Love of the Lakes 2021

LOVE LAKES ECHO JOURNAL'S

2 0 21 E D I T I O N

OF THE

FOR THOSE WHO ENJOY PLAYING IN THE

INSIDE: Portview Resort Lakouting Club Paradise Resort WAPOA turns 50 Breezy Point Resort Wheelhouses on ice Lead poisoning Love Our Lakes campaign

WATERS OF THE LAKE COUNTRY

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Editor’s Note | The lake is still calling ......................................5

INDEX

Lake Margaret feature | Portview Resort...............................6

Lake Margaret map......................................................................7

Ponto Lake feature | Lakouting Club.....................................12

Ponto Lake map..........................................................................13 South Long Lake feature | Paradise Resort .........................18 South Long Lake map.................................................................19

Fun on the Lake with Our Readers...................................... 22-23

Breezy Point Resort centennial ................................................. 24 Wheelhouses on ice .................................................................. 26 Magnet fishing........................................................................... 28 Dangers of lead poisoning....................................................... 30

Gull Lake Chain feature | Welcome Wannigan................. 32 Gull Lake Chain map................................................................. 33 Fishing surge............................................................................... 34 Whitefish Chain feature | Lake association is 50+............. 38

Deb and Brad Winn, on Pine Mountain Lake in Backus, shared this favorite photo from summer 2020 of their 2-year-old grandson an exuberant Easton - who had more lake time because of the COVID-19 pandemic and could not have been happier. They lost count of how many times he went down this slide.

Whitefish Chain map................................................................. 39

PUBLISHER

Lowell Wildlife Management Area.......................................... 42

Pete Mohs ......................... pete.mohs@brainerddispatch.com

Leech Lake feature | Love Our Lakes campaign................. 44

Leech Lake map......................................................................... 45

EDITOR Nancy Vogt ............................... nancy.vogt@pineandlakes.com

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Susie Alters Eller ........... susie.alters@brainerddispatch.com

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS Pete Mohs ......................... pete.mohs@brainerddispatch.com Nancy Vogt ............................... nancy.vogt@pineandlakes.com Travis Grimler ..................... travis.grimler@pineandlakes.com Dan Determan .................. dan.determan@pineandlakes.com Mike Rahn

ADVERTISING STAFF

218-963-7700

Susie Alters Eller ........... susie.alters@brainerddispatch.com Kathy Bittner Lee ......... kathy.bittnerlee@pineandlakes.com Jill (Wasson) Sprague ... jill.wasson@brainerddispatch.com Stacey McSweeney... stacey.mcsweeney@brainerddispatch.com

MAGAZINE DESIGN Sara Slaby ................... fccspecialsections@forumcomm.com

ADVERTISING 218-855-5895 or 800-432-3703 advertising@pineandlakes.com

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On Gull

Cover Photo: Richard German, Pequot Lakes, submitted this photo with the words: “Taking it all in and letting it all out at West Twin Lake. © 2021 Echo Journal No part of the material contained herein may be reproduced without prior written consent.

Printed by Forum Communications Printing of Fargo, North Dakota The Pineandlakes Echo Journal is a weekly newspaper covering the Pequot Lakes and Pine River areas and is owned by Forum Communications Company in Fargo, North Dakota.

Love of the Lakes combines stories with information and maps for different lakes in the area. We dedicate the magazine to the families and businesses around each featured lake or lake chain.

Sources for lake map information and statistics include the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us

THE LAKE IS STILL CALLING

The Vogt family has gathered on North Long Lake for a family reunion every July for more than 15 years.

Photo by Nancy Vogt

As the world returns to a new “normal” after a year-plus health pandemic, let’s not just sweep the past year under the rug.

Did COVID-19 restrictions force you to slow down just a little bit? Did you spend a bit more quality time with your family, perhaps eating more leisurely meals together or doing more fun activities?

If so, keep it up! The lake is still calling.

As you’ll read in this issue of Love of the Lakes, lake activity - especially fishing - increased in the past year. That’s great news, and a trend we hope continues.

Check out how our readers enjoy the water and capture precious memories by looking at our photo spread showing Fun on the Lake with our Readers.

Also on these magazine pages, find out how wheelhouses have taken over the ice during the hard water season and transformed that industry.

Read about a lake hobby - magnet fishing; as well as the continued dangers of lead poisoning among wildlife.

Enjoy stories on the fascinating history of several area resorts, from one of the area’s largest establishments to a smaller mom and pop outfit to a resort that no longer exists but whose property remains in the same family.

Despite a seeming return to normal life, don’t ever forget to take time to get outside and enjoy our precious lakes and rivers in any way you can, no matter what the season. Take along and enjoy our 15th annual Love of the Lakes magazine.

And remember, the lake is still calling.

NANCY VOGT EDITOR

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Submitted photo

Lake Margaret shoreline.

FEATURE

Same family owns Lake Margaret resort property for past century Family reunion planned this summer

BY NANCY VOGT

When Guy McClintick bought a rustic fishing and hunting camp on the west shore of Lake Margaret on the Gull Chain of Lakes a century ago, it’s not likely he envisioned his family would still own that prime property 100 years later.

But that’s exactly the case as McClintick’s descendants celebrate the centennial of Portview Resort this summer. Plans include a family reunion July 17 at the former seasonal resort, where various branches of family own 11 cabins.

Those descendants include McClintick’s granddaughter, Mary (McClintick) Miller, who with her husband, Doug Miller, are the only year-round family members at Portview.

6 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

The Millers have lived on the far end of the 62-acre property that includes 1,710 feet of shoreline since 2000.

Mary shares the story of her grandfather buying the property - sight unseen - in 1921 with a loan from his father. The land today is in Lake Shore, just off Cass County Road 107, on Portview Road.

McClintick had just returned from serving in World War I to learn his candy route had been given away, leaving him jobless.

Little did he know that what would become Portview Resort would also become a legacy for several generations.

Mary writes about those early days when her grandparents first took over the property:

“My grandmother was a milliner in the Cities and must have had quite a shock when she first saw the living conditions. At that time, it was a very primitive logging camp with a couple of rough structures. No running water or bathrooms.

“Over time, with hard work and determination, Guy built a fabulous small resort where each of 11 cabins had its own wooden boat (that had to be painted every year), several docks, fish cleaning houses and an ice house.

“There was always plenty of work to do: The two boys, Jim and Dick, helped build cabins, dig worms and became fishing guides. The two daughters, Jean and

Nevis

54

34 Ten Mile Lake

6

12

84 Woman Lake

Park Rapids

MARGARET LAKE

Hackensack

Lake Wabedo

371

47 8

8410

64 87

10

87

49

87

Pine Mountain

CASS COUNTY, NEAR LAKE SHORE/NISSWA

ahga

Backus

87

FOOT HILLS STATE FOREST

Shore Length: 5.31 miles

371 5

Jail Lake 56

Lizzie

84 Horseshoe

15

43

Clough

56

Eagle

Norway

12

Swanburg

84

371

Deepest Point: 26 feet

2

20

Water Quality: Lake Margaret may sometimes not be suitable for wading or swimming due to low clarity and algae growths caused by presence of nutrients such as phosphorus in the water.

Blind

48

Hattie

Mildred

Area: 247.79 acres

48

Lake Ada

Lind Lake

1 1 Mud Lake

Upper Whitefish

1

Lower W

15

371

Invasive Species: Zebra Mussels

64 Fish Species: Black bullhead, black crappie, bluegill, brown bullhead, green sunfish, hybrid sunfish, largemouth bass, northern pike, pumpkinseed, rock bass, tullibee (cisco), walleye, yellow bullhead, yellow perch, bowfin (dogfish), common carp, white sucker, banded killifish, bluntnose minnow, central mudminnow, creek chub, golden shiner, Johnny darter, least darter, logperch, mimic shiner, northern pearl dace, spottail shiner

134

Arrowhead

Pine River

Ide Corn

Lower Hay

15

Clamshell

Bertha

145

Jenkins

16

Star

Kimball

39

Clear Lake

Upper Hay 16

112

Grass

Duck

103

Ossawinnaamakee

112 17

17

11 Upper Loon

Public Water Access: Via a navigable channel from Gull Lake.

Pequot Lakes

Sibley

1

Loon

Interesting Fact: Lake Margaret is also called Kilpatrick Lake. In 1880, Charles A. Pillsbury formed the Gull River Lumber company and built a sawmill west of Brainerd. All timber, particularly the white pine, surrounding the lakes was soon cut and, in 1889, tracks were laid for an inland railroad to move logs to the lake for transportation. This narrow-gauge railroad extended some 12 miles northwest from the landing at Lake Margaret. By 1894, the surrounding timber had been harvested and the tracks were removed, ending the brief railroad history and intensive logging in Lake Shore. The old railroad grade can still be seen in the western part of Lake Shore. (From the city of Lake Shore’s website)

168

371 East Twin

Mayo

West Twin Edna

Lower

118 Nisswa Roy

77

Clark

Lake

13 Mollie

137 Hubert

Gull Lake

115

Little Hubert

Round Lake

3

4

Gladstone

1

10

Garden

13

371

77

5

Markee

Nisswa

Margaret

Sources: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Lake Finder; Lake-Link Minnesota.

4 Little Pelican

107

Upper Gull

Lake Shore

Pelican La

Upper

llen CuMiddle

107 29

Breezy Point

3

Crys

127

M

127

Sor

115 15

North Long Lake

Rock

Hartley

125

77

Wise

Wilson Bay

PILLSBU RY STATE FOREST

10

Sylvan

210

Baxter

210 48

36

48

Pillager Hardy

10 CAMP RIPLEY NATIONAL GUARD RESER VATION Shamineau Lake

371

B ul Pa

nE ya un

s res xp

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123

5

21 44

CROW WING STATE PARK r ive iR pp ssi ssi i M

121 131

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121

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White Sand

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18

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77

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126

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5

Margaret, cleaned cabins and worked hard gardening and scooping ice cream for the kids that came up to the house for cones.”

Sitting in their home on that property overlooking Lake Margaret, Mary and Doug reminisced about the resort that served guests for 50 years.

The land was in Portview Village (hence the name Portview Resort) and was a logging camp/hunting lodge for men when Mary’s grandfather bought it. The village had a post office and a railroad by the lake.

“It was basically a lumber camp,” Mary said Her grandparents’ house, a little store and gas tank were once located by the gate leading to the cabins. A schoolhouse was at the end of the road where Mary’s father, uncle and aunts attended school. The teacher took turns living with students’ families.

The Millers shared the story of Mary’s grandfather being offered 10 acres of land for his cow, but apparently the cow was too valuable at that time.

In those early days, vacationers paid $15-$22 per week for a cabin on the lake.

Mary, who said her grandfather cared about people’s experiences, including those of his 8 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

children and grandchildren, wrote: “I doubt that Guy ever made much money. But what he did was create great memories for his customers and a great experience for his four kids (not to mention his 11 grandchildren).

“Shortly before World War II, Guy wanted to modernize the resort. The main house and all the cabins still used outhouses, and every day each cabin needed a fresh block of ice that had to be cut from the lake during the winter.

“Guy needed to bring electricity to the

area, so he sold $10 bonds door to door for the Rural Electric Company. Later he became the first chairman of the board of what today is Crow Wing Power.

“His two sons enlisted, and after WWII all of Guy’s four children graduated college.”

Mary’s father, Dick, and her uncle, Jim, each married and built their own cabins at Portview Resort. Mary’s family lived in Mankato, and her uncle’s family in St. Paul.

The brothers worked all week, and then headed north to Portview Resort on the weekends to do chores and build their cabins.

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People sat and fished from this main dock at Portview Resort on Lake Margaret.

TOP FAR LEFT: Jean McClintick holds a huge northern caught with a cane pole.

BOTTOM FAR LEFT: Mary Miller said resort guests and family members always swam together, and the lake was always crowded with kids.

Submitted photos

“His favorite (chore) was planting trees on this once logged-off property,” Mary wrote about her father. “One year during a drought he filled buckets of water with holes drilled in the bottom of them and set them near each pine tree. It took him all weekend to water the trees.”

When Mary came to the resort with her family as a young girl, some cabins still had outhouses as it was a long time before the full resort had running water. Even though her father and his siblings owned cabins, it was possible they’d be rented, so they never knew until they arrived where they’d be staying. It could have been a random empty cabin, her grandparents’ house or an annex that had beds.

“Several times we had surprise visits from critters, bats being the most fun,” she wrote.

“It was a blast,” Mary said, no matter if they had a bathroom or an outhouse to use. “I was almost as close to my cousins as my sister because

we grew up together.”

She wrote: “When my generation was old enough to be out of diapers we were expected to work, too.

Grandpa was the CEO of the resort, and he’d make pancakes each morning and give us our jobs.

“Grandma had a big garden, and there was always wood to chop. Our favorite job was to pick up the garbage. To do this, we stood on the tailgate of Grandpa’s old station wagon as he drove the bumpy roads from cabin to cabin.

“Today we’d say this was too dangerous, but it sure was a lot of fun. By 2 o’clock it was swimming time, and everyone stopped work and went to the beach. Many of our customers came the same week every year, and made lifelong friends.”

Her grandfather believed the resort competed with hotels, so when those hotels offered linen service, Portview Resort did the same, instead of requiring guests to bring their own. The resort also

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sold bait, gas, candy and a few grocery items.

