1/21/09 – We received this nice email today. Thanks Mark.
Dear Bill and Crew,
Just wanted to say thank you for allowing us to get ready in your shop for our little winter expedition last Thursday. It was amazingly cold that first day & night, especially with the wind howling from the West, but overall, we had a wonderful time right through Sunday. We’ve ventured into the Sawbill/Alton/Beth areas the last couple of years and this area has become a favorite of ours for a winter excursion into the BWCAW. You are so blessed to be able to live and work in such an amazingly beautiful place.
I’ve attached a few of pictures from our trip. I hope you have a warm and fruitful rest of the winter and look forward to our next meeting hopefully later this year.
For the team,
Mark Kingsriter

Heading south on Alton Lake.

Yes, it was this cold!

Looking at Sawbill Lake from the east end of the Alton portage.

1/20/09 – Sawbill was represented at the historic presidential inauguration in Washington D. C. today.

Long-time Sawbill crew member Molly Breslin shows Sawbill pride on the mall in D.C. Molly is from Illinois and traveled to Ohio to campaign for Barak Obama after leaving Sawbill last fall.

1/16/09 – We are emerging from an epic cold snap. We hadn’t seen any territory above zero degrees for the last four days. The warm weather arrived today with a balmy high near five degrees.
Our first crew member for the 2009 season has arrived. Katie “KT” Nulicek graduated from college just before Christmas and agreed to come help us haul wood, shovel snow, price t-shirts, etc. while she waits for the other crew members to arrive in the spring and early summer. She was a crew member during the 2007 season, but had to skip last year to attend summer school.
KT is an artist, so she is not only painting nearly every day, but is enjoying the inspiration of our incredible winter scenery here at Sawbill. – Bill

KT Nulicek – happy to be on Sawbill Lake in sub-zero weather.

I don’t know how a picture can convey extremely cold temperatures, but this one does.

1/8/09 – Wonderful winter weather continues here at Sawbill. Cold, soft snow is falling on a regular basis. The temperatures have been cold and another cold stretch is forecast for the coming week. Of course, being true Minnesotans, when it goes below zero, we stop wearing shorts.
With two kids home from college, we’ve been getting some extra work done. Today, Carl Hansen joined the snow plow driver’s club. He did a good, careful job on his first time.

A common sight this year.

Carl displays wild excitement during his first snow plowing experience.

1/5/09 – Happy New Year to all. It has been a great winter so far with mostly very cold temperatures (-15 last night) and lots of snow (24″ on the ground right now). The snow has stayed on the trees for now, making a postcard view where ever you look.
We have been extremely busy here with many wonderful visitors. Every year, we invite our current and past crew members to visit around the New Year holiday. This year we had 35 people show up! By far the largest group we’ve ever had. Uproarious good times were had by all, as you can see in the pictures below.

Along with eating, drinking, dancing, visiting and laughing, sliding was one of the popular activities of the holidays.

Caitlin, Kari, and a third unidentified rider careen down the hill.

Clare, unidentified, Adam and Nathan stop abruptly at a tree. No injuries were sustained.

Ellyn and Kari enjoy hilarity.

Better than the beach.

Lest you think it was all play and no work, here is part of the firewood hauling crew hard at work.

12/25/08 – If you ever wondered what happened to Cindy Lou Who when she grew up – now you know. She left Whoville, moved to Sawbill, got married and changed her name to Cindy Lou Hansen.

Happy Holidays everyone.

12/17/08 – Our snow-pack has settled to a very satisfactory 18″ now, but the recent snow was so cold, dry and fluffy that it is very hard to travel through. Even our big trail grooming snowmobile is having trouble handling it. We decided to snowshoe most of the ski trail today to pack it a bit and give the trail groomer some help. The 5 kilometer snowshoe trip turned out to be surprisingly difficult, taking us about an hour and a half. The dogs came along, although Phoebe had to be carried for about half the distance. Afterward, everyone was tired and a little stiff.

The ski trail leading away from our house after we broke the pristine snow with snowshoes.

Tired trail breakers at the end of the trip.

12/14/08 – Our two college students are home from Montana, triggering the urge to select our Christmas tree. We ventured out into the teeth of a significant snow storm to find a non-traditional tree. After much discussion, we selected a multi-forked birch.

Snow fell at more than an inch an hour today. We got 12″ from this storm, followed by bitter cold and high winds. Winter is good in northern Minnesota!

Carl, Roy, Homer, Clare and Phoebe Hansen cram into the back seat of the pickup truck to go tree hunting.

The tree felling crew at work. How many people can you see in this blizzard?

Roy was a big help straightening out the lights.

After all the fun, the final result drew ooohs and aaahs from the crowd.

12/1/08 – Cindy and I traveled to Missoula, Montana for the Thanksgiving holiday to visit our children, Carl and Clare, who are both students at the University of Montana. We had a wonderful time in that beautiful part of the world, feasting, playing cards, hiking in the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area (no snakes seen), and attending the Montana Grizzlies football game (they won!).

Carl and Clare protecting Cindy from rattlesnakes.
While we were traveling, my brother, Karl, and his wife, Lee, Sawbill-sat for us. They brought along their two dogs to add to our three which ended up being quite a pack! They enjoyed the quiet time (they normally live in the bustling urban center of Grand Marais, Minnesota) and took advantage of the frozen lake for hiking.

Lee exercising the pack on Sawbill Lake.
Also, while we were gone, Tim Velner and Gus Gustason stopped by for their annual Thanksgiving visit. For many years they camped in the Sawbill campground for Thanksgiving, enjoying a boil-in-a-bag feast, biking, hiking and touch football in the snow. This year they had to forego the camping and football, but kept the biking part of the tradition alive. – Bill

Tim Velner, from Duluth, rides in the snow at Sawbill.

11/23/08 – Skating! This is a day we wait for every year. I would call the conditions very good this year. There are large expanses of black ice more than 4″ thick. Due to high winds there are some cracks that allowed some up-welling. Those areas have now refrozen, creating periodic rough spots that have to be crossed carefully. Plenty of room for uninhibited skating though. Snow is forecast for tomorrow, so this may be the only opportunity of the year. – Bill

Roy, Cindy, Homer and Phoebe exuberantly taking advantage of smooth ice on Sawbill Lake. You can see the campground’s boat storage area in the far background.

Broad swathes of black ice.

A view of Alton Lake from the Sawbill portage. Alton is even smoother than Sawbill.