ON THE GUNFLINT TRAIL, Minn. _ She came to the north woods in 1965 from a little farm town on the prairies of western Minnesota. She was a college kid, and she had taken a job at a resort on Hungry Jack Lake north of Grand Marais.
Luana Brandt remembers the lanky Swede, Carl Brandt, who came by that summer from his parents' resort on nearby Poplar Lake.
"I think Carl came over to check out the summer help," Luana Brandt said with a grin.
Carl didn't deny that.
"That's what you gotta do up here," he said.
Carl's parents owned a lodge up the Gunflint Trail a few miles. The romance blossomed quickly. Carl and Luana were married on a Saturday in June of 1966.
"By the following Wednesday, I was cooking breakfast for 26," Luana Brandt said. "It was a little crazy."
She and Carl have operated Nor'Wester Lodge and Canoe Outfitters on Poplar Lake since that summer of 1966, taking over for Carl's parents, Carl Sr. and Alis Brandt, who had run the resort since the early 1930s.
On a recent morning, Carl, 78, and Luana, 72, sat in their lodge and reflected on their lives at the resort 30 miles up the Gunflint Trail. Carl's dad and Alis had come up in 1931, during the Great Depression. Carl Sr. had hoped to open a sawmill on Poplar Lake, but that didn't work out. He built a small cabin on his Poplar Lake property. An angler came by one day, looking for a place to stay. He offered Carl Sr. $5 to rent the cabin for a week, Luana said.
"He was in business," she said.
Carl Sr. built more cabins on their land and called their new resort Balsam Grove. Carl and Luana changed the name to Nor'Wester Lodge in 1968. Now it offers 10 cabins, a villa, canoe outfitting and camping.
The property lies on a strip of classic north woods landscape among mature white pines and cedars along the Gunflint Trail. Poplar Lake, chiseled by the glaciers, stretches for three miles, full of arms and islands.
