Ryden’s Border Store:
A Family Legacy By Eric Weicht Ryden’s is a place with a story to tell, a story that is defined by change as much as it is by tradition. Ryden’s is a family’s story, a story that spans three generations and 75 years. It is a story that has been writing itself ever since Ed Ryden and his wife Mabel decided to start a new life on the “old border” with their young family of five back in 1947. As the story goes, Ed and Mabel were up vacationing on the North Shore from their home in Hill City, Minn., after Ed—a lumberjack by trade—injured himself and found himself temporarily out of work. It was on this trip that the two of them first visited what was then “The Sextus City Resort” by the old border crossing, a business that they would later purchase for $25,000 in 1947 and rename Ryden’s Pidgeon River Resort. “Pete still says that he can’t believe that his dad [Ed] was able to talk his mom [Mabel] into moving up there from Hill City,” says Phyllis Ryden, Pete Ryden’s wife and a big part of the second generation of Ryden’s that carried the business into the 21st century. “They had a nice beautiful house there in Hill City,” continues Phyllis, “one of the biggest in town, but somehow he convinced her to move up to the woods with five kids to a place that didn’t even have electricity.” “That’s true,” adds Pete, “but I’m glad that he did. I wouldn’t have had life any other way.” Today, Ryden’s Border Store is still around and still going strong under a third generation of Ryden family ownership, despite a tough couple of years brought about by the pandemic. Lori “Sam” Boomer and her husband Mike run Ryden’s Border Store and the Duty Free shop, while their cousins Debbie and Mike Ryden are in charge of the gas station next door. Sam took over Ryden’s Border Store and Duty Free seven years ago from her father, Larry, who had previously taken over the family business in 1973 from his father, Ed. Debbie and Mike took over Ryden’s Gas in the late 1990s after their parents—Phyllis and Pete—decided to retire from the family business after a lifetime of involvement.
[TOP] Ryden’s Border Store in 1966. [L TO R]: The original Ryden’s Pidgeon River Resort at the old border. Ryden’s Border
Store today, which is still going strong under a third generation of Ryden family ownership. | SUBMITTED of souvenirs, local artwork, candy, snacks, pop, beer, a money exchange service and Duty Free shopping at the border. Like their website says, “If we don’t have it, you’re too picky.”
“My dad [Larry Ryden] started me out by picking up garbage around the property when I was 5 years old,” continues Sam, “and I just kept working from there.”
The family business has changed a lot over the years—it’s even changed locations since it was first taken over by the Ryden family. Back in the early 1960s when the border crossing moved from 6 miles north of Mineral Center—a modern day “ghost town” that is little more than a cemetery anymore—to where it is today, so too did the Ryden family business.
Ryden’s Border Store is impossible to miss for anyone crossing the U.S.-Canadian border via Grand Portage. They have everything a traveler needs—a huge selection
Before the move to its present location in 1963, Ryden’s consisted of 23 cabins, a small hotel, a beer garden and a restaurant, all in addition to the border store, gas sta-
“I went away to college for a little while,” says Sam, “but besides that I’ve been working at Ryden’s my whole life.”
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tion and Duty Free business that are still around to this day. Up until a few years ago, Sam and Mike still ran a café, but, according to Sam, they decided to close that part of the business because of how hard it was to keep it staffed. Though the business has been downsized in some respects, it has grown in others. One of the cornerstones of the business today is, of all things, their parcel service, something that started with an unusual request from a customer. “The [parcel service] all started some 20 years ago or more, when a guy came in wondering if he could get a part shipped here that wouldn’t ship to where he lived in Canada,” says Sam. “That was before the internet,” contin-
ues Sam. “Now, with internet shopping and everything getting ordered online, this part of our business just kind of exploded.” Thanks in large part to the recent boom in internet shopping, Sam, Mike, manager Jaime Spry, and the rest of Ryden’s team rely on two forklifts to organize and store the many parcels they get sent into two large garages that they had built specifically for that purpose. They’ll take any sized parcel, so long as the customer is willing to come pick it up. “The reason the parcel service has taken off,” adds Sam, “is that a lot of products are only sold here in the U.S. and not across the border. Some products are cheaper here and sometimes it’s just a matter of there being more variety.”
