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The Gunflint Lodge was only a small fishing camp when Justine Kerfoot and her mother first surveyed the tiny lodge and sprawling wilderness that has today become one of America's most beloved natural retreats. |  | ||||
| It was 1927 and Justine Kerfoot was a Northwestern University graduate headed to medical school. Her family had two homes in Illinois and had just purchased the Gunflint Lodge with plans to turn it into a summer resort. But when the stock market crashed, Justine, no longer able to continue her graduate work, and her family, forced to sell the Illinois homes, had no choice but to begin a new life in the wilderness of the Gunflint Trail. These first years were critical. Not only were Justine and her family confronted with learning survival in the frigid north woods, but they had to sustain a resort at a time when few people could afford vacations. Though financial losses and foreclosures loomed, Justine and her mother shared the tasks of running the lodge. While her mother was the hostess, answering all correspondence, planning the meals and supervising the help, Justine managed the ordering, paying bills, and keeping the canoes, boats, and all equipment in repair. In 1934 Justine married Bill Kerfoot, and together they struggled with the lodge's finances. They faced challenges such as getting electricity, phone lines, and fire-fighting equipment while raising a family of three children far from the convenience of modern civilization. Slowly the family business stabilized. The Kerfoot's built new cabins and furniture from the very elements that surrounded them. More and more visitors frequented the resort including Florence Page and Francis Lee Jaques, authors of award-winning Snowshoe Country, the journal and sketches depicting their four-month stay at the Gunflint Lodge. Today the Gunflint Lodge thrives as one of Minnesota's premier resorts. Open year round, the lodge has recently been featured in several magazines including Bon Appétit and Midwest Living. Bruce Kerfoot, Justine's oldest son, now runs the day-to-day operations of the lodge while his wife Sue continues a 60-year tradition of welcoming guests to the great north woods.
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