Boundary Waters Resort Turns Museum

     It seems like yesterday when I stood at Chik-Wauk with Ralph and Bea Griffis who still spent their summers there and Jo Barnier, the previous Gunflint District Ranger. I remember telling Ralph and Bea how awesome it would be to preserve the beautiful lodge and asking Jo how we could get it listed on the National Historic Register. From that meeting on it has been a dream to turn Chik-Wauk into something everyone could enjoy.


     When I brought up the idea of making Chik-Wauk into something more at a Gunflint Trail Scenic Byway Meeting everyone thought it was a great idea but too much for the Scenic Byway Committee to tackle. From that meeting a special meeting was planned for July 6, 2005 but I wasn’t able to attend it. It was determined to hold an open meeting to see if there would be enough interest from other people to take on a project of such magnitude. Lo and behold there were plenty of folks who were willing to commit to such an endeavor.

The group planned regular meetings and formed The Gunflint Trail Historical Society and decided to make Chik-Wauk the first project. In 2005 the year 2010 was determined to be the year Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center would open. It sounded like that year would never come but through the work of many dedicated volunteers and the contributions of generous members the time has finally come.

The tireless efforts of all of those involved can now be seen by the public.  Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center isopen daily and waiting for you to discover.

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AP PRESS  ALONG THE GUNFLINT TRAIL, Minn. -- A fishing lodge that closed in 1978 when the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness expanded reopened Sunday as Minnesota's newest -- and most remote -- history museum and nature center.


The Duluth News Tribune reported that Chik-Wauk Lodge was opening to the public Sunday -- the culmination of a five-year, more than $1 million effort by local residents to create a place to tell the colorful history of the Gunflint Trail.

That 60-mile, dead-end highway meanders north from Grand Marais on Lake Superior into the heart of the state's scenic lakes and forest region. It's an area thick with a history of native peoples, fur traders, mining speculators, loggers, fishermen and sportsmen and, more recently, recreation outfitters and cabin and bed-and-breakfast owners.

"It's an area where people at first learned all these skills for survival, and then turned it into recreation," said Sue Kerfoot, past president of the Gunflint Trail Historical Society and a driving force behind the new museum. "From dog sledding and fishing and hunting and canoeing in the 1800s, where you had to know how to make it ... to the people who stay at the resorts now."

The Gunflint Trail itself evolved from an Indian trail, to a tote road to supply mines that never produced any ore, to a logging road in the early 1900s. The route as it's known today developed in the early 1920s to give people access to pristine fishing lakes but wasn't paved until the 1970s.

It is on the bay of Saganaga Lake that Chik-Wauk sits, the filming site for the famous 1960s Hamm's Beer commercials featuring a canoe-riding grizzly bear.

The new museum is professionally designed, with hands-on exhibits and a trove of Gunflint Trail artifacts, memorabilia and history. There's a diorama of local wildlife and trees, an interactive exhibit about the Voyageurs fur trade and exhibits on wildfires, local residents, logging, geology and mining, and Indian history.