Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

Carl Madsen’s first trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) as part of a group from Iowa State University was in the fall of 1989. They stayed at Rockwood Lodge and Outfitters on Poplar Lake. You could say he fell in love with the place. Returning over the years for vacations, eventually with his wife Stephanie Lightner and virtually his entire family. Stephanie’s sister Carol and her husband Mike Seim also visited Rockwood regularly. Carl and Mike worked with the Lodge’s owners, Mike and Lin Sherfy, to help open the seasonal cabins and make general repairs. When the Sherfy’s decided to move on and sell the resort, the Madsens and Seims stepped in to buy it. Now in their seventh year of ownership, Carl says, “We have experienced 15% business growth each year.” But not without challenges. 2021 was a tough year. “With the fires closing the BWCA and Gunflint Trail, along with Covid, we had almost no business in August,” he said. The business gets 60% of its revenue from wilderness o...

Border Giant, Inc. of Thunder Bay, ON, CA has purchased the property on the west side of Grand Marais that formerly housed Benny’s Collision Center. Border Giant had been renting space on the property for a year as it worked to establish its US presence. The company, which started in late 2017 in a literal garage, is licensed and bonded as a common carrier with Canadian and US authorities and as a Canadian Customs Broker. It originated to bring the cost and service benefit of technology to the logistics of e-commerce to small sellers and consumers in Canada. It is also registered as a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency with the United States Postal Service. US regulations required the firm to have a physical presence on this side of the border. “We had considerable difficulty finding commercial space for lease in Cook County for three years,” said Border GIant CEO James Foulds. It leased the Benny’s property in the Spring of last year. The history of e-commerce shows that when the behemo...

The Cook County/Grand Marais Economic Development Authority has released a report it commissioned that is titled a Comprehensive Housing Needs Analysis for Cook County Minnesota. The 75-page report is dated May 2, 2022, and was prepared by a St. Paul-based consulting firm called LOCi Consulting. LOCi is managed by a man named Grant Martin who submitted this report. According to its website, LOCi does “market feasibility studies across the country for a wide variety of commercial real estate uses, including retail, office, residential, and mixed-use.” The report does not present much in the way of new information from what local folks might have heard in conversations at the post office, hardware store, or coffee shop in recent years. On the other hand, it is well researched and presented in a logical fashion. It provides an analysis of demographic and economic trends to estimate future demand for housing to assist government planners looking to address housing issues. Jason Hale, Execu...

When our oldest daughter was entering the fourth grade, we moved the family from East Bloomington, MN to West Bloomington, MN. To understand the cultural ramifications of this move, think about moving from Hovland to Lutsen. Or maybe think about the Jeffersons moving to that deluxe apartment in the sky. As young parents with four kids, we were hyper-alert to their happiness and safety. Other than an occasional night away from us, staying with siblings and grandparents, our kids had never been away from their doting parents. So when we heard that fourth-grade teacher Mr. Porter was planning a several-night field trip at a camp in Northern Minnesota, I had many questions. Attending the information meeting at the school I quickly raised my hand when question time was called. First, if I am paying taxes in Hennepin County to fund parks and nature centers, why do we have to send kids on an overnight trip to a nature center? Murmurs were heard in the crowd. Next, what about kids like mine w...

Am I qualified to express an opinion on the North Shore economy?   I’m not an economist. I suffer from a K-12 public school education and the exhilarating lifetime of experience brokering freight transportation and putting my opinions in writing. With that disclaimer out of the way I can add that other than being a tourist from time to time, I don’t know much about the so-called tourism industry.  While researching the current state of Short Term Vacation Rentals (STR) on the North Shore I came across a new word ( a new one to me)--Overtourism. It is defined on the website www.responsiblevacation.com. “Overtourism occurs when there are too many visitors to a particular destination … When rent prices push out local tenants to make way for vacation rentals, that is overtourism. When narrow roads become jammed with tourist vehicles, that is overtourism. When wildlife is scared away, when tourists cannot view landmarks because of the crowds, when fragile environments become d...

Baxley Creates Media Production Company in Cook County In a career move that has brought Matthew Baxley full circle, he started a full-service audio and video production company in Cook County last year called Bear Witness Media. Entering college at the University of Wisconsin Stout, the young Baxley from LaCrosse, WI, hoped to achieve his degree in multi-media productions. Before two years had passed however he switched his major. After graduation, he worked as a community organizer and taught outdoor education in St. Paul. He then spent time teaching outdoor education in San Francisco. The next stop for him is the graduate program at Stout in the Marriage and Family program. While there, he met Lindsay Gau, the current director of the Violence Prevention Center in Grand Marais. After completing the graduate program, the two of them entered into private practice as counselors in the Twin Cities. A few years into that, professional burnout set in and the two of them were longing for a ...

In a collaboration between Cascade Vacation Rentals and Cascade Resort in Lutsen a new north shore business was created in the Grand Marais business park. North Shore Laundry Services is the first commercial laundry in Cook County. The company website says the business was built to provide hotels, vacation rentals, and resorts hassle-free, affordable, and consistent commercial laundry service. Micah Avery is the Laundry Operations Manager. He is a long-time Cook County resident with deep ties to the community. His three-person team includes a pickup and delivery driver and a floor attendant. Micah plans to add staff and a second shift as the business grows into the summer. Although he lacked laundry experience, Micah has a strong business and customer service background. His varied life experience includes living for a time in Michigan, Arizona, and Bosnia. “I love the service industry,” he said. For many of the smaller resorts to do their own laundry requires significant investment in...