LUTSEN – The idea was simple.

Take a log building from one lake and move it to another. To make it possible, the log building was disassembled and loaded onto a truck. As is often the case with the simplest of plans, sometimes they go sideways.

In a twisting, jarring, and violent crash, what was once known as Sawbill Lodge rolled across Highway 61 near Lake Superior and came to rest in the ditch. This occurred in October 1984 after the brakes went out on a truck hauling the disassembled structure. Some of the logs that once housed guests on the shores of Sawbill Lake were destroyed, others mangled. Moving the past into the future is not always an easy endeavor.

This story, however, is layered with redemption.

Solbakken Resort on Superior is nestled between Lutsen and Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore. Solbakken offers guests postcard-style views of Lake Superior, with access to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness just a quick drive up the hill from the resort. Solbakken, which is a Norwegian surname that means “sun hill,” features motel rooms, fireplace suites, lakeside cabins, and vacation homes on Lake Superior. Solbakken’s main structure, a large log building, is the gem of the resort. And it used to be stationed on Sawbill Lake, about 40 miles away and on the edge of the BWCA Wilderness.

“A lot of our guests are really curious about the history of our building here,” said Mark Savoie, the resort manager at Solbakken. “They almost can’t believe this beautiful log building was moved all the way down from Sawbill. We really enjoy talking about the history with people.”

Sawbill Lodge opened in 1935. It was located on the south shore of the lake, not far from where Sawbill Canoe Outfitters now stands. Sawbill Canoe Outfitters, meanwhile, opened in 1957, essentially as a partner business, or spin-off, from Sawbill Lodge. We’ll rent the gear, you bring the people, went the reasoning between the two businesses.

A fellow by the name of George Arbogust built Sawbill Lodge during the early 1930s, from scratch, and it became one of the premier resorts in Minnesota. The Arbogust family dispersed from the region over time, with the exception of Jean Arbogust. More commonly known in Cook County by the name Jean Raiken (she remarried later in life, taking the name Raiken), Jean was involved in local politics in Cook County and was, by many accounts, well liked in the area.

In its heyday, which was the 1950s, Sawbill Lodge welcomed thousands of people every summer, according to Jennifer Case, an author and college professor whose family ran Sawbill Lodge during the 1970s. Case wrote a book about the history of the lodge, titled, appropriately enough, “Sawbill: A Search for Place.”

“That whole area, the North Shore, the Boundary Waters, it is just such a magical place,” Case told Paddle and Portage.

It was Jean Raiken who reached an agreement to sell the resort to Case’s grandparents, Chuck and Helen Case, in the early 1970s. This was after the Wilderness Act of 1964 changed the way people interacted with Sawbill Lake and the surrounding area. Namely, the laws changed motorized use on Sawbill Lake. The subsequent BWCAW Act of 1978 only further impacted people’s engagement with the land and water in the area.

The previous owners of Sawbill Lodge, which is now Solbakken, did not embrace the non-motorized aspect of recreation in what is now the BWCA Wilderness. Frank and Mary Alice Hansen, who founded Sawbill Canoe Outfitters, embraced the concept of the wilderness laws. That’s a large reason why Sawbill Outfitters is a bustling third-generation family business operating at full throttle on the edge of the wilderness, and why Sawbill Lodge is now renamed and sits on the coastline of Lake Superior.

Prior to being disassembled and moved to the big lake, the resort changed hands several times. After the Case family owned and operated Sawbill Lodge for a short time, they sold it to the Senty family in 1977. The lodge needed repairs, and occupancy rates in the main lodge and other cabins were dwindling. Eventually, the lease on the land from the U.S. Forest Service expired and the buildings were torn down and have now been returned to the forest floor. The exception is the main lodge building, which Bill and Beth Blank purchased in the mid-1980s. The Blanks bought Solbakken Resort near Lutsen in 1980 and wanted a lodge building on the property to bolster the profile of the business. It was the Blanks who hired a member of the Senty family, Mike, and other laborers from the Sawbill area to dismantle the log building. The Blanks also hired a trucker, “a gruff sort of fellow,” as Bill describes him, to haul the logs down to Lake Superior. Rather than roll down the Sawbill Trail, the decision was to travel down the Grade to spend less time on Highway 61 with such a massive load. The truck would travel down the Caribou Trail to reach the highway, which pops out closer to Lutsen and the Solbakken property.

By all accounts, from Mike Senty to Bill Blank, it’s a miracle that nobody was injured or killed when the truck’s brakes failed and the logs spilled across the highway and into the ditch.

“It was pretty dramatic,” Senty told Paddle and Portage when he recalled the situation.

Bill and Beth Blank recently visited Solbakken near the shores of Lake Superior on a warm day in autumn to reflect on the history of the lodge with this reporter. They both spoke with fond memories of their time owning the resort, from the process of Cook County resident Lloyd Speck building the stone fireplace inside the main lodge building, to their deep love of Lake Superior and the people who come visit the North Shore. They are able to reflect with a sense of humor and honesty about the challenges of the day the truck’s brakes failed, and fully understand how fortunate everyone is that no injuries occurred in that incident. The Blanks loved Solkbakken and continue to do so to this day, they explained.

“It was a lot of hard work,” Beth said. “But you fall in love with a place like this, so it makes it all worth it.”

These days, the area where the creek flows from Sawbill Lake shows no sign of a resort once occupying space there. Not far away, from May to October, Sawbill Canoe Outfitters features a near-constant stream of traffic from paddlers entering through the popular entry point, or staying at the nearby campground. Down the road about 40 miles is Solbakken Resort, also bustling with guests seeking the beauty and solitude the North Shore and surrounding area offer. The logs at Solbakken hold the story of movement. And those stories don’t always need words to be alive.

“There’s a powerful feeling being in that log building and thinking about the history of this place,” said Jennie Case, as she described Solbakken’s main building, the one her grandparents once owned when it stood near Sawbill Lake. “It’s one of those stories that has so many layers to it. So many of those characters that make this place unique.”

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