“Customers were forever coming up to get something, and Grandma claimed she could never eat an entire meal sitting down,” Mary wrote.

“After dinner in the evenings, the men would usually come up to the house and sit on the front porch, drinking something cold and telling fish stories. Often they brought their children to get an ice cream cone or popsicle,” she wrote.

The Fourth of July was a festive time at the resort, which her grandma called “the camp.” People vacationing there socialized, playing shuffleboard and horseshoes at the camp. Even vacationing kids enjoyed helping with chores.

Mary recalled painting the boats every summer in the resort’s white and green color scheme.

Because it was a logging camp, the property initially had few trees. Her grandfather and father planted trees that stand tall today.

Water safety was important at the resort, Mary wrote, and boaters were provided with fat orange life jackets.

Children were supposed to wear them on the docks, too.

She wrote: “Dad was adamant about teaching my sister and I to swim, and we were never allowed any flotation devices while in the water. We both took swimming lessons through the lifeguard level, and once a year with my father rowing the boat, we’d swim across Lake Margaret and back just for bragging rights.

“Of course we also learned to row a boat and fish, and my boy cousins taught me how to slalom water ski by giving me only one ski to begin with, and then cornering hard to make me fly off.”

After 50 years in the resort business, her grandfather retired and split the property according to his children’s wishes, as some wanted buildings and some wanted property.

“Somehow they worked it out,” Mary wrote.

She’s not sure why her father didn’t continue to run the resort.

“I could have seen my dad carrying it on,” she said.

Doug recalled his first visit to the property in the spring of 1975. He helped Mary’s father put in the dock, not realizing the posts were handmade every year from popple TOP TO BOTTOM: Guy and Theresa McClintick, who founded Portview Resort, stand outside their home next to a gas tank and minnow tank.

An August 1957 sunrise over Lake Margaret.

The Fourth of July was huge for resort guests and McClintick family members, who would have a picnic and play games like horseshoes together.

Submitted photos

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10 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

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From “Spirit of the Pines” by Jean (McClintick) Horst • The Portview Resort land originally belonged to the Gull Lake Lumber Co.

LEFT TO RIGHT: McClintick cousins wash the car their grandpa used to collect resort garbage with their help.

Guy and Theresa McClintick’s daughter, Jean, relaxes on the back porch, which was a popular place for resort guests to gather.

Submitted photos

• The railroad that ran along the shore of the lake to haul logs out of the woods later became the road that wound through the resort.

• The lake originally was called Kilpatrick Lake, but after 1916 was changed to Margaret Lake in honor of Mrs. Margaret Cobbin, whose husband owned much of the land around the area.

trees they whittled and pounded into the of 100 years of a great family resort, we bottom of the lake. can keep these special memories alive • “You might conclude from all this Around that same time, Doug helped around our campfires at night.” that we were poor and you would Mary’s father and the male cousins carve be right, but if you think we were NANCY VOGT a trail through the woods, which today has deprived, you are wrong. … If is editor of the Pineandlakes a sign proclaiming the “Dick McClintick you had to pick a place to raise a Echo Journal weekly newspaper Memorial Trail.” family,a summer resort would be in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. She may one of the best.”

Her father built a home on the property be reached at 218-855-5877 in the 1990s, which is next door to the or nancy.vogt@pineandlakes.com.

Millers’ home.

Today, just one of Guy and Theresa McClintick’s children is living - Jean (McClintick) Horst, who is 96. For the 4450 Main St., 75th anniversary of the resort, she put Pequot Lakes together a history book called “Spirit www.footaids.com of the Pines” and dedicated to “The McClinticks of Portview.” The book is filled (218)568-6690 with historical stories, photos and details 1-800-797-8447 of the family lineage.

Guy and Theresa McClintick likely We feature the best in today’s footwear at the best prices. would be proud that their grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-greatgrandchildren continue to enjoy their time New Balance Birkenstock Rockport at Portview Resort.

Lynco Clarks Merrell Halflinger Ready-Made “Some things don’t change over 100 Aetrex Red Wing InStride Orthotic Systems years,” Mary wrote. “The haunting call of SAS Naot Drew a loon at night; a full moon rising above Minnetonka Vionic Propet jack pines.

Klogs Chaco “But many things have changed. The old Johnson motors puttering around the lake have been replaced by noisy wake boats. Very few people fish off their docks, choosing instead to fish from fancy bass boats.

“Today, many of us have our own family cabins. Instead of 11 cousins and three generations, there are over 60 of us and five generations. Our family, like all families, has experienced tragedy: too many lives lost too early.

“Hopefully, as we share the celebration

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LEFT TO RIGHT: Finding a place to anchor the Omaha Lakouting Club was an adventure all its own. A committee including Frank Seeley (left), Jim Hutchinson, Eva Hutchinson, Ida Huston, Susie Seeley, Kenneth Seeley and Parker Matthews drove all over the northwoods looking for a suitable place.

FEATURE

99 years later, Ponto Lake’s north shore remains the Shangri-La of the north

Gunnar Nilsson and his truck “Myrtle” hold a special place in the hearts of many of the adult members of the Lakouting Club who remember him as the caretaker of the grounds.

Photos from "Ponto: A Place in our Hearts"

BY TRAVIS GRIMLER

Tucked on the north shore of Ponto Lake sits a community formed nearly 100 years ago in the minds of a church congregation in 1922.

Members of the First Christian Church of Omaha, Nebraska, had gathered under the direction of Frank E. Seeley, later called the “father” of the club, to discuss a collaboration. Heather Hooper, a current member of the Lakouting Club by ownership of land there, said they may have been driven, in part, by the heat of Nebraska.

“Back in the 1920s, there was a group of families that were looking for a summer retreat, a place to go to commune with nature to raise their kids. You know, just that good way, and to escape the heat of the plains, which can be pretty brutal,” Hooper said. “And back in those days, there wasn’t air conditioning.”

“Ponto: A Place in our Heart,” the club’s history book for which Hooper provided copy editing services, reported that in the mid-1930s the heat in Omaha got so bad that school had to be canceled.

In 1922, Seeley shared an idea with the group. He was a regular vacationer to the Minnesota northwoods. While staying in 12 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

“It’s a place where you can wear your old clothes and your day can start after a second cup of coffee and all is right with the world.”

Mark Wilson, Lakouting Club member

Crow Wing County he became aware of a private club formed 20 years earlier by people from Lincoln, Nebraska, called the Pelican Lake Outing Club.

The church group met at Seeley’s home in the summer of 1922 and formed the Omaha Lakouting Club, with each member paying dues toward funding the club’s venture of finding and purchasing land.

The 12-member club included utility employees, a pastor, a dentist, an employee

of the John Deere company and a casket salesman, among others. They worked for more than a year to form, but once the constitution and bylaws were created, a smaller committee jumped into Model T Fords and left on July 1, 1923, to find where they would lay down their roots.

They stopped at the Pelican Lake Outing Club to rent cottages while scouting real estate.

“I can’t imagine how many hours it must have taken on a rutted road,” Hooper said.

“Not everything was paved drive from Omaha to the lake.”

They investigated several locations, including properties on Pelican Lake, an island on Woman Lake, land between Black Water and Mule Lake, and 130 acres on the north shore of Ponto Lake, which supposedly meant “little jewel” in some native tongue, according to “Ponto: A Place in our Hearts.”

Discussion was torn between those who wanted a clean lake for swimming and those who wanted a more murky lake for fishing.

After the women in the group thoroughly turned down the island on Woman Lake, the men portaged to an undeveloped shoreline on the north side of Ponto Lake. It was a land

PONTO LAKE

64

50

50

Leech Lake

50

Leech Lake

371 50 30 10 20

40

25

Walker

371

34

200

Akeley 50 Nevis

Longville

5

7

54

60

34

Ten Mile Lake

6

12

84

Little Boy

Woman Lake

Hackensack

rk Rapids

Lake Wabedo

371

47 8

87

87

49

87

Pine Mountain

Backus

87

FOOT HILLS STATE FOREST

Shore Length: 4.53 miles Deepest Point: 60 feet Water Quality: The water on Ponto Lake is suitable for swimming and wading with good clarity and low algae levels throughout open water season.

64 Fish Species: Black bullhead, black crappie, bluegill, brown bullhead, burbot, hybrid sunfish, largemouth bass, northern pike, pumpkinseed, rock bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, yellow bullhead, yellow perch, bowfin (dogfish), white sucker, blacknose shiner, bluntnose minnow, Iowa darter, Johnny darter, mimic shiner, spottail shiner

Blind

48

Hattie

371

Jail Lake 56

Lizzie

84 Horseshoe

43

Clough

56

Eagle

54

Mildred

Area: 388.05 acres

48

Lake Ada

Lind Lake

CASS COUNTY

54

84

64

Swanburg

Norway

Public Water Access: A public boat ramp 84is accessible off 10th Avenue Northwest east of371 the lake.

1

134

Arrowhead

2

Big Trout Historic Fact: According toPine “Ponto: A Place in our1Hearts,” River electricity until 1948, when Ponto Lake residents were without Mud Lake the Crow Wing Cooperative Power and Light Company of Upper Lower Whitefish Whitefish R Brainerd began to expand its utility1 lines around the lake. 15 371 According to the Cass County, Minnesota, centennial history 16 Lower Hay Ideal Cros book, the lake was without phone service until 1920, 15 when the Clamshell Corners Bertha township borrowed money to purchase the first telephones and Star 145 16 Grass Kimball Jenkins batteries, poles and wires for the township.

The primary purpose 39 Duck Clear Lake 16 Upper Hay 112 103 behind installing phones was for fire protection.

Fawn Ossawinnaamakee

Sources: DNR Lake Finder, “Ponto: A Place in our Hearts,”

112

“Cass County, Minnesota Centennial History Book” 17

3 11

17 11

Upper Loon

Pequot Lakes

Sibley

1

Loon

168

371 East Twin

Mayo

West Twin Edna

107

Breezy Point

Pelican Lake

4

Upper

Little Pelican

llen CuMiddle

1 Lougee

107

Lower

Markee

Lake Shore

Upper Gull

Margaret

Nisswa Roy

77

Garden

Clark

Lake Edward

13

13

371

Perch

118

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 13 Nisswa 29

137 Hubert

Mollie

4

3

Bass

grant from the United States to the Northern Pacific Railroad company.

“It was covered with fallen trees, dense underbrush, saplings of Norway pine (red pine), jack pine, birch and alder bushes,” according to the club’s history book.

At first the club voted down an offer to buy the site for $2,750 on a 5-3 vote. It wasn’t until they had all returned to Omaha that the site began to look more appealing. On July 21, 1923, the club met again and agreed to offer $2,600 for the property.

They bought it from Evelyn Williams and their first duty upon purchasing it was to arrange for delivery of ice from a resident, “Mr. Calvet,” for 35 cents per 100 pounds of ice.

They divided the property into 12 lots, and each member randomly drew their lots, which they could trade with one another if it was properly recorded within the club. The group members leased lots from the club with each member acting as a stockholder, with their stock entitling them to one of the 12 lots on the Ponto Lake north shore.

At the time, Ponto Lake was relatively undeveloped, with only four homes on the entire lake. It would take a lot of work to bring it up to a workable condition.

“The weeds and brush were higher than our heads with trees fallen in all directions. A Boy Scout axe was all we had to clear a path from one lot to another. We cut up small trees four feet long to use in marking lot lines. Though we used Citronella mosquito lotion, our faces looked as if we had small pox or measles,” said a memoir written by group member Wally Groves and recounted in the Ponto history book.

The first building constructed was the community house, a place where any member could stay while their own properties remained undeveloped. It was a 16- by 24-foot tarpaper shack constructed in 1924 for approximately $200 by local George Ruscoe.

Though primarily adults, the north shore made club members act like youthful children at camp.

“Audrey Groves Mishler recalls the sleeping accommodations in the community house. Cots were placed in the large room with a curtain drawn between the men’s side and the women’s side. From all reports she heard there were a lot of ‘shenanigans’ and laughter generated between the males and females,” the history book says.

Though in part formed as a place for Christian fellowship, the group was also seeking a communal, natural, camp-like life. Though they lived in relative comfort for their time, they reveled at the chance to live a more primitive lifestyle on a Minnesota lakeshore. They found joy in gathering water from the nearby Kruckow farm, using the woods for relief before an outhouse could be furnished and generally roughing it.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Dubbed Promenade Path and Lakeview Broadway, this stone lined path was constructed in 1931 for $50 by Mr. P.N. Krukow, a local, to form a stronger community between cabin owners. It still serves that purpose today.

Frank Heinisch spent lots of time building this little boat, called Putt, only to find the end product was so small it was only really suited for children. Kids at the Lakouting Club still enjoy taking Putt on the lake to this day.

Submitted photos

The 1935 Omaha Lakouting Club members gathered at a regular club meeting.

Photo from “Ponto: A Place in our Hearts”

14 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

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LEFT TO RIGHT: The community house was the first building erected at the Lakouting Club property in 1924 for approximately $200. The building was sold and used as the frame for another building in 1939.

The first Omaha Lakouting Club gates were constructed before 1929, with an archway to come in the late ‘30s.

Photos from “Ponto: A Place in our Hearts”

They bought lumber from the Backus Lumber Company, constructed courts for recreational activities like volleyball and horseshoes, contracted with P.N. Kruckow for caretaking and handyman duties and shipped their letters to friends back home from Pine River, because they thought it sounded fancier than Backus.

