Wright's Sjö Stuga: A Gift of Joyful Experiences
Wright’s Sjö Stuga
A Gift of Joyful Experiences
by Dave Wright
From the first
floorboard laid on my foundation in the 1920’s, my sole purpose has been to
offer joyful experiences to everyone who crosses my threshold.
—“Sjö
Stuga”
Early Years
Perched on a steep hill overlooking Lake Sylvia in central
Minnesota, our Sjö Stuga (Swede for “Lake House”) was originally part of a
small resort—one of four cabins offering sanctuary from rain and mosquitos to
fishermen. They came with their cane poles to pluck sunfish and bass from the
clear waters below. At that time, it was a single room “fishin’ shack” without the
comforts of an indoor toilet or running water.
My grandparents, Tib and Adalyn Wright, bought the place in
1948. Grandma Wright was a heavy-set woman with a raspy voice reminding me of a
sandhill crane. Her lavender perfume, her loose-skinned waddle, her drooping
ear lobes adorned with massive clip-on earrings, and her matching broach necklace
made her a temptation to every baby’s grasping hands. Grandpa Tib was a kind
man who farmed and drove a delivery truck for Standard Oil, but he was afflicted
with congestive heart failure for most of the time that I knew him.
Grandma and Grandpa loved fishing. My wife, Sue, and I took
Grandma cane pole fishing when she was in her eighties. She complained that the
pole was too heavy for her until a fish pulled the bobber beneath the water.
The pole got a lot lighter when a colorful bluegill flopped on the end of the
line. My grandparents always claimed to be “hungry for fish.” I believe it
really meant, “We need to escape to the cabin alone.”
By the time my grandparents bought the cabin, a lean-to
kitchen had been added that overlooked the lake on the east side. The original
cabin doubled as a bedroom and sitting room, and an ancient oil-burning stove
rattled in the corner. Across from the propane range in the kitchen, a stained
and chipped porcelain sink was mounted against the wall. It was used for
cleaning fish, but there was no running water at the time.
My first visit to the cabin was on September 13, 1953. My
mom, Marie, recorded it in the now-brittle pages of the guest book: “Marie &
David Wright, 2716 Hennepin Ave, 3 weeks old today, Sleeping & eating.”
Having been the product of a boot camp conception at Fort
Leonard Wood, I began life as a pampered firstborn under the adoring care of Mom
and my doting grandparents. My dad, John, had been drafted into the army. He was
fortunate to serve his country in an office in Trieste, Italy rather than the
in the cold mud of Korea, but he was frustrated that he wasn’t able to meet me
until I was a year old and had just begun to walk. He didn’t get to the cabin
with me until August 6, 1954: “Finally got out here, and it’s so restful and peaceful.
Haying tomorrow. David is so good.”
See what I mean by being adored?
In my younger years, our family would stay at the cabin for
a week or two while Dad drove into the University of Minnesota to complete his master’s
degree in agricultural education. Brother Jim and I fished from the dock with a
cane pole and competed for who could catch the most sunfish. Size was of no
consequence. The only thing that mattered was the numbers. I recall it often
ended in a draw—I suppose because we lost count or Mom had to settle an
argument.
One MEA (Minnesota Education Association) weekend in October,
Dad and Uncle Elwood Wessman, both teachers, played hooky from the meetings so
that our families could get together at the lake. Our cousins, Steve, Gary, and
Cindy lived on the outskirts of Brainerd. We often drove there during the
summer to run wild in the woods or visit during the Christmas break to drive
snowmobiles or gobble peanuts in a fish house on Mille Lacs Lake.
That fall weekend, the kids piled into the rowboat to make
the slow voyage across the lake to the island. The adults watched from shore, holding
their breath hoping we didn’t capsize. I don’t know what they would have done.
We weren’t wearing life jackets. It was too cold for us to swim. And all the
other boats had been stored for the winter. We made the trip there and back
safely.
Just before bed, we must have seen a mouse in the cabin
because Cindy refused to sleep on the floor where all of the rest of us spread
out our sleeping bags. Elwood tied two chairs together with a footstool between
them and added cushions to make a bed off the floor. No one told Cindy that a
mouse could easily climb that chair, but I doubt she slept very well anyway.
