I’m a river girl. Raised on the big Stewart River in northern Minnesota, I spent a lot of my childhood daydreaming on a riverbank. Most days, I was drowning worms trying to get a fat brown or rainbow trout. I loved river fishing, but then I met my lake boy. It was love at first sight.
Jeff had grown up fishing on Rainy Lake, which straddles the Minnesota-Canada border. At 50 miles long and 30 miles wide with numerous islands, it’s a place with endless spots to fish. I fell really hard. Who wouldn’t after a shore lunch of fresh walleye? I insisted that we spend our honeymoon fishing.
We spent decades looking for our own piece of property on the lake, and we finally found it in the summer of 2009. It was so perfect that we placed a bid before even stepping foot into the cabin. We had heard that the cabin would probably need to be torn down. The roof and windows all sagged. The logs ran vertically, which would force us to go through many tubes of caulk. But the deck was spectacular and afforded both sunrise and sunset views against a Canadian background. Jeff and I walked along the shoreline and knew it was perfect for us.
From our deck, we watched goldeneyes with their ducklings, loons with babies perched on their backs, and large snapping turtles swimming in clear water. On the lake, we pulled in trophy northern pike and more than
a couple of walleye.
Jeff had grown up fishing on Rainy Lake, which straddles the Minnesota-Canada border. At 50 miles long and 30 miles wide with numerous islands, it’s a place with endless spots to fish. I fell really hard. Who wouldn’t after a shore lunch of fresh walleye? I insisted that we spend our honeymoon fishing.
We spent decades looking for our own piece of property on the lake, and we finally found it in the summer of 2009. It was so perfect that we placed a bid before even stepping foot into the cabin. We had heard that the cabin would probably need to be torn down. The roof and windows all sagged. The logs ran vertically, which would force us to go through many tubes of caulk. But the deck was spectacular and afforded both sunrise and sunset views against a Canadian background. Jeff and I walked along the shoreline and knew it was perfect for us.
From our deck, we watched goldeneyes with their ducklings, loons with babies perched on their backs, and large snapping turtles swimming in clear water. On the lake, we pulled in trophy northern pike and more than
a couple of walleye.
And it was here, surrounded by the lake, that I began to write. It was a dream that I had tucked away. I had tried to write while waiting for my boys at hockey practice or at piano lessons, but it wasn’t until we acquired the cabin that I really wrote.
My stories were from the lake: gold mining in the late 1800s, whiskey running during Prohibition, and giant logjams that would need tugboats to untangle them. Stories ran amok in my head. I wrote and learned to fish for walleye.
We kayaked and camped with our children and friends. Evenings were spent counting meteors as they streaked across the sky. I wrote it all down.
So our cabin became my “write” cabin. My characters became lake kids. Fishing, swimming and just being out on the lake is a perfect day, along with some gold hunting and a good mystery or two. Here on the edge of the wilderness, this riverbank daydreamer wrote and became a lake girl.
My stories were from the lake: gold mining in the late 1800s, whiskey running during Prohibition, and giant logjams that would need tugboats to untangle them. Stories ran amok in my head. I wrote and learned to fish for walleye.
We kayaked and camped with our children and friends. Evenings were spent counting meteors as they streaked across the sky. I wrote it all down.
So our cabin became my “write” cabin. My characters became lake kids. Fishing, swimming and just being out on the lake is a perfect day, along with some gold hunting and a good mystery or two. Here on the edge of the wilderness, this riverbank daydreamer wrote and became a lake girl.
Bear Pattern Wall Mounted Hooks
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Wilderness Wonders Rustic Cabin Wind ...
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