They paid to have the lake stocked regularly over the years and helped to form the Ponto Lake Association with other lake property owners.

“At the October 1928 annual meeting, President Frank Seeley reported: ‘Three new cabins had been built the past season, making a total of seven cottages. Much clearing had been done and the property is beginning to take on a look of a real park.

The lot lines have been definitely established.

The west line of the property is being surveyed, which will provide better security.’

President Seeley commented that the social gatherings during the year had been delightful and the group had made splendid progress on their own premises,” the history book says.

It didn’t take long before the rest of the properties were improved.

walk to be three feet wide and to follow the crest of the hill. The border to be made using rocks not less than eight inches nor more than 12 inches in diameter,” the history book says.

Kruckow installed the walkway in 1932 for $50, though it was widened to four feet. It quickly got the nickname Promenade Path because member Rose Honig would gracefully walk the path with an umbrella and bonnet.The path not only succeeded in connecting the properties, but club members still speak fondly of it nearly 90 years later.

“The cabins are connected with a path,” Hooper said. “It’s a rock-lined promenade that is along the top of this bank, and joins all of us. So we walk up and down the path and go visit each other.”

“We have a promenade or a path, a rock line path going along each of the cabins,” said Frank Heinisch, Hooper’s father. “And one of my early experiences to this day is walking down that path and saying hello to all the people that have cabins up and down the path. They were all extremely

THE PATH

There are several important features at the Omaha Lakouting Club properties that hold a special place in the hearts of the members, old and new. One such feature was Lakeview Broadway.

In 1930, the group decided it needed to be easier to travel from cottage to cottage to visit one another. The club had been formed, after all, to encourage community living.

“The board of directors authorized the construction of the walk extending from the west line of the property to the east line. The

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Frank Heinisch is known by the other Lakouting members for his prowess with a saucer.

Submitted photo

open and cooperative. A lot of them were very successful people willing to take a few minutes with a child and talk real issues that would come up. That was just a life changing experience to be able to meet these people and to commune with it and some of their philosophy and understanding via theological or whatever is going on at the minute. That is probably one of the secrets to the success of the operation. Very seldom could I make it down the path in less than an hour and a half.”

THE CARETAKERS

Whether club members were in Omaha or Minnesota, the club properties required maintenance and upkeep. Over the years the club hired locals as caretakers, starting with Kruckow, then A.A. Uhlig in 1933, George F. Cooke in 1934, Lee Clodfelder from 1935-1944 and Fred Mayer from November 1945 to the spring of 1947.

The caretakers handled everything from hauling and stocking ice in the ice house, to pulling stumps and laying down clay for a tennis court. They were all considered 16 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

dependable and provided many services for the club and its members.

Living members, however, fondly remember one specific caretaker, Gunnar Nilsson. He was paid $50 annually for his services in the beginning, along with additional hourly wages for specific jobs like dock installation.

“Gunnar was a hardworking Swede and followed a regular routine. He went to work at 8 a.m., coffee break at 10 a.m., lunch at

noon, back at 1 p.m., coffee break at 3 p.m., stop work at 5 p.m. When the Wilsons visited in the summer of 1955, he was cutting the lower dead branches of the Norway Pines on the lakefront property. He also took out a tree including the roots. We were impressed with this woodsman,” the history book reads.

“He and his wife lived less than a mile from our place, maybe right at the turn off, where you would turn to go to Deep Portage,” Hooper said. “There’s a house

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“I’m 52 years old. And I have neighbors at the lake that are kids that I grew up with.

There’s always a pack of kids running up and down the path. And the kids that I ran with are now parents, and our parents are still there, too. And our grandparents. It’s just those multi-generational connections, I think that it’s really important.”

Heather Hooper, Lakouting Club member

right there on the corner. He would put out the boats and docks, and his wife would clean the cabin so that when you came, it was all ready to go.”

“He had an old truck called Myrtle,” club member Mark Wilson said, “that was cobbled together and had wheels for four different vehicles. He took down and he did all of this, of course, by hand with hand tools and no chainsaw.”

As famous as Nilsson was, his truck Myrtle was even moreso. Part of it was a 1919 Model T truck that he purchased in Minneapolis in 1922 for $175. As parts on the truck broke, he replaced them, though not always with parts from the same type of truck.

He not only modified parts from other vehicles to fit, but also created parts on his own.

The truck gained notoriety over time, once being photographed by Montgomery Ward in 1971 because of a set of tires Nilsson had purchased for it in 1934. At that time one of those tires was still miraculously limping along.

Richard Burt and Sons of Iowa eventually bought the truck for use in parades and it ran for many years.

property. It was then that the group agreed to stop dumping refuse in what was then called the “ravine dump,” except for biodegradable materials such as pine needles.

Logging continued in the backwoods, but it was carefully managed alongside William Sawyer, of Backus, who received the lumber contracts in 1983. In 1989, after Sawyer’s company finished cutting, trees were replanted and management and protection of the backwoods remained a topic of discussion until the late 1980s.

Since then, the group has only gotten more protective of the woods, going so far as to make special trips to negotiate and work with

Cass County on a project to pave the road leading to the camp.

“Probably our biggest priority is hugging all the trees that we have that are well over 100 years old and over 100 feet tall,” Heinisch said. “We are right now in the process of going through widening Cass County 119, and we’ve been, to their frustration, preserving those trees along the road. We’ve put flags on trees and numbered the trees and identified trees that we think cannot be lost because of that road.”

Group members were concerned that the roadway and ditches could endanger the health of the old growth trees there.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

ECOLOGY

Ecology has long been a part of the club, especially pertaining to the backwoods - the 100-acre portion of the 130 acres that was allowed to remain wooded. There were times where it was used for different purposes, not all of them ecologically friendly by today’s standards.

In 1929, the club was approached by a group wanting to farm muskrats for their fur in the wooded property. In 1942, part of it was logged off by Wheeler Lumber Bridge and Supply Company of Des Moines, Iowa. In 1958, there was a failed attempt to kill off the fish in Ahamo Lake and restock it with trout.

In the late 1970s, as taxes were increasing on the wooded lot, the group contemplated selling the backwoods, but never did.

In 1977, the group started to become more and more protective of the backwoods and more invested in the ecology of the

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218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 17

Paradise Resort has 200 feet of sandy beach on Upper South Long Lake.

FEATURE

South Long Lake business is a hidden gem

Submitted photo

BY PETE MOHS

Just after traveling on County Road 23 Southeast between South Long Lake and Upper South Long Lake there’s a left turn on Leisure Lane Southeast that heads to one of the few businesses around that area southeast of Brainerd.

That business, somewhat hidden down the wooded road, is Paradise Resort Bar & Grill.

“Most everyone says this is a hidden gem,” said Susie Hoheisel, who along with her husband, Chad, and son, Cody, owns the business. “It’s a quiet place to relax that’s tucked in the woods. We’re a small ma and pa resort, and our goal is to keep it that way.”

The resort, located on the east side of Upper South Long Lake, first opened in the 1940s. It has attracted many regular guests 18 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

from around Minnesota and other states over the decades.

“We have a lot of families from the Twin Cities and Duluth who return here every year,” Susie said. “We also have some people from Arizona. We do get some locals, especially in the past year with COVID-19 where people didn’t want to travel too far.”

Paradise Resort has seven cabins, including two year-round, with full kitchens and decks overlooking the lake. The resort boasts 200 feet of sandy beach.

“We just refurbished all of the cabins last summer,” Susie said. “We also have an event center for weddings and other social gatherings.”

Besides the resort, Paradise is a popular dining and relaxation spot for locals at the bar and grill. Guests can sit inside or outside on a patio built in 2020 while the business was closed for more than four months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People really like being outside on our new deck,” said Cody, who serves as manager of the year-round bar and grill.

“We feature a full menu, but we’re known for our pizza and burgers. We also have daily and weekend dinner specials.”

The business does host events during the year - like a bass fishing tournament in July and winter activities that include a Crappie Flop tournament and Golf on Ice fundraiser for the Local Pink Ribbon Foundation.

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218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 19 25

8

Paradise Resort Bar & Grill is on Upper South Long Lake, southeast of Brainerd.

FAR RIGHT: Susie Hoheisel and her son, Cody, stand in the Paradise Resort Bar & Grill, located on Upper South Long Lake.

Photo by Pete Mohs

MIDDLE TOP: Paradise Resort has an event center for hosting weddings and other family gatherings.

MIDDLE BOTTOM: Paradise Resort has seven cabins, including two year-round, with full kitchens and decks overlooking the lake.

Submitted photos

Paradise is definitely a family business as Cody also helps with cabin registrations; Susie does cabin bookings, accounting and marketing; Chad helps with lawn care and maintenance; and their daughter, Danielle, bartends a few nights a week.

“Plus we have a great staff,” Susie said.

“Most of them have been with us since we purchased the business.”

RESORT HISTORY

Paradise was originally built in 1938 as a logging business. The Kloster family later purchased it with six seasonal cabins, and it eventually became Flanigan’s Resort. Larry and Kathy Erickson added a seventh cabin and owned the business until 1998, when they sold it to the Radtke family, who added the full-service bar and grill, built the event center and remodeled the cabins.

The Hoheisels purchased the business from the Radtke family in 2016.

Paradise Point, also a resort/bar business on Lower South Long Lake, was destroyed by fire in 1998, and was never rebuilt. There are not many businesses around the South Long lakes, but there has been plenty of 20 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

residential growth around both lakes.

“We’ve seen the lake grow up in the past 15 years with new cabins and homes,” Susie said. “South Long is a nice recreational lake with great fishing for all species.”

ABOUT THE LAKES

Upper and Lower South Long are not connected as a dam was built between the two lakes. The two lakes are in the upper 10% of lakes in terms of size in Minnesota.

The lakes are moderately shallow with

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maximum depths of 40-47 feet. The combined watershed for Upper and Lower is about 68 square miles including the lake’s surface.

Logging was popular around Upper South Long from 1890 to 1910. A mill pond was located on the north end of the lake, and a small town was eventually built with a creamery, store, flour mill and other small buildings in 1906.

Lakeshore was being developed in the 1930s and a dam was built in 1936 on the outlet of the lake, mainly to stop

logs. The west shore was developed in the 1960s and 1970s and a lake association was formed.

As for Lower South Long, a development began in the 1920s on the east side from Paradise Point Resort to just north of the cutoff on Paradise Beach Road. The Works Progress Administration built two dams on the lake, one on the north and one on the south in the 1930s.

There were also two small plane crashes on the lake in the 1930s. Rowan’s store opened in 1934 on Paradise Beach Road and electricity was introduced to the area in 1942.

The Lower South Long Lake Association was formed in 1977.

PETE MOHS is publisher of the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River and the Brainerd Dispatch daily newspaper.

He may be reached at 218-855-5855 or pete.mohs@brainerddispatch.com.

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 21

Lake

Fuonnthe

with our

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22 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

- Jeff, Karalynn, Garrett, Elliott and Adelaide Marr, of Roseville; and their daughter Amy’s family with their dog Tully filling in for her - Dan, Aidan and Rowan Fitzpatrick, of Duluth.

11

7 | The Hackler family - Jess and Heather, and children Audey and Wylee - shared this photo of the family breaking ice on Arrowhead Lake and Upper Whitefish Lake in the Arrowhead Ice Breaker.

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8 | Teresa Haines, Crosslake, titled this photo “A Perfect Fall Day,” featuring her son, Cody, wakeboarding on Whitefish Lake on the Whitefish Chain.

9 | Russ and Pam Lowman, Elk River, had a fun-filled day on Pelican Lake with their grandkids, Daniel and Samantha, that included a picnic on a pontoon, fishing and swimming. Daniel shows his big catch.

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10 | Michael Rawlings was oarboarding in the morning haze and captured this photo of a fisherman landing a lunker on Serpent Lake on the fishing opener.

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11 | This photo of a fullcircle rainbow reflected in Cross Lake came courtesy of Karla Kniefel.

12 | Russ Lowman swims with his grandchildren Samantha, 8, and Daniel, 10 - on Pelican Lake.

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13 | Laurel Mezner’s Labrador, Tayla, discovered fishing three summers ago and is now obsessed. She doesn’t just chase them, she dives for them on White Sand Lake in Baxter.

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1 | Karla Kniefel, Crosslake, shared this photo of her daughter, Krista, and her pot-bellied big, Mabel, sporting a life jacket and goggles on a standup paddleboard on Cross Lake.

4 | At 10 weeks old, Rose learns to love Lower Whitefish Lake while wearing a life jacket to ensure safe floating. She lives in Ideal Township with her family Jo, Linda and Sunny Shalley.

2 | Laurel Mezner sent this photo of a Fourth of July boat parade on White Sand Lake in Baxter.

5 | Bob Swanson and Rhonda Becklund participate in the July 2020 Sibley Lake boat parade.

3 | Lisa and Ron Engblom’s dog, Winston, loves the lake, especially pontooning on Lake Ossawinnamakee.

6 | Jan Marr shared this family photo on Blackwater Lake near Longville.

Hockey players are their son’s family

14 | Neighbors cheer and score Bob Swanson’s and Rhoda Becklund’s boat decor during the Sibley Lake boat parade.