MEA weekend with Wessmans—Not a life jacket in sight!?
I commemorated my high school graduation in June of 1971
with a trip to the cabin. Sean Logghe drove his parents’ old station wagon that
had lost its shock absorbers a decade earlier. I remember bottoming out at
every railroad crossing. The six of us included classmates, Bernie Ahlberg,
Mike Johnson, Randy Langseth, and my brother, Jim. We couldn’t leave Worthington
until shortly after midnight because we had to wait until the superintendent stopped
by to offer his congratulations. I recall stopping for a red light in New Ulm to
conduct a Chinese fire drill to stay awake. We arrived at dawn and fell into
bed. Bernie was so tired, he slept on his belly with his legs flexed and both
feet propped in the air. Mike’s mother sent along a huge tub of home-made
chocolate and cereal bars, which eliminated our need to cook. By the end of the
trip, they were aptly called “gut bombs.” Unlike many of my classmates, we celebrated
our transition to independence sober. We revved up our old Royal seven-horse
outboard that took us to a sandy bay across the lake, we ran football pass
patterns in the shallow water, and we discussed our future—a future that most likely
did not turn out as we expected!
Mike and Sean toasting a canister of "gut bombs"
Unpacking—'71 high school grad trip
As a freshman at Saint Cloud State by spring quarter, I was
so struck with cabin fever that I rode my three-speed bicycle to the cabin and
back in one weekend. I was such a nerd that instead of loading my bicycle with
beer and food like any other self-respecting college kid, I lugged textbooks so
I could complete my homework! All I can say is that I’m lucky I hadn’t met my
future wife at that time, or she wouldn’t have had me.
The trip to the cabin was relatively easy, but the trip home was anything but. A strong wind blew in my face the whole way, and that damned chemistry book felt like I was towing an anchor through the weeds. I was never so happy to see Stearns Hall.
I transferred to the University of Minnesota my sophomore
year and joined FarmHouse Fraternity the following spring quarter. One summer
weekend when I was working on campus, I entertained my fraternity brothers at
the cabin. Brad Rasmusson borrowed his parents’ speedboat, and I threw my
Grumman canoe on top of my Plymouth Fury II.
Mark Schmidt, a non-swimmer, was brave enough to get up on
water skis but when he fell in the middle of the lake, he started dog paddling
for shore. We had to intercept him quickly and reassure him that we wouldn’t
leave him stranded there. Since then, I’ve noticed that most of the youngsters
we have taught to waterski share the same inclination: Swim to shore. We have
learned to prepare them for falling and remind them that we will pick them up
ASAP. “Your life jacket will hold you up.”
In a moment of poor judgement, we thought it would be a fun idea to ride in my canoe while it was towed behind Brad’s ski boat. Dale Magnusson, a vet student two years ahead of me, sat in the bow. He held the tow rope with his feet braced against the front plate, and I sat in the stern with my paddle in the water as a rudder. No sooner had we shouted, “Hit it” than the bow of the canoe raised six feet out of the water and the stern sunk as many feet below. I felt like I was chasing Moses through the Red Sea. It was a thrilling ride until I noticed that the canoe was buckling in the middle and was about to bend in two. I shouted to Dale to let go but he was having the time of his life. I shouted again. “Drop the rope!” By the third anguished shout, he finally got the picture and let go of the tow rope. The canoe still has a couple of tell-tale creases to remind me of a lucky outcome to a bad decision.
The summer of 1978 when I first met Sue, I told her about our
family’s rustic cabin. On one of the rare weekends that I was not on call and
did not have a wedding to attend, I invited her to go cane pole fishing with me.
We chewed Red Man, smoked Swisher Sweets, and laughed until our bellies ached. I
was learning the joys of “badness.” Sue fell in love with cabin soon after she
fell in love with me.
Sue and I were married in Duluth on March 24, 1979. We
recorded our second honeymoon at the cabin on May 11. “Cold when we came…warm
before we left.” Brother Jim arrived on the 12th to write, “Broke up
the heatwave on the second honeymoon.”
