Ely, Minnesota, seems remote to many visitors, but I'm guessing Dorothy Molter viewed it as a bustling metropolis when she canoed there to pick up supplies for her Knife Lake resort and home during the busy summer season.
Dorothy's resort went out of business after the U.S. government declared her property part of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and initiated condemnation proceedings against her in 1964, but the efforts of her friends resulted in a lifetime tenancy that allowed her to live there for another 22 years. Many of those same friends painstakingly dismantled her homestead and reassembled a couple of her cabins as a museum and tribute to the legacy of the woman many of them fondly remembered as "The Root Beer Lady".
Ely reminds me a bit of the fictional Cicely, Alaska, from Northern Exposure. Dorothy's rustic cabin sits just blocks from a more modern museum, the International Wolf Center, and downtown Ely, where outfitters and other businesses serve visitors coming here for a taste of the wilderness, as well as perhaps a taste of Dorothy's fabled root beer.
Dorothy was born on May 7, 1907 in Arnold, Pennsylvania, as one of the six children of Mattie and John "Cap" Molter. Dorothy was 7 when her mother died, and her father placed his children in a Cincinnati orphanage until he remarried in 1919.
By 1927, Dorothy lived in Chicago and enrolled to train as a nurse at Auburn Park Hospital.
Dorothy first visited Knife Lake in 1930 and moved there permanently in 1934 to care for Bob Berglund who owned the tiny Isle of Pines Resort. After that, Dorothy only left Knife Lake to visit family in Chicago or for training to maintain her nursing certification.
In 1948, Berglund died and left Dorothy the resort, a few rustic cabins on a couple of islands just yards from the Canadian border. The nearest town was 36 miles away.
At that time, you could only reach the area by seaplanes or by boat (if you were willing to portage over land several times during the journey). The invention of snowmobiles later made it feasible to travel to town in the winter as well.
Dorothy lived in a cabin in the winter, moving into a tent in warmer weather so she could rent her cabin.
She hauled in top soil so she could plant flowers and enclosed her yard with a fence made of broken canoe paddles donated by visitors.
Dorothy had no electricity, phone service, or other utilities, so she used fire for heating and most cooking. She occasionally cooked with propane and used a battery-powered radio.
Dorothy kept busy in winter by brewing her own root beer. She used hand-cut ice from the lake in an old-fashioned ice house to keep the root beer cold throughout the year and sold it to thirsty canoeists each summer.
Dorothy didn't lack company during the warmer weather. As many as 7,000 visitors showed up each year, and she sold more than 11,000 bottles of root beer annually.
In 1964, passage of the Federal Wilderness Act meant Dorothy faced losing her business and her home. Friends mobilized to petition the government to allow her to remain at Knife Lake. In 1975, they won her the right to continue to live in her home, although she could no longer operate the resort as a business.
Dorothy continued to offer her many summer visitors cold root beer, although she could no longer sell it. She supported herself with the help of those who donated money for the root beer.
Dorothy died in December 1986 as the last year-round resident of the BWCAW.
Friends transported the pieces of her cabin by canoe, snowmobile, and dog sled to Ely for reassembling as the museum after her death.
Museum visitors can still get a bottle of root beer made from Dorothy's original recipe or, as we did, buy a six pack to take home.
I liked folk-art vibe of the museum with its chainsaw carving of Dorothy and canoe paddle fence. I think the museum, even though it isn't at Knife Lake, captures a bit of the spirit of this uniquely self-reliant woman and the little piece of wilderness paradise she loved.
Want to learn more? Check out Root Beer Lady: The Story of Dorothy Molter by Bob Cary or the upcoming Dorothy Molter: The Root Beer Lady of Knife Lake by Sarah Guy-Levar and Terri Schocke.
© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved
What a fascinating woman and post.
Love the rustic cabin.
Posted by: gypsyscarlett | March 27, 2011 at 08:02 AM
Gypsy-
She certainly took the idea of self-sufficiency to heart, didn't she?
We've been trying to get a trip back up to Ely...beautiful country. I'm not surprised Dorothy didn't want to leave.
Posted by: Dominique King | March 27, 2011 at 12:09 PM