15 | Kat Beireis, Ideal Corners, takes photos of wildlife at the Rice Lake Lowell Wildlife Management Area in Pequot Lakes.

16 | Nancy Vogt, Brainerd, shared this photo of late-season ice fishing on Lake Winnibigoshish in warm weather.

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 23

Breezy Point Resort celebrating 100th anniversary Spizzos mark 40 years of ownership

BY NANCY VOGT

Breezy Point Resort on Pelican Lake celebrates not one but two milestones this year - its 100th anniversary as a resort and the 40th year of ownership by the Bob and Kay Spizzo family.

“The amazing thing is when I look at the size of the big pine trees in the parking lot. I planted them,” Bob Spizzo said while reminiscing in the resort’s coffee shop.

Those 4-foot tall trees he planted now soar 40 feet into the sky. And that coffee shop is just one of countless amenities that weren’t even ideas when Spizzo first came to Breezy Point Resort.

He arrived from Colorado in 1977, saying he’d stay for three years to turn around Whitebirch Inc, the parent company of Breezy Point Resort.

“And here it’s 40 years later and I’m still here,” he said with a smile.

Spizzo started with several partners who over “I think Captain Billy the years sold their shares would turn over in to his family. his grave if he saw Like most other area resorts, Breezy Point Resort all the changes over was once a seasonal resort the years.” that closed for the winter.

Besides adding golf courses, Bob Spizzo, restaurants, a recreation Breezy Point Resort owner facility, the coffee shop and a spa, Spizzo said a big change came when the resort got into hockey.

“It’s the only resort I know of with a hockey arena,” he said, noting that amenity helps fill up the resort’s housing units in the winter.

During the summer, the resort is hopping with tourists, weddings, conventions and those who enjoy the resort’s three golf courses and Pelican Lake.

Despite the resort’s success and growth over the years, Spizzo remains most proud of his staff’s hospitality.

“We now have the third generation of employees whose grandparents worked for us,” he said. “That is a warm feeling when I see kids who are here now and their grandmother or grandfather worked for us.”

Staff members are friendly and make people feel welcome.

“We hire people that have a great attitude,” Spizzo said. “We can train them, but they have to have the right personality.”

Breezy Point Resort also has managers who have been employed there for more than 30 years, including Dave Gravdahl, who started as a golf caddy more than 60 years ago and has been general manager for 40 years; and Joyce Bzoskie, president of Whitebirch Inc., the resort’s parent company that 24 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

was formed to market and develop land around the resort, for 35 years.

And the resort has long employed Spizzo’s successor - his son, David, who started working at the resort marina years ago and is now assistant general manager as well as vice president of Whitebirch Inc. “I couldn’t have found a better person,” Bob Spizzo proudly said. “He’s been with me since we picked up cans Sunday mornings after the parties.”

Bob and Kay have three children, and all worked at the resort while growing up, doing such work as cleaning fireplaces, grills and dishes.

“They learned the work ethic that we’re so proud of,” Bob Spizzo said.

RESORT HISTORY

The resort’s biggest asset is likely name recognition, Spizzo said. The resort was named Breezy Point Lodge when Wilford Hamilton Fawcett - much better known as Captain Billy Fawcett - founded it in 1921. The city’s name changed from the Village of Pelican Lakes to the city of Breezy Point in 1970.

The Breezy Pointer, an annual resort publication, says Fawcett “lived a colorful and flamboyant lifestyle while building a publishing empire on a single magazine, Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang.” That magazine made him rich.

Fawcett became a captain in the U.S. Army during World War I, where he gained the nickname “Captain Billy.”

“Whiz bang” was the name Allied forces gave to German artillery shells in the war, according to the Breezy Pointer.

In 1921, Fawcett bought land on Big Pelican Lake and built Breezy Point Lodge.

“Friends, politicians and Hollywood celebrities visited Breezy Point to hunt and drink illegal liquor,” the Breezy Pointer says. “Among Fawcett’s guests at the resort were movie stars Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, writer Sinclair Lewis and Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson.”

Professional golfer Walter Hagen, known as the “father of professional golf” and a major figure in golf in the first half of the 20th century, is another famous person who stayed at the resort.

Fawcett died in 1940 and the resort went through different ownerships, closing for a time during World War II before it

A view of Dockside restaurant and bar on Pelican Lake at Breezy Point Resort.

RIGHT: The iconic Breezy Point Resort gates at County Roads 11 and 4 sport a 100th anniversary logo.

BOTTOM RIGHT: The water tower at Breezy Point Resort.

Photos by Nancy Vogt

TOP TO BOTTOM ON PAGE 24: One of the first entrances to Breezy Point Lodge, founded by Captain Billy Fawcett, in the early 1920s.

A scene from the early days at Breezy Point.

A row of “cottages” at Breezy Point Lodge on Big Pelican Lake.

Fun on Pelican Lake during the early days of Breezy Point Lodge.

Submitted photos

CONTINUED ON PAGE 41 218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 25

Wheelhouses becoming new norm on Minnesota ice Sales ‘extremely strong’ during pandemic

BY DAN DETERMAN

Ice fishing has always been a staple activity for Minnesotans, especially in the lakes area, but a new phenomenon has seemingly taken the sport over in the past decade as smaller fish houses have given way to the wheelhouse - often larger structures with features more akin to an RV. At resorts on larger lakes like Mille Lacs, wheelhouses have become a tremendous part of the business model.

“The wheelhouse boom has completely transformed the industry over the last 10 years, and will continue to do so,” Red Door Resort owner Brian Linne said.

Red Door Resort, on the north side of Mille Lacs Lake, has roughly 220 sites it rents for 26 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

individuals in the winter, with roughly 90 houses of its own brought out onto the 15-mile stretch of ice it maintains. Then, the resort rents spaces for 60 to 70 wheelhouses, keeping the spaces clear throughout the season.

With many people accruing additional savings during the pandemic, wheelhouses seemed to have been a popular purchase for lake goers.

“Sales have been extremely strong, especially lately with the pandemic,” said Brett Drexler, team leader at Ice Castle Fish Houses.

“I think people are looking for something to do and the recreational lifestyle boomed.”

Business was very strong at Red Door Resort in 2019 for ice fishing, largely due

to weather making the ice at resorts farther north impassable early in the season.

“A lot of those resorts and other access points further north were closed for a while that season,” Linne said. “We actually had pretty good ice from that standpoint, so we ended up with a lot of that traffic (that may have gone to other lakes).”

In 2020, the weather was more cooperative state-wide, but Red Door saw a similar amount of business.

Linne believes the COVID-19 pandemic was absolutely a factor in the popularity of ice fishing over the winter months, as well as the increase in wheelhouse sales.

“Our fish houses were 100% booked on

TOP ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: A wheelhouse is brought onto the ice of Lake Mille Lacs from Red Door Resort.

BOTTOM ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: Fish houses are lined up on Lake Winnibigoshish in winter 2021.

Red Door Resort maintains roughly 220 ice fishing sites on Lake Mille Lacs, with roughly 70 spaces reserved for wheelhouses.

Wheel houses are parked on Lake Winnibigoshish after driving out a resort ice road.

The hazy sun hangs over a group of fish houses on a Minnesota lake.

In recent years, area resorts who cater to ice anglers have had to make more room for larger wheelhouses.

Photos by Nancy Vogt

Submitted photos

the weekends,” Linne said. “People were itching to get out, which was nice … From an anecdotal standpoint, I know that there were people who ordered wheelhouses having to wait 12 weeks for delivery. There was hardly a wait in the previous year.”

Over at Ice Castle, Drexler said they currently have a six- to eight-month backlog on new orders, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic halting supply chains and raising the cost of materials, making it difficult to finish custom products.

Ice Castle employees believe the strong sales numbers of 2020 may not have had as much to do with fishing as it has with their products being “all-around recreational vehicles.”

“Many customers used their Ice Castle as a way to quarantine from others, or they simply turned them into an office away from the office,” Drexler said. “Many of our units are not just used for ice fishing, but also camping and hunting shacks as well.”

Linne said the only issues he sees at his resort stem from anglers in traditional skid houses “not really loving” the additional traffic that wheelhouses bring. More space needs to be cleared on the ice to make way for these large enclosures, but Linne does not mind.

“The ability to create really nice, wide roads and being able to plow really nice slots in for some of those wheelhouses, I think it presents an opportunity for us,” he said.

With the effects of the pandemic continuing to linger somewhat, Linne believes he will cater to more and more wheelhouses in the future as people continue to pursue outdoor activities.

“I think that things are going to continue to expand this way,” he said. “As COVID’s impact persists, I think people are going to want to continue to embrace ice fishing, especially when you can do it from the comfort of something as nice as a wheelhouse.”

DAN DETERMAN is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5879 or dan.determan@pineandlakes.com.

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 27

Magnet fishing is about treasure and trash collecting

BY TRAVIS GRIMLER

What's one part treasure hunting and two, maybe three parts trash collecting?

If you answered magnet fishing, you hit the nail right on the head. Just make sure to take it with you when you leave, OK? I took up magnet fishing last year, as soon as the snow melted. I had spent the last month or more of winter reaching out to private businesses with popular docks, asking for permission to throw my magnet into the waters there looking for whatever lay on the depths.

By the time the ice was gone, I had a magnet with 900 pounds of pull and a list of places to toss it, not to mention lots of competition.

Magnet fishing is a growing hobby with more and more people sharing magnet fishing videos online, posting their finds to magnet fishing Facebook groups and secretly collecting the good stuff before anyone else can.

The hobby is particularly popular in more populous areas. Tyler McAllister, formerly of Backus, brought the hobby with him when he went to school in Duluth.

He first read about magnet fishing on Reddit, a social media platform with topics on everything under the sun. He quickly learned that it's best to start with the strongest magnet you can afford.

"I was kind of naive back then. I got like a 50-pound magnet at a hardware store and tried going with that," McAllister said. "I caught maybe a lure, but nothing else."

I learned the same lesson when I started with a 160-pound magnet when the water was only open at the dam in Pine River. I did manage to catch a jig head, and since then I consider a trip out successful so long as I find even one jig head.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 46 28 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

Tips to get started 1. It is best to get permission if you have any doubt regarding property ownership. Usually the owner will be curious and ask to see any of your cool finds. Once I was offered a cash reward for finding an item accidentally dropped off a boat. I have never been told no, but that will change if magnet fishing becomes a problem.

2. Never leave behind a mess. In most places people are welcoming and curious when it comes to magnet fishing. If you leave behind your junk finds, that will almost certainly change. Try to find joy in the fact that you are cleaning up a body of water. People will constantly thank you for doing so.

3. Keep aquatic invasive species in mind. I have found many folding camp chairs. These can be covered in zebra mussels, and if they can’t be cleaned off before you leave, find some way to legally dispose of them on site. Remember that hollow items might also have aquatic hitchhikers, and never transport water from one lake to another. You might consider using a different rope or waiting a week before moving from a body of water that you know to have invasive species to another body of water.

4. Choose a magnet that has at least 600 pounds of strength for a single-sided magnet or 1,200 pounds for a double-sided magnet (each side is 600 pounds).

5. Follow all laws pertaining to “no fishing” areas or pertaining to the items you find. Guns, for example, will likely need to be turned into the authorities if found, and railroad spikes generally are considered to be railroad property even after being discarded.

6. Be considerate of anglers. If someone is fishing nearby before you arrive, do not crowd them. Give them fair warning if they show up after you do.

7. Be friendly. If you act enthusiastic and talk to people about what you are doing you will not only entertain them and have company for a short while, you will also leave them with a positive impression of the hobby. They may also know of other places to fish, or they may tell you where they have personally lost items.

8. Have patience. One of the first places I fished has at least 12 different docks and I spent four hours fishing half of them, and four hours fishing the other half the next weekend.

9. Restoring the items you find might lead you to learn new skills or hobbies. I learned how to remove rust with electrolysis and how to electroplate items in nickel because of magnet fishing. I also gained four folding camp chairs when I realized I could use a pressure washer with detergent to clean them.

10. Be willing to return the items you find if there is some way to find the owners. That’s just being responsible.

11. Consider marking your magnet fishing gear. My first 900-pound magnet and my 1,300-pound magnets both went missing before the end of my first year. If I had my name on them, there would be a chance I could have gotten them back.

Tyler McAllister tosses a magnet out on Clyde Avenue in Duluth.

12. Safety first. Gloves and solid shoes are absolutely necessary when dealing with heavy or potentially sharp items. You should never tie your magnet to your body if there is any chance that it will catch on something that could pull you into the water.

Submitted photo

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 29

Lead poisoning remains an issue in the outdoors

BY MIKE RAHN

Lead is one of the most useful elements.

It has been an essential in the batteries that store electricity and bring our car and truck motors to life, and it’s found in most consumer batteries that power flashlights, toys, portable radios and other necessities and conveniences.

Lead has shielded medical personnel from harmful X-rays, is found in the finest crystal glassware, and - for decades - was an important additive in paint and gasoline.

Given lead’s abundance, low cost and resistance to deterioration, it was once long ago a standard raw material for pipes used to plumb our homes and businesses. In outdoor sports, lead has long been the most common material used in rifle and shotgun ammunition for hunting and in weighted fishing tackle.

Lead is also one of the most deadly elements.