My first memory of a cabin improvement was when my
grandparents upgraded the outhouse on the west side of the cabin. The hole had
been dug and picked out of the gravel, and a block foundation had been laid
when one of my uncles rushed into the cabin and shouted, “Uncle Charlie fell down
the outhouse hole!”
Adalyn, my Grandma Wright, gasped in frustration. Charlie
Johnson, her mother’s brother, was under her care at the time—partly due to a fever that caused him
to have night blindness. A lumbering hulk of a man, he was known around Cokato
as “Moonlight Charlie” because he carried a big flashlight to guide him to
Pete’s Place, a beer hall on Main Street before Cokato became a dry town.
Uncle Charlie seemed to me to have been a family embarrassment. He may
have been an alcoholic, and his arms and face were barren of hair—most of which
had been transposed to his eyebrows, ears and nose. I didn’t realize until late
in life the prejudice residing in some of my family members. Charlie’s characteristics
fit the stereotype of a Native American. Poor old Charlie. At least he wasn’t Finnish.
While in Cokato, Charlie lived in the summer kitchen next to the big farmhouse,
which was built in 1905 by my great grandfather Eckstrom. The summer kitchen
was a garage smelling of mice and dust, the walls of which were insulated with discarded
license plates. Its furnishings included a spring and mattress bed, a kerosene heater,
and an old-fashioned ice box.
The “summer kitchen” in Cokato
After hearing the summons for help, my dad and uncles rushed to the
outhouse hole to respond to the family emergency. After a lot of grunting and
groaning—but no swearing, mind you—they hoisted Uncle Charlie to safety.
“Cheers, Uncle Charlie!”
Shortly after my grandparents purchased the cabin, they replaced the deck
on the north side of the cabin with a living room. The long, narrow addition extended
the width of the cabin, and the roof line followed the same pitch as the gable
of the original cabin and kitchen. One of the previous exterior doors became an
interior door to the bedroom and the other an entrance to the kitchen. The original
window on the north wall became a favorite opening for us to crawl back and
forth from the living room to the bedroom.
Aunt Mary Jeane and Uncle Dean sitting where the living room is now.
As the story goes, Grandpa Tib was in the process of hauling a load of thin
wallboard to use in place of sheetrock for the newly constructed living room. A
gust of wind caught the load and sent it flying into a road ditch. Tib swore
under his breath, turned around, drove to the lumber yard, and replaced the
wallboard with knotty pine.
Situated atop a steep hill, the cabin needed access to the
lake below. Dad, a fit, eighteen-year-old farm kid at the time, led a bucket
brigade of reluctant helpers who poured the concrete steps down the bank. The
rise-to-run ratio of the steps guarantees that every child goes home with a
skinned knee as a souvenir.
Seasonal plumbing eventually arrived when, halfway down the
bank, a sand point well was driven through the rock and gravel. A corner of the
original cabin was walled off to become a bathroom; the kitchen sink was
plumbed to accept running water; and a twenty-gallon electric water heater grudgingly
allowed a hot shower to the guest lucky enough to be first in line.
Remembering Grandpa Tib’s disgust with cheap interior wall covering, I
decided to follow his lead and replace the old wallboard in the bedroom with
knotty pine. While the room was torn apart, I boarded up the window that opened
into the living room and turned it into a bookcase. To complete the remodel, I replaced
the rickety exterior window facing the back bay with one from our bedroom at
home—a window that had been removed when we installed a bay window that overlooks
our backyard.
I worked on the project during autumn weekends when construction would
not interfere with summer fun. One night, the cabin took on an uncomfortable
chill. As I crawled into my sleeping bag on the couch in the living room, I
listened to the wind outside and felt a draft. The cabin leaked like a sieve. I
wanted to make the temperature more tolerable. Plenty of fresh air flowed
through the cracks in the windows and walls so I thought it would be safe to
light the oven and a couple of burners on the gas stove.
A little past midnight, I woke with a pounding headache and struggled to
catch my breath. The wind outside had subsided to an eerie silence. I struggled
from my sleeping bag, stumbled to the door, and stepped out into the crisp
night air. I took a deep breath. Once my head cleared, I returned to the cabin,
aired it out, turned off the stove and grabbed an extra quilt. Close call! I barely
escaped carbon monoxide poisoning.
