I am reading Sigurd Olson's biography by David Backes, "A Wilderness Within" and had a question on some GFT history. "Farewell to Saganaga" is an essay Sig wrote in 1935. The essay talks about how the trail was extended to Saganaga in the 1930s and Sig references a lodge being built at the southeastern edge of Saganaga, which Backes refers to as "Gunflint Lodge."

Is this an error? Or was there a resort called Gunflint Lodge on Sag at that time? It seems possible Backes was thinking of Chik-Wauk?

Thanks fellow history nerds!

According to the Gunflint Lodge web page........." In 1930 Mrs. Spunner bought an island on Saganaga Lake for an outpost camp. A lodge and one cabin were built on the island that year. There were also tents on platforms for the guests to sleep in. The island resort was called Saganaga Lodge. Guests at Saganaga Lodge canoed down the Granite River from Gunflint with a guide and spent a night or so on the island to fish on Saganaga. At the end of their trip they would be met by a lodge vehicle on Seagull Lake and driven back to Gunflint. This island outpost would eventually be a casualty of the depression."

Thanks for that. I think the book is just getting some of the timing and names wrong. The way it's described, it sure sounds like it would be Chik-Wauk, and not Gunflint or their island outpost on Sag.

thegildedgopher: "Thanks for that. I think the book is just getting some of the timing and names wrong. The way it's described, it sure sounds like it would be Chik-Wauk, and not Gunflint or their island outpost on Sag.


"

Yeah, it doesn't sound like a small operation does it? From the story, it does sound more like Chix Waux Lodge.

I camped on Gold Island last week and that island clearly had a cabin at some point. There is a footing in camp and an old bird house not too far behind the site.