So we've survived school, traveled, had COVID, and gotten older. And now a major event: we bought a cabin!
FYI, for you non-Minnesotans, "cabin" is the local term for any structure of any kind in the woods or by a lake. Literally everything from a hunting shack to multi-million-dollar lake house with a library is a "cabin." Ours is somewhere in the middle. It is insulated and has a nice kitchen and a hot tub and sleeps 14 people....if they don't mind sharing one bathroom.
We had been looking for a cabin on and off since we moved to Minnesota (really, since we started going to the Braden Estate on Red Lake in 2006). We got serious about it last summer and started talking to my friend Abby, who does most of her real estate business here in Minneapolis, but also owns three of her own properties up north. Her husband knows all the things about land and trees and building up there. So last summer, we made a list of properties and went on two reconnaissance trips. That narrowed down the area we wanted and gave us some parameters for our search. We wanted a lot of shoreline on a lake with the up-north feel, i.e. pines, not deciduous, and no grass. The cabin should nice/comfortable/livable but not a replica of our suburban house. Woodsy without feeling too rustic or dirty. A big enough space for a lot of us to hang out, and a lot of bedrooms, but not a lot of wasted "extra" space in bedrooms and entryways. Basically, a National Park lodge.
None of the cabins we saw last summer was quite right. Karl fell in love with one contemporary, well-designed house sited up high on a cliff, which gave stunning views but felt very disconnected from the forest and the water. I was pretty attached to one with a super cool lot, both north and south shoreline and water-side sauna, but the house would have needed major renos. Prices were sky-high last year because no one could travel (nothing says "social distance" like "almost Canada") so even mediocre properties were more than we wanted to pay. Abby told us not to worry; we'd find our unicorn eventually. We gave up and hoped the unicorn would appear in the 2021 listings.
Lo and behold, in the first week of April, we saw a new listing that looked like it might be just right. Within minutes of the listing hitting the market, Abby had sent it to me, and Karl and I had sent it to each other. The three of us (and Henry, who was on pointless quarantine #3) drove up and back in a day to check it out. The site was more to my tastes than Karl's, with the house nestled in the woods on a level lot, rather than perched up for an epic view. It's on the west side of an island (= sunsets and breeze) with a peninsula (= loads of shoreline), and has a quiet, shallow bay, two screen porches, and a hot tub I didn't even know I wanted. Four bedrooms, but two of them were accessible only by ladder. We speculated that it would either fly off the market immediately or linger forever because it was a little quirky -- but it was the kind of weird that suits us. Abby and I returned for our evening PTO meeting and we made an offer the next day!
Getting to closing on this property was a saga. First, we had trouble getting insurance because of an underlying saga with our own homeowner's insurance. After spending a million hours getting property coverage, we had to figure out the completely unnecessary flood coverage. Then, about one week before closing, Wells Fargo discovered that they couldn't lend for a water-access-only property -- even though Abby had warned us this might be the case and we reviewed the issue with Wells about twenty times. We scrambled to find another lender and pushed the closing two weeks. It was also really hard to find a boat last year. I assure you, any purchasers with less administrative acumen or less stubbornness than me and Karl would not have closed this deal.
But we did it! And it's so awesome! We moved in just before the 4th of July weekend. The cabin came furnished but we didn't know exactly what was in there, and there are some things you just want new, so we started amassing linens and kitchen stuff and water shoes. When the big day came, we loaded up both cars and drove the 3.5 hours to our new marina, where the new boat, which I had never seen, was waiting for us.
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Costco cart 1 of 2
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Load 1 of many
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| Moving day, marine style |
Welcome to Black Duck Island!
Lake Vermilion is enormous but fairly shallow, which is why we loved it. It stays warmer than most lakes up north, usually has great fishing, and has restaurants and resorts that provide destinations for an afternoon of boating. We spent a ton of time on the water but still haven't explored the far western reaches. We also love the unique character of a lake with thousands of water-access properties. There are 365 islands and most of the north shore is protected forest, so there are no roads. So within the magical up-north cabin culture, we have this crazy sub-culture of boats, barges, boat-up gas and restaurants, and Scandinavian neighborly helpfulness taken to the extreme. When you're boating, you wave to everyone you pass. Everyone.
We basically spent the first two weeks exploring and cleaning and brush-clearing nonstop. "Furnished" was an understatement. The previous owners apparently never threw anything away and every closet and shed was stuffed to the gills. I think we threw out 100+ trash bags worth of junk. Everything was dusty and the brush was out of control because the prior owners hadn't been there in almost two years due to COVID. Carol and I dusted and wiped and threw away a million trashy novels. Ingrid threw out over 100 plastic hangers and at least that many nose plugs.
Karl and Dave cleared and chopped outside and discovered a lot of the balsams were in bad shape. So we called in an arborist who confirmed the trees were dying, cleared a few of the beasts himself, and left our menfolk to chop the rest. They probably cut down 300 trees this summer. Oh, and there was a burn ban due to the drought. The epic piles will be dragged to the ice and burned this winter. The upside: Karl now has a view of the water from both screen porches!
Despite all the cleaning and chopping, we played and played and played. BDI cabin rules stipulate that all electronic devices not necessary for gainful employment be left on the mainland. The kids have accepted this without question and are so awesome without their iPads. They go full Huck Finn as soon as we step on the boat. Henry usually dives off the boat and swims the last 100 yards to the dock. The kids swam like fish, we soaked in the hot tub, cruised a hundred miles on the tube, drank buckets of wine and beer, and played a thousand hours of games on the porch.
Karl installed new bunk beds to create the coolest six-cousin bunk room. The boys captured a million crawdads (we ate a few, which was not worth the effort), took up darts, and basically ran shoe-less and shirt-less all summer. The kids cruised a million nautical miles on the tube and Henry learned to get up on one ski. The kids talked Karl into starting a treehouse in the giant cedar on the trail to the meadow. Henry spent hours and hours learning about fishing and trying to catch something, but it was the worst fishing year in memory, so the poor kid went all summer without a catch. But it was amazing to see how long he would work at it without the temptation of YouTube. Gunnar runs hundreds of miles around the island every weekend and looks depressed the entire time we're home.
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| Crawdad hunting |
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| Note the water view from the tub |
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| IDK |
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| Screen porch camp-out |
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| Sunset on Inspiration Point |
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| Triple bunks! Loft room above. |
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| It's really high up. |
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| Milky Way from the dock |
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| Hunting for Frogs at Wolf Bay Lodge |
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| Waiting |
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| Cous' patrol |
By the end of our first summer, we had the property more or less in order. It feels like we got to zero, rather than being in the chore hole, which is a good way to go into next summer. The house is simultaneously perfectly awesome right now and in need of a hundred changes and upgrades, which is exactly right for us. We don't even know how to relax without a DIY project. We closed up after Labor Day because the lake levels were exceptionally low and our schedule didn't allow us to go up during late September or early October. I'm amazed at how much time we spent there in just two months this year; it'll be awesome to be there from April to October next year. At some point we will brave going up in the winter -- and drive across the frozen lake! -- but we haven't quite worked out the logistics yet. Maybe next winter. Until spring, I will spend the winter missing my weirdly perfect little island (and shopping for classy-not-kitschy cabin furniture).
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