Vacation, Day 5

Tuesday, July 22

We had a bad storm with a big wind during the night. By the time we left the cabin at 8:00 to go on our big adventure to Ely, someone had already driven Hungry Jack Road and cleared all the downed trees with a chain saw. I was impressed.

We took Highway 6 from where it left the main road along Lake Superior to where it joined Highway 1 in Finland. Not much going on in Finland. I noticed that there was a Lutheran Church in a double-wide trailer.

We got to Ely just before noon. My friend Pat had recommended the Chocolate Moose for lunch. Alas, there was a 30 minute wait, but if I gave them my cell phone number, they would text me when a table was ready for us. We went next door to Piragis next door (also on Pat’s recommendation) to look at sports equipment. I will need some water shoes for my next trip to Belize. The water shoes at Piragis were $110. Jane promised that she would look for a sale at L. L.  Bean.

The sign for the Chocolate Moose

Jane went back outside to sit down while I looked around in the camping gear and went upstairs to a very interesting book store. When I came back down, our table was ready. I had half of a ham sandwich and a cup of tomato basil soup. The food was very good. The soup had a lot of small bits that looked like celery in it which, in combination with the basil, gave it a fennel-like flavor. The bits might have been fennel, I suppose, but I didn't want to get out my hand lens at the table. The sandwich came with a big pile of potato chips and a pickle spear. We also had Dorothy Molter root beer.

 

Tomato basil soup, half a ham sandwich, Dorothy Molter Root Beer

After lunch we went to the International Wolf Center and paid $9.50 adult for me and $8.50 for Jane, because she is over 60 (how did that happen??). There was a special photography exhibit on the Aurora Borealis, although the connection with wolves was not clear. There was an extensive display on the role of wolves in mythology, history, and literature, and somewhat less information on evolutionary relationship with other canines. At the viewing area one wolf wandered by looking kind of bored.



Entrance to the International Wolf Center

A wolf with not much to do

 

We went to the Dorothy Molter Museum next. Jane thought it looked like too much standing for her. She waited in the car while I rushed to join a tour given by Bob. Bob gave us Dorothy’s life story from her birth in 1907 to her first trip to the Ely area in 1930 to her permanent relocation in 1934, when she came to help out at the Isle of Pines fish camp. She eventually inherited the camp from the owner in 1948.

Dorothy Molter's cabin

A ban on sea plane delivery in 1949 was the end of pop in the fish camp. A few years later, Dorothy came across a bunch of empty pop bottles and got the idea of making root beer. She used yeast for carbonation. Every summer she made 12000 bottles of pop which she sold to 6000 visitors.

The cabin was in three sections, a glassed-in porch, a kitching/living area, and two bedrooms made by bisecting the back section with a  wall parallel to the long side of the building. Bob didn’t say anything about the construction. I wondered if it had been built in three phases. This cabin had been Dorothy’s winter quarters. In the summer, it was rented to guests and Dorothy stayed in a tent.

The Forest Service bought land in 1973 and allowed Dorothy to stay on until her death from heart failure while hauling wood in 1986, at the age of 79. A group of people got together to move Dorothy’s cabin and a couple of other cabins from the fish camp to their present location outside of Ely when the Forest Service planned to raze them.

Our last stop on Pat’s suggested tour was Zup’s Grocery for their house made bratwurst. Near the check out, I saw a tree of water shoes. At the top it said “Regularly $6 now $3. I was naturally drawn to a red pair. When I found they were my size, it seemed like fate. Jane promptly dubbed them my ruby slippers.

My new ruby slippers

We headed back to Grand Marais. We went to Sydney’s for Margherita pizza and turtle sundaes because it was too hot to make the Dutch chocolate custard. We ate at a table on the street side. It was a very pleasant evening and a nice way to end our day trip.