It is in a class called “heavy metals” and is a neurotoxin that can accumulate in bones and soft tissues, interfere with our body’s enzymes and lead to nervous system damage that results in cognitive, functional and behavioral 30 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

disorders. It is especially dangerous for young children and expectant mothers.

A HARD LESSON LEARNED IN WATERFOWL HUNTING

Lead can do crippling things to wildlife.

The most high profile example is the lead poisoning of ducks, geese and swans that came to light in the 1980s. Birds were found to be dying after ingesting lead shotgun shell pellets that had accumulated on the floor of

shallow waters where waterfowl are hunted.

Waterfowl mistook them for the gravel and grit their gizzards need to break up food during digestion.

Gastric juices release lead salts from the pellets, and lead enters the bloodstream.

If enough is present, the result can be loss of muscle control and digestive ability, emaciation, seizures and death. The widespread discovery of these effects in the 1980s led to the banning of lead pellets

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| info@nisswadock.com

in shotgun ammunition used for waterfowl hunting after more than a century of use.

The transition away from lead was initially resisted because the first soft iron substitutes damaged some older shotgun barrels, and - steel being lighter than lead - were less effective in killing game cleanly. Research and development have now given waterfowl hunters improved nontoxic alternatives, some thought to be even better than lead, though generally more expensive.

The transition demonstrated that the inconvenience of change could be temporary, and eventually overcome.

LOONS, SWANS, LURES AND SINKERS

Fast-forward several decades, and lead poisoning remains an issue in the outdoors.

Today it has different dimensions and differing opinions on the magnitude of the problem, as well as what to do about it.

Lead has historically been the material almost universally used in fishing weights, or “sinkers,” used to submerge live bait to attract and catch fish. Lead is also the most common material in jigs, which are lures that consist of a hook embedded in a molded weight that sinks the lure, typically garnished with live or artificial bait.

Lead weights and jigs are used in both ice fishing and open water angling. Lead has been used because it is a heavy raw material, is abundant and cheap, and the manufacturing process is cheap because lead melts at low temperature.

Some anglers even melt lead and mold their own jigs.

Lead weights and jigs are being blamed for the poisoning of loons and swans, and perhaps to a lesser extent other waterfowl.

Unlike shotshell pellets used in bird hunting, lead fishing weights and jigs accumulate in lakes and rivers by accident. They can be lost when snagged on underwater obstructions or wedged between rocks, while attempting to land a fish or due to faulty knot tying.

Though typically larger than most shotshell pellets, these fishing tackle items may be small enough that birds mistake them for grit and consume them.

Even though the loss of this tackle is unintentional and random, it’s believed to be substantial. Research led by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ fisheries biologist Paul Radomski on heavily fished Lake Mille Lacs estimated that over a 20-year period anglers might lose up to one

“Lead is also highly toxic to anglers, especially young children, who handle or may consume it accidentally. There is no scientifically established safe level of exposure to lead.”

Paul Radomski, DNR fisheries biologist

million weights and jigs. While not all would be of a size small enough to be mistaken for grit and consumed by waterfowl, some certainly are - particularly the round “splitshot” weights that are pinched or crimped directly on fishing line.

Radomski said in a written communication that the latest statistics from post-mortem examinations of dead loons showed a lead poisoning rate of 14%. Only those dead loons that are actually found and recovered before decomposition takes place can be tested, so the number that die of lead

poisoning is an estimate, believed to be about 100 to 200 per year, Radomski said.

“Lead is also highly toxic to anglers, especially young children, who handle or may consume it accidentally,” he said.

“There is no scientifically established safe level of exposure to lead.”

Tundra and trumpeter swans, some of which migrate through or nest in Minnesota, have also been victims of lead poisoning. Like loons, geese and ducks, they consume small pebbles and grit for the digestion that begins in their gizzard. Since 2019, more than 20 CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

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218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 31

TOP LEFT: The 2021 Nisswa Chamber of Commerce Welcome Wannigan crew.

ABOVE: It’s all hands on deck when the Welcome Wannigan pulls up to a boat on Gull Lake to share free coffee and doughnuts.

LEFT: Miss Nisswa 2021 Sam Jackson puts a doughnut and a cup of coffee into a fishing net for an angler on Gull Lake.

Photos by Nancy Vogt

FEATURE

Welcome Wannigan greets anglers with free coffee, doughnuts It’s a fishing opener tradition on Gull Lake Anyone who regularly goes fishing on Gull Lake on opening day of the walleye/ northern pike fishing opener each May has likely seen a crowded pontoon pulling up alongside various boats throughout the morning hours.

Those anglers who have welcomed the pontoon to pull up next to them are the lucky recipients of a hot cup of coffee and fresh doughnut, compliments of the Nisswa Chamber of Commerce.

It’s the Welcome Wannigan, of course.

So, what exactly is a “wannigan?”

Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a wannigan (or wanigan) as “a shelter (as for sleeping, eating or storage) often mounted on wheels or tracks and towed by tractor or mounted on a raft or boat.”

The word was first used in 1890, the Merriam-Webster says.

32 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

The Free Dictionary describes a wannigan as “a boat or small chest equipped with supplies for a lumber camp; provisions for a camp or cabin; a small house, bunkhouse or shed mounted on skids and towed behind a tractor train as eating and sleeping quarters for a work crew.”

And: “a cabin, caboose or houseboat.”

Wanigan is apparently a borrowing of Ojibwa “waanikaan,” meaning “storage pit,” The Free Dictionary says. “... It denoted a storage chest containing small supplies for a lumber camp, a boat outfitted to carry such supplies, or the camp provisions in general.”

According to Nisswa history, “wannigan” was a term used for supply boats that plied the waters of Minnesota lakes bringing needed goods and food to logging camps.

Thus, since 1959, the Nisswa Chamber’s

Welcome Wannigan has used various boats, captains and crews to motor around Gull Lake the morning of the fishing opener to serve hot coffee and doughnuts to anglers.

As the story goes, Peg Benton, wife of then-Nisswa mayor Russ Benton, came up with the idea to take an old Scandinavian coffee and doughnut tradition and blend it with northwoods history.

In recent years, the wannigan has consisted of a pontoon boat carrying the Nisswa Chamber president and staff, a few chamber members, and Miss Nisswa and Little Miss Nisswa complete with crowns and sashes - no matter what the weather.

That weather has run the gamut, from warm temperatures and sunshine, to rain, to cold temperatures and even snow.

No matter what the weather, the wannigan crew always has fun.

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Defining Characteristics: The Gull Chain of Lakes, for which Gull Lake is the namesake and largest member, is a collection of a number of connected lakes and two 64 Nisswa Lake, Roy Lake, bays: Gull Lake, Upper Gull Lake, Margaret Lake, Spider Lake, Spring Lake, Love Lake, Round 87 Lake, Bass Lake, Steamboat Bay, Wilson’s Bay.

Lake

Marg

30

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371

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Number of aquatic plant species: Over 35 species Invasive Species: Zebra mussels

Blind

48

50

60

40

30

10

10 30Norway

10 10 23040

371 Pine 50 River

50 40 30

1

Upper Whitefish

16

Bertha

70

112

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50

168

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77

13 Hubert

115

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125

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119

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146 77 Red Sand

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371

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142

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PILLSBU RY STATE FOREST

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White Sand 218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 33

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Motley

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127

Hartley

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210

Crystal

126

77

10 Staples

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Round Lake

40

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137 Gladstone

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109

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107

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29

36

103

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371 East Twin

Mayo

10

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30 40 50

10 20 3040

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11

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Upper Hay 16

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minnesotalakes.net and Wikipedia

Manhatt Beach

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371

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78

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Swanburg

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54

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Eating Places by Boat: Places to eat by boat include Bar Harbor, Zorbaz on Gull, Lost Lake Lodge, Sherwood Forest, Dock 77 at Quarterdeck Resort, Ernie’s on Gull, Cragun’s Resort and Madden’s Resort. Nisswa Lake Park offers public docks for people to tie up and walk to eating establishments and shops in downtown Nisswa.

10 20 30 40 50

5040 30 20 10

60

1

48

84

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56

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Historic Fact: Nisswa Marine was once located on Nisswa Lake.

64

Clough

80

10

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70

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Public Accesses: East shore off County Road 115; north end of Boomingout Bay near Upper Gull Lake; off County Road 70 near dam; on northwest side off County State Aid Highway 77.

48

40 50 40 30 20 10

8450

10

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Lake Ada

60

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30

371

Fish: Panfish, largemouth & rock bass, northern pike, walleye, bluegill, crappie, tullibee, yellow perch

49 10 20 30

60 Lind Lake

10 Backus 20

FOOT HILLS STATE FOREST

54

87 10 20 30 40

10 20 30 40

87

47

84

Pine Mountain

Water Quality: Mesotrophic - clear water with occasional algal blooms in late summer.

Lake Wabedo

40

10 20 30 50 40

The chain collectively covers 13,000 acres and its shores host over 2,500 homes. The chain spans across Cass County, MN and Crow Wing County, MN.

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Anglers skyrocket during pandemic

BY DAN DETERMAN

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a decrease in a number of things - from travel to home loan costs to available toilet paper - but one aspect of life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes that actually increased in the past year was lake activity, particularly fishing.

In 2020, the number of new anglers in Minnesota increased by 43% from the previous year. The number of reactivated anglers - those who had purchased licenses in the past but not in 2019 - increased by 32%.

Jenifer Wical, strategic business analyst in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division, said the pandemic and the shelter-in-place orders associated with it were very much the reasons for this increase.

“People didn’t have the same schedules they had before,” Wical said. “They were working from home so they had more flexibility. Kids didn’t have sports going on so they had more time to actually have staycations - going to their cabin or whatever it was.”

Wical said a number of the new anglers were 16-year-olds purchasing licenses for the first time, but a deluge of people with newly flexible schedules took advantage of their time to hit the lakes.

Boats are out in force on Gull Lake during the 2021 Minnesota walleye and northern pike fishing opener.

TOP: An angler casts a line on Gull Lake near Bar Harbor in Lake Shore this spring.

Photos by Nancy Vogt

34 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

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“We just all were kind of blessed with this pause in our life. As much as COVID hasn’t been a great thing, it did allow us to slow down and spend more time with family.”

Jenifer Wical, DNR Fish and Wildlife Division

“We’ve done many studies that say time is the biggest hurdle people have in why they don’t recreate - kids’ schedules and work schedules and the like,” Wical said. “We just all were kind of blessed with this pause in our life. As much as COVID hasn’t been a great thing, it did allow us to slow down and spend more time with family.”

Despite travel nearly screeching to a halt during the pandemic, non-resident license purchases decreased by just 1%. According to the DNR, this actually is not too surprising, as many residents of surrounding states have cabins in Minnesota and still used the pandemic as an excuse to enjoy the outdoors.

Though her main focus with the DNR is fish and wildlife, Wical said it was evident throughout the entire department that water activity in general increased substantially over the past year in Minnesota.

“Park usage went up in 2020, and parks have plenty of water trails or lakes,” she said.

“Overall, across the agency, we are seeing increases in participation.”

That increase in participation, however, created a few challenges for the DNR, as they were also somewhat at the mercy of the pandemic.

“We were all working from home too,” Wical said. “We had a small staff that were manning the state parks, for instance, and so we had this huge increase of users in the state parks and then we didn’t have the staff to manage … It’s a tough problem to have.”

Though the state and the nation have made tremendous strides in halting the effects of the pandemic and many have been able to return to work, the DNR anticipates yet another summer of increased water activity - expecting many to still have time for fishing and many more to make time for it.

“Trout stamp sales are up, even from last year,” Wical said. “That’s an indicator that folks are still going out. As of April 14, we

were up almost 15% from last year. I have to caution that that can level out throughout the season - we have had a really nice spring and the season is just opening - but it is an indicator that, potentially, things are still looking very positive … Everyone should just get out and fish.”

DAN DETERMAN is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5879 or dan.determan@pineandlakes.com.

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 35

PONTO LAKE CONT...

The Omaha Lakouting north shore on Ponto Lake today.

TOP: When the Omaha Lakouting Club chose Ponto Lake in 1923, the wives of the group made their husbands choose Ponto for its cleanliness, a quality that persists today.

RIGHT: The Lakouting Club has long enjoyed lake themed pastimes, including water skiing and sailing.

Submitted photos

“We’re extremely pleased with the cooperation we’ve had with Cass County in stating our problems and being very cooperative and coming up with creative solutions,” Heinisch said. “The major problem is we have a lot of trees close to the road. And if you put a ditch along the road that will cut the roots, then we’ll lose a lot of trees. We’re fortunate. We have been able to design the road in a fashion that the water will be drained into our backwoods and will not have to have much in the way of drainage ditches along the road that will divert the water away without affecting our trees.”

A CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP

Up until 1946, the club owned the property on the north shore of Ponto Lake and had lots platted and leased to stockholders.

That changed in August of that year.

Taxes had been a thorn in the group’s side from the moment the first lot was developed.

Each year there were concerns that the way taxes were divvied up among properties was unfair. To that end, it was likely inevitable that 36 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

the property would become private.

The minutes of the club’s August meeting read: “”It was moved by Stockholder Jack Matthews, seconded by Stockholder Frank Seeley, that part of Government Lot Nine as is now platted be resurveyed and subdivided into 12 separate lots, and that deeds be issued by the corporation to each member or stockholder, conveying the lot now under lease and on

which the lessee’s cottage or cabin is now located: that deeds also be issued to members who have not erected buildings, the location of which is now indicated by the original plat of record, and on which a lease is now held.”

