7/24/09 – The first Sawbill crew member paid us a visit this past week. Tom Kubiak drove up from his home in Illinois for a multi-purpose visit to the North Country. Between stopping in Duluth to see family and pop in on a fiftieth class reunion, he spent a few days fishing and camping here.
Kubiak began working as a guide at Sawbill Lodge in the mid fifties and started working for Frank and Mary Alice in 1956. Now retired from a 25-year career in the United States Air Force, Kubiak remembers fondly his early years working in the area, and chuckles when recalling watching Bill Hansen catch a monster northern pike on Sawbill Lake when Bill was just old enough to cast a line.
To rekindle these and other memories of campfires past, the Kubiak clan visits Sawbill and the Boundary Waters every three or four years now. The proud grandfather says his affection for the place had spread.
“Sawbill, Sawbill, Sawbill. That’s all I hear.” Kubiak says, imitating his granddaughter. “Once Sawbill gets in your blood, it’s always there.”
Asked to give a word of advice to today’s Boundary Waters pilgrims, Kubiak offered a classic refrain: Be prepared for anything. – Lee

Tom Kubiak