but that's just us of course.

I just like the family atmosphere.

I don't like the loads and loads of people.

I don't like to go to the waterparks and the amusement parks like some of the grandkids do.

But I did have my grandson mention early just yesterday that this was the best vacation he'd ever been on.

[ water splashing ] We have a lot of customer loyalty.

The people came year after year.

Ah, they'd have babies and the babies would grow up and they'd be coming, too.

So, yeah we had a good repeat business.

And the more we upgraded our cabins of course, the more they enjoyed it.

So, it does become like this large family.

It's...it's not just people coming and going and that they're just strangers.

They're people that are coming back.

They're coming here for a reason.

They're coming here because this is where their families used to be.

Their family used to know my family and it's just kinda everybody kinda comes full circle.

Hard for people to understand how not just the Cragun's but every other resort operator that I've known in this state, I know a lot of them um dedicate themselves especially resorts, to either living at the resort or near by it.

I have to say I don't know anything different, I grew up in it but I'm sure maybe our kids could speak to that better.

Providing for the public, what the public wants, when the public wants it is demanding.

But I don't think sacrifice would be the right word there certainly, I don't...in our family we've had no sacrifices, it's been nothing but fun.

Obviously we've been here 42 years.

So, certainly there are challenges.

But the challenges the rewards of operating a resort and being a smile factory certainly out weigh any of the difficulties.

I can't imagine doing anything else.

I can't imagine anybody having a job that is as fulfilling as what we do.

They want to feel validated.

They want to feel like, "I mean something to...my money means something to these people."

And I think it's up to us as resort owners and as people to make people feel like they're special.

and that the reason that they came here is a good reason.

And that we really welcome them back and we're you know, sincere about that.

[ waves splashing ] [ waves splashing ] [ waves splashing ] [ waves splashing ] [ waves splashing ] Get outdoors.

Take your kids and grandkids.

Give them a chance.

[ waves splashing ] Scott: Resorts Of The Northwoods was made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people.