The leaseholders now became the owners of the properties and the club’s purpose was forever changed. To this day the lakefront properties and the backwoods lot operate under different names.

“There’s two different associations that we have within our group,” Hooper said.

“But the Omaha Lakouting Club is kind of a conservationist group. We have a 100-acre plot of woods that’s across the street from our entry gate. So we’ve got one part of our association that’s more in charge of making sure your dog is not leaving a mess on the path and the other side is about conserving forests.”

For a while the Omaha Lakouting Club hadn’t reaffirmed its position as a nonprofit, and there was a window of time where the registration as one had lapsed.

In 1978, the group agreed to revive the Omaha Lakeouting Club charter as a nonprofit corporation.

The official nonprofit corporation, the Omaha Lakouting Club, today is in charge of preserving and managing the backwoods, and the property owners on the lake are officially the North Shore Association.

agreed to have an annual meeting on July 2 at the property. That is still a time when many property owners gather, and on July 4 now there is a picnic where the families watch fireworks fired by area neighbors.

Everyone is still creating new memories together. It was on the north shore that Hooper’s father built Putt, a wooden rowboat.

“My dad built this little wooden rowboat and he had this vision that he would take the whole family for a ride in the rowboat, because it was pretty big in the basement,” Hooper said. “And by the time they got it up the steps - well, they felt like maybe one parent then. By the time they put it in the lake it’s like, ‘Well, this one’s for kids’.”

Putt would be loaded down with kids wearing orange life jackets, piloting around the lake with a 3-horsepower motor.

Hooper’s own children got to use Putt, but now everyone seems to have kayaks. Many members have fishing boats and sailboats.

“So it was a place where we worked hard to maintain it,” Wilson said. “And then LOOKING BACK we got to play there as well.”

The original Lakouting Club “I love listening in the middle of night to accomplished much of what it had intended the music of the loons,” Heinisch said. “I with its formation and many of the values it am 76 years old and bought a new pair of started with persist today. water skis for the summer. For myself, I have Members today remember the old a sailboat and what you do on the lake is to families and the old houses, though only sail and to take grandchildren out and have one original cabin remains. them experience the interrelationship of a “There’s only one cabin that has a tie to boat that becomes alive with the wind.” the original group,” Hooper said. “That’s The community feeling created by the the Musselman family.” charter members remains even today, Like that first drive, it’s still a long trek to 99 years after the founding members first get to Ponto Lake. Hooper remembers how portaged to the undeveloped lot. long it took when she was young.

“I’m 52 years old,” Hooper said. “And “That’s a good 10-hour drive,” Hooper I have neighbors at the lake that are kids said. “And it’s like a rite of endurance to that I grew up with. There’s always a pack get to the lake. But once we were there, we of kids running up and down the path. And would stay for four to six to eight weeks of the kids that I ran with are now parents, summer. It was just heavenly. I think we’re in and our parents are still there, too. And our the third or fourth generation in our family.” grandparents. It’s just those multi-generational They also remember roughing it, and the connections, I think that it’s really important.” people who made the place special. One “As we get older, we understand the of Wilson’s first memories is the hand pump importance of relationships in keeping us in the kitchen and getting a bath in a wash healthy,” Wilson said. “And so, we look tub on the counter from that hand pump. forward to freshening and nourishing “The pace of life hasn’t changed, you those relationships with these families that know, that’s slowing down,” Hooper we’ve known for a long time. To me that’s said. “And we’ve been reluctant to get very important.” modern conveniences, like there are no dishwashers. That’s the kids’ job.”

TRAVIS GRIMLER “It’s a place where you can wear your is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes old clothes and your day can start after a Echo Journal weekly newspaper second cup of coffee and all is right with the in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may world,” Wilson said. be reached at 218-855-5853 or travis.grimler@pineandlakes.com.

When it was founded, the original group

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FEATURE

WAPOA is still going strong after 50-plus years Water quality remains group’s top mission The Whitefish Area Property Owners Association’s mission has always been about water quality.

Since 1970, the group has led the effort to permanently protect the land and water on and around the Whitefish Chain of Lakes in central Minnesota.

WAPOA was formed 50-plus years ago, in 1970. The first two presidents (Dick Schalow and Roger Schwieters) were instrumental in forming WAPOA in response to an issue that arose due to drought conditions in the area.

At that time, there was a proposal to connect the Whitefish Chain to Pelican Lake using a channel/flume system to raise the water level in Pelican with water from the Whitefish Chain.

Many lakeshore residents and resorts on 38 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

the chain were quite concerned about this, so a meeting of concerned citizens was held in Breezy Point with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Natural Resources to discuss the pros and cons of the proposal.

About 400 people attended and the meeting was emotional and heated at times.

Since the Whitefish Chain is a reservoir that supplies water to the Mississippi River, and ultimately Minneapolis, it was determined that the proposal was unacceptable and it did not pass.

Even back when WAPOA was in its infancy, it built bridges for water quality and relationships that were forged in the name of water quality. Much success is owed to the collaboration with others.

WAPOA and the Pine River Watershed

Alliance created the Land and Waters Preservation Trust, which is a partner fund of the Initiative Foundation. Thousands of meetings and handshakes, meetings with state employees, University of Minnesota researchers, lake associations and their board members has netted what WAPOA is today - a vibrant organization working with citizens, local businesses, cities and local units of government to bond together with ideas and work to preserve Minnesota’s most cherished resource - its lakes.

Over the years, WAPOA and its members have implemented many programs. These include a Neighborhood Watch Program; the Big Island restoration and maintenance project; aquatic invasive species inspections and prevention; shoreland restoration projects and grants; collaborations with

8

87

54

84

64 87

48

WHITEFISH CHAIN Backus

FOOT HILLS STATE FOREST

160

Lake Ada

Lind Lake

87

Washburn Lake

49

87

Pine Mountain

Blind Pistol

Horseshoe

43

Clough

Mitchell

56

Eagle

Norway

84 1 1

Lower Whitefish

16

Bertha

Clamshell

16 Grass

145

Jenkins

39

103

30 20

Pi

130

17

90

20

130 135

15

15 30

1

Pig Lake

40 46

90 70

Sylvan

r Gu

20

Pillager

40

102

371

Gilbert

20

Rice

142

25

159 Mud

159

48

Deepest Point: 138 feet.144

Water Quality: Suitable for 123 5 ay swimming and wading, with ssw e Russell r Hardy p Ex 25 levels an clarity and low algae good ny u lB 21 au the open water season.

371 Pthroughout 144 44 CROW WING Public Access to Whitefish: 3 STATE PARK v r ive miles North and East of Jenkins on iR ipp 121 iss s s Co Rd 15, then 0.75 mile Mi er East on Nokasippi Riv 131 Crow Wing Jenkins Twp Rd. 131 Facilities: 1 concrete Mud 2 ramp, 25 vehicle/trailer parking Round 121 ver spaces, 1 dock, 1 toilet. (Other sites 2 s ka No 21 on the 5individual lakes)

8

18

Shore Length: 32.2 miles miles.

Baxter

48

No

Twin Island

Area: 7,714.19 acres.

Brainerd

Grave

23 24

8 South Long Lake

22

22

23 2

ip

pi

Ri

40

66

50 60

Horseshoe

Clamshell Lake

46 15

CAMP RIPLEY NATIONAL GUARD RESER VATION

30 24

102 Wolf

White Sand

36

24

55

Whipple

210

Bertha Lake

10

Sebre

al l s

50

40

60

86

70

Lower Hay Lake

10

10

50

10

28

210

49

77

15

88 10

21

Ironton

12

25

Wise

Red Sand

1

70

119

Black Hoof

128

Riverton

Campbell

Sorenson

Mud

Randall

40

Crystal

127

146

18

80

11

125

Fort Ripley

Cushing

60

3

127

g Da e

tt B Invasive Species: Zebra mussels

ok ro

69

Fawn

g

Upper Whitefish

20 50 50

Little Hubert

Bass

3

4

Gladstone

115

C

Mollie

137

Hubert

Gull Lake

30 Menomin

Black Bear

19

CROSSLAKE, MANHATTAN Merrifield BEACH, FIFTY LAKES, JENKINS, PINE RIVER IN NORTHERN CROW 210 WING COUNTY

tl e F To L it

20

13

13

371

77

Pillager

40

Lower 10 Whitefish

50

20

29 50

60 10 20 30

Lake Alexander

116

Hartley

PILLSBU RY STATE FOREST

15

Fish Trap Lake

Lower Mission

Perch

Lake Edward

North Long Lake

Wilson Bay

Shamineau Lake

11

126

10

10 103

100 10 60 56 10

10

6

19

Miller

Clark

ive

7 90 10

210

10

15

Upper Mission

Garden

115

Rock

Bass

109

118

Round Lake

77

Motley

Little Pelican

Nisswa

ll R

23 50

10

70 80

40

90

80

10

100

23

130 20 90

7 10

50 60

77

CROW WING STATE FOREST Fool

Markee

Nisswa Roy

Margaret

Perry r ive

R ne

109

Lower

77

Pi

Lougee

Upper Gull

Lake Shore

Goggle

11

Horseshoe

Pelican Lake

107

107

ne Riv er

4

Upper

llen CuMiddle

West Twin Edna

114 Adney

Lizard

Breezy Point

371 East Twin

Mayo

120

20 50 70

90 100 110

Lake

60

Big Trout

3

Pequot Lakes

168

36

Greer

11

Loon

29

Arrowhead Lake

Pine

Fawn

11 1

O'Brien

36

103

112

Sibley

Dolney

3

Crosslake

Duck

17

Upper Loon

66

Star

Kimball

Clear Lake

Upper Hay 16

Cross Lake

Ideal Corners

Lower Hay

15

Pickeral Goodrich

tt gge Da

Rush

15

371

17

210

1 Sand

Little Pine

Mud Lake

Ossawinnaamakee

Staples

Emily

Ox

112

10

6 Butterfield

Manhattan Beach

Big Trout

Upper Whitefish

Cross Lake

Rush Lake

134

Arrowhead

Pine River 1

Verndale

Anna

West Fox

Fifty Lakes

Swanburg

371

64

Blue Eagle

2

Island Lake

Kego

54

Mildred

64

Roosevelt

136

Jail Lake 56

Lizzie

84

371

Outing

48

Hattie

Fish to catch: black bullhead, black crappie, bluegill, brown bullhead, burbot, green sunfish, hybrid sunfish, lake whitefish,25 largemouth bass, northern pike, northern sunfish, pumpkinseed, rock bass, smallmouth bass, tullibee (cisco), walleye, yellow bullhead, yellow perch, bowfin (dogfish), greater redhorse, redhorse, shorthead redhorse, silver redhorse, smallmouth buffalo, white sucker.

139

47

27

Source: Lake-Link; Minnesota Department of Natural Resources LakeFinder

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 39

39

ABOVE: This beach/yard sign promotes water protection.

LEFT: WAPOA is a sponsor of the annual Grandpa’s Run for the Walleye, held during the Fourth of July holiday to raise funds for walleye habitat.

Submitted photos

Crow Wing County and the DNR on natural resources and fisheries, land use, and One Watershed One Plan; the annual Grandpa’s Run for the Walleye to raise funds to protect walleye habitat; a vigorous water quality monitoring/testing program on more than 40 lakes and streams in our area (facilitated by volunteers); many educational programs and seminars to inform the public about septic maintenance, conservation easements, the pipeline, water quality test results and trends, and the economic impact on property values if water quality is impaired; educational advertisements and stories in the local newspapers; and disseminating hundreds of informational emails to members about WAPOA programs and activities.

It would take more than 100 pages to tell the whole WAPOA story going back 50 years. WAPOA has pondered what might have happened if there were not thousands of hours given by volunteers committed to the preservation of our waters so that all may enjoy these beautiful bodies of water where we live and play.

To read more about WAPOA’s history, visit the WAPOA website at www.WAPOA. org and read the WAPOA Summer 2020 Magazine (under “Newsletters”).

An anniversary celebration event was planned for 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The WAPOA board of directors hopes to celebrate the 50-plus year anniversary in August 2021. Watch your local newspapers and the WAPOA website for upcoming announcements about the celebration.

40 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

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BREEZY POINT CONT...

Wilford H. Fawcett, better known as Captain Billy Fawcett, who founded Breezy Point Resort in 1921.

Submitted photos

was resurrected and grew.

Fawcett’s memory lives on at Breezy Point Resort through the Fawcett House - a mansion he built for himself and that today offers vacationers 11 bedrooms and nine bathrooms - as well as the Whiz Bang deck at the Dockside bar and restaurant.

The Fawcett House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

100TH ANNIVERSARY

The resort will celebrate its 100th anniversary all year. Guests and locals can take in a museum display at the front desk, sign banners noted as the “Wall of Fame” at the front desk and at Dockside, and have their photo taken in a Roaring ‘20s cutout.

The Traditional Golf Course will feature tributes to professional golfers Hagen and Patty Berg, a founding member and first president of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

There is gift shop memorabilia featuring 100year mementos and speakeasy drink specials featuring 1921 cocktails with commemorative glasses. There’s also a display of old menus by the Marina II dining room and a display of entertainment through the years at Dockside.

Visit the resort’s Facebook and Instagram pages for yesterday vs. today memories.

An employee reunion was planned for May. Spizzo said he’s proud the resort can offer kids a job where they can work during the summer to earn money for college.

The resort planned Memorial Day

that expanded to many profit centers, instead of relying solely on one.

In addition to a hockey arena, he said Whitebirch Inc. was the first to offer campsite ownership, timeshares and condominiums.

Whitebirch is now delving into a townhouse development called Whitebirch Village, featuring 52 two- and three-bedroom townhouses geared to active adults being The Fawcett House being built on the Whitebirch Golf Course. built at Breezy Point Resort.

The resort will continue along the entrepreneur path, including advancements no one has yet established. weekend fireworks, with another fireworks “Who knows what people will come up display planned Saturday, July 3. On with,” Spizzo said, referencing ideas that Labor Day weekend, the resort will revive took hold over the years but that no one had the 10,000 Lakes Golf Tournament on the Traditional Course using the front eight holes, thought of back when he first came to Breezy just like the beginning.

Point Resort.

“I think Captain Billy would turn over in THE FUTURE his grave if he saw all the changes over the “We see ourselves getting deeper involved years,” Spizzo said. in hockey and golf and health,” Spizzo said.

“We want people to come here and not only NANCY VOGT relax, but learn to eat healthy.” is editor of the Pineandlakes Spizzo traveled a lot, including to Europe Echo Journal weekly newspaper and other parts of the world, to glean ideas in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. She may and make them better in building up Breezy be reached at 218-855-5877 Point Resort. That included a business plan or nancy.vogt@pineandlakes.com.

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Kat Beireis, Ideal Corners, took these scenic photos in the Lowell Wildlife Management Area on an April morning.

Resident captures beauty of Lowell Wildlife Management Area, Rice Lake

BY KAT BEIREIS

Rice Lake, one of the few remaining natural wildlife lakes in the area, is home to a variety of fur bearers, waterfowl and reptiles. The lake provides aquatic habitat for small fish species and is often abundant with wild rice.

An 85-acre tract of land adjacent to the lake was donated to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and is managed as the Lowell Wildlife Management Area.

Spring ephemerals are making me jealous!

The Cities are about two weeks ahead of those of us in central Minnesota. So I searched for beauty in the woods of Crow Wing County, seeking any bits of color.

I followed a stream, trying to find a way across. Cows impeded my normal path. It was just too wide to risk a jump at my age.

Just too cold to wade.

Eventually, I found a suitable downed tree to inch across. Then I followed the stream farther until I found the place where another creek joins it. Hard to get to in the long grasses of summer, today was only a bit rough and muddy.

I wandered the strip between field and stream, searching in vain for hepaticas. The oniony smell awakened me to the ramps dotted under the trees. I pushed further, but the rising wind made me check the weather.

Rain headed my way!

A flock of butterbutts accompanied me as I stuck to the woodline to avoid the wind.

As I walked, a bit quicker as the clouds thickened, I found myself wondering what I would eat to stay alive if I fell and broke my leg. (I have my cell phone, my car is parked a quarter mile away on the side of the road, my house is 9 mile away, and I have a baggie of nuts in my pocket - not much of a real concern.)

Anyway, there were ramps to eat, and chickweed was just starting to pop up. Not much, but better than nothing. Nettles are all over, but can you eat them without boiling the stingers off? A question to pursue later.

Looking forward to the day (in a couple weeks) when there will be many more

WE TAKE

distractions on the forest floor.

Seeing birds/bird pictures often sparks memories. They bring back memories of people who passed away or memories of our childhood. I get a sense of what “power” birds have on people by their comments on my posts.

The meadowlark? The most common comment on this bird is: “I miss their song. It reminds me of home.”

This comment usually comes from someone raised on a farm who now lives in the city, but misses home, and I’m glad to be living in the lakes area.

KAT BEIREIS is an Ideal Corners resident.

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42 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

LOWELL WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA

Advanced Careers

County: Crow Wing Nearest town: Pequot Lakes Directions: From the junction of State Highway 371 and County Road 11 in Pequot Lakes, go east on County Road 11 for 1.75 miles and south on a gravel road for .1 mile. Access to Rice Lake and this wildlife management area is along a gravel road.

Area: 158.38 acres Perimeter: 2.84 miles Special restrictions: None Description: This wildlife management area was proposed in 1978 for habitat improvement for waterfowl, furbearers, white-tailed deer and ruffed grouse.

There is no parking lot.

An interpretive boardwalk and related parking lot funded by gift funds from the Pelican Lake Conservation Club/ Eagle View Elementary School is being considered for the north side of Rice Lake.

Game species: Deer, bear, small game, forest upland birds, waterfowl.

Source: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

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FEATURE

Share your love of the lakes in photo campaign We all love our lakes, right?

Share the love by participating in the Northern Waters Land Trust’s second annual Love Our Lakes social media campaign, featuring a different theme and prize each year.

The inaugural campaign’s theme was appreciation for the lakes in northern Minnesota - the beautiful views, fun activities on the lakes, nature, etc. More than 50 individuals representing at least 17 lakes participated in the photo-sharing campaign illustrating why they love our lakes.

Winners shared photos on Kid, Wabedo, Round, Webb and Gilbert lakes. Photos showed breathtaking lake views, fishing and wildlife, among others.

This year’s theme is promoting pollinators - gardens or plants people have put in near their lake, pictures of pollinators and other natural landscapes that promote pollinators.

People are encouraged to share their favorite picture depicting pollinators on the organization’s Facebook page. Eligible participants will be put into a drawing for prize packages.

Additionally, if the participant mentions a lake association or similar organization in the four-county area (Cass, Crow Wing, Aitkin and Hubbard), that organization has a chance to win a conservation grant. The more times an organization is mentioned, the more chances it gets. To learn more about the campaign and rules for participating, check out Northern Waters Land Trust Facebook page.

The Northern Waters Land Trust is a nonprofit conservation organization working to protect water quality and preserve environmentally sensitive lands and water resources. Formerly the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation, NWLT serves the watersheds in Cass, Crow Wing, Hubbard and Aitkin counties, and represents 2,235 lakes, 3,400 miles of rivers and streams and nearly 4.2 million acres.

For more information, go to northernwaterslandtrust.org.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Gail Klein shared this photo of Rabbit Lake in last year’s photo campaign.

Jane Peck Freeberg won a prize in the 2020 Love Our Lakes campaign for this serene photo of Round Lake.

Liz Lynch Anderson was a winner in the augural Love Our Lakes photo campaign for this photo showing Webb Lake on the 2020 fishing opener.

Submitted photos

44 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

LEECH LAKE 5 10

1015 20

15

20

10 5

15 20 15

5

10 5

E.V.

5

5

15

15

5 5 15 10 5

35 55 65 75 75 75 150 15

15

20 15 10 35

25 30 35 40

20 25

10 20

40

25

20

40 35 25 15 20 5

7565

20 30 35

25

10

20 15

65 75 85

30

10 Pelican Island 5 15

5

10

5

20

10 5

15 20

E.V.

10

5

5 15

35 25

10

10 Bear Island

25

25 15

35

10

20

20

35

10

25

20

30

5

5

10

10

20

15

10 10

20

10 15

20

25 20

5

15 10

5 5

85 75

25

20 25 30

35 E.V. 45 45

5 10 15

E.V.

5

E.V. 15 25

15 10 5

20 25

E.V.

5

10

30

10 15

30

30

5

20 20

15 10 25

Leech Lake

64

Leech Lake

371 Walker

WALKER, CASS COUNTY

200

Laura Lake

Akeley

71

Longville

5

7 7

Nevis

54

34

Iguadona Lake

Ten Mile Lake

6

12

84

Little Boy

Woman Lake

Area: 110,311 acres

Thunder Lake

Hackensack

Park Rapids

Island Lake

34

Deepest Point: 150 feet, located in Walker Bay

Menahga

87

at Stony Point off County Road 13; on Leech Lake River off Highway 8; on 87 87 southeast corner off County Road 39; south end off State Highway 200.

Washburn Lake

49

160

Pine Mountain

48

Lake Ada

Lind Lake

Blind

Historic Fact: Time, Life and Fortune87 Magazine journalist Mary Welsh 84 371 was born in Walker in 1908 and spent much of her youth with her father, Thomas Welsh, who owned a river boat named Northland, which he 84 371 used to ferry logs and people around Leech Lake. The wheel from the Northland became a landmark in Walker for many years and the lumber from the Northland was64used to build a house at Tianna Farms.

Mary was 371 an embedded journalist before and during World War II, having covered such events as the Munich Agreement and the Blitzkrieg during which time she spent hours huddled with others in cramped rooms. She met Ernest Hemingway to whom she wed in 1946. The Cass County Historical Society has a pair of wool long johns which are rumored to have been371 worn, briefly,

by Hemingway during his one and only visit to Walker.

Backus

Outi

48

Hattie

Pistol

Rooseve

136

Jail Lake 56

Lizzie

FOOT HILLS STATE FOREST

Horseshoe

43

Clough

Mitchell

56

Eagle

Mildred

Kego

54

134

1

Bertha

16 Grass

145

Jenkins

112

39

Duck

Ossawinnaamakee

Pequot Lakes

Sibley

Loon

Breezy Point

168

Mayo

29

Pine

Fawn

Pi

Lower

11

Lake

Nisswa Roy

77

leech-lake.com and Wikipedia

30

Miller

Menomin

Black Bear

19

Gladstone

115

Bass

3

Fawn

3

128

Crystal

127

Little Hubert

Round Lake

Riverton

Campbell

Merrifield

127

Sorenson

119

North Long Lake

Rock

116

Lake Edward

4

115 15

11

19

13 Hubert

Gull Lake

1

Upper Mission

Lower Mission

Perch

Mollie

137

371

77

Wadena

109 Bass

109 Lougee

Garden

Clark

13

Margaret

CROW WING STATE FOREST Fool

118

Shore Sources: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, minnesotalakes.net

r

ive eR Pin

Lizard

Markee

Nisswa

114 Adney Goggle

ne Ri ver

Horseshoe

Little Pelican

llen CuMiddle

36

Greer

3 11

Pelican Lake

107

Upper Gull

O'Brien

4

Upper

East Twin

West Twin Edna

Dolney

3

36

103

103

11

Upper Loon

66

Crosslake

112

1

Goodrich

gett Dag

Rush

Cross Lake

Star

Kimball

Clear Lake

Upper Hay 16

16

17

17

Pickeral

Little Pine

Ideal Corners

Clamshell

Sand

Ox

Lower Whitefish

Lower Hay

Emily

1

Manhattan Beach

Big Trout

15

15

Butterfield

Mud Lake

Upper Whitefish

1

Anna

Fifty Lakes

Arrowhead

Pine River

Blue Eagle

West Fox

Swanburg

Norway

107

Public Water Accesses: Many located around lake including on northwest shore at Squaw Point off State Highway 371 and Oak Point Road; on northeast side at Battle Point off County Road 136; on southwest side 10

54

84

64

2

Invasive Species: Eurasian watermilfoil, zebra mussels

Lake George

47 8

1

Fish: Crappie, sunfish, bowfin, bullhead, catfish eelpout, large/small/ rock bass, muskellunge, northern pike, tullibee, walleye, white sucker, perch.

Special Fishing Regulations: This lake has special fishing regulations that differ from statewide or border water regulations for those species identified below and take precedence.Walleye: All from 20-26” must be immediately 71 released. One over 26” allowed in possession. Possession limit four.

55

Lake Wabedo

371

Defining Characteristics: The lake is the third largest lake entirely within 87 Minnesota’s boundaries and covers approximately 112,000 surface acres, nearly 80 percent of the lake is less than 35 feet deep. It is geographically 71 located in three glacial zones and has an irregular shape with many large and small bays.

Number of aquatic plant species: 49

200

371

34

210

Black Hoof

Ironto

12 102

25

Wolf

126 Hartley

64

125

77

10

Pillager

Mud Red Sand

18

Staples

Motley

Whipple

Gilbert

20

371

102

210

49

77

77 Sylvan

iver

PILLSBU RY STATE FOREST

Verndale

146

Rice

25

142

159 Mud Twin Island

Brainerd

lR

71

Horseshoe

Wise

Wilson Bay

Gul

8070 40 30 40

45 65 8595

Goose Island E.V.

E.V.

10

15

10

Minnesota Island

E.V.

25

15

10

5

15

E.V. 20

30

E.V. 5

5

5 10 15

159

White Sand

218-829-4705 • PINEANDLAKES.COM | 45 210

1

48

144

Pillager Hardy

CAMP RIPLEY NATIONAL GUARD RESER VATION

Grave

23

48

24

10

Shamineau Lake

8

18

Baxter

210

36

210

371

B ul Pa

nE ya un

res xp

ay

123

8

5 Russell

South Long Lake

25 21 144

44

CROW WING STATE PARK ippi siss Mis

sw

v

er Riv

121 iver

22

22

MAGENT FISHING CONT...

FINAL YEAR CLOSING SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

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Tyler McAllister fishes mostly in Duluth where he goes to school.

Many locations there have an abundance of railroad spikes.

Submitted photo

Tyler’s top 5 bucket list 1. Gun 2. Knife 3. Safe or similar holder for valuable items.

4. Phone 5. Old technology items

Travis’s top 5 bucket list 1. Gun 2. Leatherman or similar valuable multi-tool 3. Safe or cash receptacle 4. Knives 5. Fishing gear

46 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

Though garbage is more common to find, diligence often pays off, such as with this catch consisting of more than $300 worth of fishing gear.

Photo by Travis Grimler

However, on that same trip I decided something bigger was needed before the lakes thawed. Since then I have had a 900-pound magnet, a 1,300pound magnet and a double-sided magnet with 600 pounds on each side along with a grappling hook.

McAllister has a 1,200-pound magnet.

"It was like $70, but they are pretty good," he said. “It's pretty tough so I think it was worth it.

Once I got that I started pulling up a lot more."

Having fun magnet fishing depends heavily on preparation. Finding locations where you can fish and asking for permission is an important part of fishing. You can use Google Maps and satellite images to find places to fish. It's best to choose locations that are either too deep or too murky for easy retrieval of lost items. You can also ask local anglers for advice.

"Being new to the Duluth area I talked to a lot of people I work with," McAllister said. "They often have good fishing suggestions."

Having the proper gear can also increase enjoyment.

"I've learned to be a lot more prepared, honestly, because sometimes you'll go out somewhere and won't catch anything. But other times you go

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“I don’t really care if what I’m pulling up is anything valuable or interesting, as long as I’m pulling stuff up.”

Tyler McAllister, magnet fisher

fishing gear, tools and other usable items. If you choose your spots well, you will almost certainly acquire some keeper items on almost every trip.

"I had a coffee can full of good finds I've found like nice lures and stuff like that," McAllister said. "That disappeared, but I did take out my favorite find. It was an old knife called a Rat Brand knife. I looked them up and the only ones I've found are pretty old. I got that right out of the Pine River dam area."

My single best trip resulted in finding a $150 La Croix fishing rod with a $50 Asking for permission to fish Pfleuger reel, another $75 rod and $25 reel, a private dock could lead to a a 1982 Snoopy fishing rod and more than monetary award such as was earned $20 worth of tackle. My strangest catch was for retrieving this Snap-On wrench. a pipe made from a small socket and a pen Photo by Travis Grimler tube, though the full bottle of New Belgium beer was also entertaining.

"The strangest item I got over the course somewhere and you'll pull up so many of a few trips out, I went to a fishing pier and things that it's impossible to get them out of every time I went there I would find pieces there. You need to be prepared to be able of a pair of glasses," McAllister said. "It to remove things you've taken out. Once would always be one piece at a time. Every you've taken them out, you don't want to single time I went I'd find one more piece make a mess."

I bring a laundry basket on wheels with me until I could have the whole thing, which was dumb. You know, it's trashed, but it was really so I can easily transport many of the larger items I come across. It is very important to be satisfying to get the whole piece together. prepared to take not only valuable finds, but Otherwise just odd things maybe like razor blades that are like branded razor blades to also to take out the trash you might pull up out of the water. This activity is perhaps more grocery stores, which I didn't know they did."

Regardless of what you find, there is about cleaning the water than it is about excitement when you can feel your magnet finding treasure. get heavy but before you can see what it is. "(You find) scrap metal and stuff," "I don't really care if what I'm pulling up is McAllister said. "A lot of times you find fishing anything valuable or interesting, as long as I'm line. Even though it's not magnetic, you snag pulling stuff up," McAllister said. "So I do like it. It's nice to get that stuff out of the water." to go down the railroads here every now and That doesn't mean a person will never find again. There'll be little bridges where the tracks anything valuable. Almost all magnet fishers cross over, and you'll find a lot of railroad ties have a bucket list. Most bucket lists have the and stuff in the water there. I actually found a same item at the top. working bike underneath one of those."

"The top thing just for having a whole story about it would be finding a firearm," TRAVIS GRIMLER McAllister said. "That's everybody's top find. is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes You have to call the police and everything Echo Journal weekly newspaper and it turns your outing into a full day." in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may Likewise, my bucket list has a gun on be reached at 218-855-5853 or travis.grimler@pineandlakes.com. it; however, I also enjoy finding working

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LEAD POISIONING CONT... swans were reported to have been recovered on Sucker Lake in Vadnais Heights, a Twin Cities area community. Of the 10 birds in sufficiently good condition to be tested by a University of Minnesota lab, all were reported to have suffered lead poisoning.

Radomski said six states - Washington, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont - have restrictions on lead tackle use or sale, at least in the smaller sizes that wildlife are more likely to consume. Legislation has been introduced in the Minnesota Legislature to ban the manufacture and sale of lead fishing tackle in Minnesota in 2024, and its use by anglers here in 2025. That legislation was pending in the Minnesota Legislature, but appeared short of unanimous support for outright bans.

A DEER HUNT ISSUE TOO

Less familiar in the wildlife poisoning dialogue is the death of scavengers bald eagles being the most high-profile - caused by lead. Bald eagles have once again become abundant in Minnesota and elsewhere in the country after being endangered by agricultural chemical use.

Majestic as they are, their niche in nature leans heavily toward scavenging. Besides fish and other luckless creatures, eagles feed on deer killed by motor vehicles, on those shot but not recovered by hunters and on the remains - the “gut pile” - typically left in the woods when hunters field-dress their deer.

The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine has a longstanding program to rehabilitate eagles, hawks and owls, and release them back into the wild when possible. The center’s website states that it receives about 150 injured or ill bald eagles each year, and that on average, 25%-30% of these eagles are documented to have lead toxicity.

The greatest frequency has been in close proximity to the firearms deer hunting season.

Unlike ducks and geese that are harvested with a spray of small pellets, most deer are harvested with a bullet or a stubby shotgun projectile called a “slug.” Ammunition makers design bullets to expand on impact, but not disintegrate, to most efficiently deliver energy for a clean kill.

Despite these design efforts, a lead bullet or slug can break up, or fragment, within the animal. Even when no obvious break-up has occurred, some level of lead erosion - perhaps not visible to the naked eye - can occur.

Ron Spomer, a nationally recognized 48 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

would almost certainly be larger.

If lead from rifle bullets or shotgun slugs was confined to the wound channel or point of entry into a big game animal, it might be possible through careful butchering to avoid it. But studies have shown that small bits of lead can be embedded as much as 18 inches from a bullet’s wound channel.

One study, which included now-retired Minnesota DNR Wildlife Research Director Lou Cornicelli, also found that lead residues can be spread to other areas of a deer merely by washing out its body cavity.

Do these findings confirm an actual threat to those of us who eat lead ammunitionharvested venison? It would be difficult to A THREAT TO HUMANS? scientifically prove - or disprove - subtle X-ray screening of venison donated by hunters to food shelves - screening done over negative effects on those who regularly consume venison. But it is widely understood a decade by the Minnesota Department of in the scientific community that there is no level Agriculture - found lead fragments in more than 7% of the venison. For obvious reasons, of lead exposure that is known to be harmless.

There has been less discussion of potential venison found to contain lead is not accepted lead poisoning from eating upland game for food shelves. like pheasants, ruffed grouse or woodcock The 94,000-plus pounds of venison it tested included archery-harvested deer, which - harvested with shotgun shells containing would not contain lead, so the percentage of lead pellets, or “shot.”

Brian Hiller, professor of biology at firearms-harvested deer with lead fragments

ballistics expert and shooting sports writer, has found this by weighing bullets he has recovered from big game.

“Some bullets have lost 10-40% of their weight,” he notes.

It can logically be concluded that the remainder of the lead is somewhere inside the carcass.

Lead from this source would also be a threat to other creatures that scavenge deer remains, such as ravens, crows and coyotes.

But understandably, our handsome national symbol has become a poster child for the wildlife lead poisoning issue.

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Lead poisoning can be crippling to swans like these, as well as to loons, geese and ducks.

Photo by Mike Rahn

Bemidji State University, earned Masters and Doctorate degrees doing toxicology research on the subject in Connecticut. A two-year study of woodcock compared birds harvested with lead shot and those harvested with steel shot. The result revealed trace amounts of lead and other contaminants in the flesh of those birds harvested with lead shot, contaminants not found in birds harvested with steel.

“That was in 2002, and that’s when I stopped using lead in my shotguns,” Hiller said. “In 2003, my wife and I were about to have our first child, and I knew about the potential for fracturing of lead bullets in big game, so I switched to copper bullets for deer hunting; this at a time when copper bullets were much harder to come by. For me it was a natural conversion; for others, it may not be.”

Hiller also noted that in England, where there are commercial markets for wild game that is harvested to manage populations on large estates, commercial game buyers will no longer purchase game harvested with lead ammunition.

ALTERNATIVES FOR DEER HUNTERS

A copper bullet is considered the best current alternative to lead. Both Spomer and Hiller have used copper bullets successfully on deer-sized big game.

“In my experience they do what they’re supposed to do,” Spomer said. “They open up reliably, and they retain 90 to 100 percent of their weight (both of which would contribute to clean kills for a capable hunter).”

“When I’ve had to track a deer shot with a copper bullet, it’s usually no more than about 35 yards,” Hiller said. “More often than not, the animal has dropped in its tracks.”

In part because copper is lighter than lead, bullet design is likely to differ.

Ammunition maker Winchester, for example, has designed a copper bullet with an aerodynamic “boat tail,” and a polymer plastic tip with a hollow chamber just behind it that is intended to enhance the bullet’s expansion and delivery of all its energy.

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Loons, like other waterfowl, have fallen victim to lead poisoning.

Bald eagles have been found to have lead toxicity from eating deer carcasses.

Photos by Mike Rahn

copper as a bullet material has already proven itself on big game from here to Africa.

Hiller is the current president of the Minnesota Chapter of The Wildlife Society, an organization that serves professionals in the wildlife management field. Several times each year, at least in pre-COVID-19 times, the chapter has conducted demonstrations where the public can learn about and see first-hand the performance and effectiveness of nontoxic ammunition alternatives, including copper bullets.

Copper bullets are more expensive than the cheapest lead ammunition.

“But they’re about the same price as the very best high-end lead bullets,” Hiller said.

“And when you think about it, what you’ll pay for bullets is only a small fraction of what you spend on gear and other things for a hunting trip.”

ALTERNATIVES FOR ANGLERS

Fishermen already have proven alternatives to lead weights and jigs, though they carry higher price tags. Some anglers are already using tungsten jigs because they are heavier than lead jigs of the same size and shape, and therefore sink faster.

Fly fishermen use tungsten beads on some trout flies that are intended to be fished under the surface, especially in heavy current or when rapid descent of the fly is wanted.

Another option is an alloy of bismuth and tin, similar to the alloy used in place of lead in shotgun shells. This alloy, like lead, has a low melting point. It can be purchased in bulk “ingots” and used by anglers to make their own jigs.

Some lead substitutes can also be fashioned into round “split shot,” and other 50 | 2021 LOVE OF THE LAKES

standard shapes and designs of weights used to sink baited hooks. Though these substitutes do not equal lead’s malleability - lead can be repeatedly bent, squeezed, crimped, flexed and unbent - they offer a viable alternative. Some, like lead, are removable after being pinched onto fishing line.

The cost of lead-free jigs and fishing weights can vary considerably, depending on the substitute material and the manufacturer.

Anglers can expect to pay several times as much - perhaps more - for some lead-free items. But in terms of actual dollars out-ofpocket, the difference may not be a deterrent for most anglers, especially when viewed against the backdrop of total expenses, including fuel for a vehicle and outboard motor, angling license, live bait, etc.

As just one example, an Eagle Claw dispenser pack of 124 removable lead-free tin sinkers in five different sizes costs $14.99, or about 12 cents each. Contrast this with a duck hunter who shoots high quality leadfree steel (soft iron) shotgun ammunition, which may cost 60 cents for every shot fired, or lead-free bismuth shells that may cost upward of $3 per shot fired.

This is not to say that cost in lead-free fishing tackle is a non-issue, but its impact may sometimes be overstated.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has compiled a listing of manufacturers that offer lead-free fishing tackle products, including bismuth, tin, steel and tungsten, which can be found at https://www.pca. state.mn.us/living-green/manufacturerslead-free-tackle

NEXT STEPS?

There are differences of opinion over whether a transition to lead-free

ammunition and fishing tackle is needed, and whether it should be forced upon hunters and anglers. Some believe no restrictions are warranted until there are wildlife lead poisoning losses at the “population level.” This means that unless there is a threat to a population as a whole, steps toward lead-free fishing tackle and ammunition should be voluntary.

Others feel that the losses being reported can’t be ignored, even if the overall populations of eagles, loons or swans are not in peril. And losses to lead poisoning may be underestimated.

“If we find 200,” Hiller said, “we can be sure that we’re only finding a small fraction.

Individuals do count, and it’s a PR problem.”

Still, Hiller has reservations about an outright ban on lead fishing tackle, such as those that six states have enacted, or the general lead ammunition ban as enacted in California. He points to the drawn-out resistance of waterfowl hunters when lead shot was banned by the U.S. Department of the Interior in the 1980s, something that has not entirely disappeared to this day.

“I’d like to see a transition that is demanddriven,” Hiller said.

He believes the majority of sportsmen “will do the right thing if they’re given the right information, presented in the right way.”

Others - in growing numbers - believe that the safety of wildlife and humans coincidentally exposed to the hazards of lead demands a more urgent response.

MIKE RAHN writes Inside the Outdoors, an outdoor column published in area publications, including the Pineandlakes Echo Journal.

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