Early entries in the guest book are littered with Swedish
names like Nelson, Anderson, Nordstrom, Carlson, Eckstrom, and Peterson. However,
the hobbies listed were not always typical of what you might expect from a
conservative Scandinavian: Poker, nude canoeing, and mountain climbing suggest
these guests were more interesting than their heritage would suggest.
Lorraine Holsing made an entry in 1950. She was a woman with
a stick figure who jingled with bracelets and displayed a chronic worried
expression…that is, until she suddenly burst out laughing. She listed her hobby
as “crappie queen,” then added, “…the drinking relative.” Lorraine was the spurned
daughter of Clarence Eckstrom, my grandmother’s only brother. He and his wife, Ruby,
were my dad’s godparents, but that was the only good thing I heard about them.
Lorraine was pretty much abandoned by Clarence and Ruby, so Adalyn—my
Grandma Wright and Lorraine’s aunt—came to her rescue. Lorraine lived in Cokato
with Dad and his siblings as if she were an older sister.
Lorraine met her husband, Cecil, while he worked as a
lineman for REA (the Rural Electric Association). While Lorraine was saddled
with a perpetual grimace that cried, “Poor me,” Cecil was blessed with a
perpetual sense of humor that cried, “Laugh with me.” He teased everyone around
him—Lorraine included—and let out a personalized nasal snicker after every
good-natured jab. Lorraine was not above engaging in family ridicule. One time,
Cecil popped open a beer while the rest of us were toasting a glorious day at
the cabin. Lorraine warned, “Only half of that beer, Cecil. I can’t have you
getting a pot!”
Cecil once planted a six-pack of empty beer bottles under
the seat of Dad’s car prior to an early date with Marie. When Conservative John
(no fan of practical jokes), stepped on the brakes, the bottles rolled from under
his feet leaving him fuming with the bad impression it might have made on Marie.
I expect she smiled but said nothing, knowing it was Cecil.
Lorraine and Cecil taught me to play 500, a card game where you
and your partner make a bid. Whoever gets the highest bid is allowed to declare
which suit is trump, but then must take enough tricks to cover the bid or be
set. The first team to reach 500 points wins.
I learned at a young age that when the game was played with
the Wright family, all pretense of politeness was replaced by cutthroat
competition. Lorraine informed me that there was a big difference between
bidding “six-no,” and “six-notrump.” “Six-no” means you’ve got the joker and
little else to support your hand. “Six-notrump,” on the other hand, means
you’ve got enough other decent cards—maybe an ace or a bower—in your hand to
support a higher bid from your partner. Heaven help me if, as an eight-year-old
rookie, I slipped and made the wrong six-bid to Lorraine.
Sue was not amused by our competitive attitude toward
playing 500. Once, when she and I were partners and I had the cards for an eight-bid,
she threw the joker into the blind just to annoy me. I’ve had to learn to
lighten up…a little.
Grandma taught our sons how to play canasta at the cabin. She kept winning until the boys called her bluff when she attempted to change the rules about what it took to meld. They laid all their cards down at the same time in a rousing victory. They posted the scrap of paper with the winning score on a small cork board that stayed on the kitchen wall until her ninety-ninth birthday.
New Ownership
On November 1, 1991, Sue and I bought the Sjö Stuga from
Grandma Wright. It came as a surprise when I learned that Grandma had transferred
cabin ownership to my dad, his brother, and his sister in 1978 but maintained a
life estate in the property. None of the legal owners needed or wanted the money
at the time, so they agreed that Grandma should receive the entire proceeds of
the sale.
Her decision to sell was not surprising: Grandma was in her
80’s; she needed a new car and supplemental retirement income; the real estate
taxes on the cabin were due; the cabin needed a coat of paint and a new roof;
and the septic system and well would not have passed muster for a conventional
bank loan. With these looming issues, she was ready to put the family legacy on
the market.
Sue and I had been doing most of the routine
maintenance—turning the water on in the spring, draining the pipes in the fall,
and installing a few superficial improvements—but since we were not the owners,
we were reluctant to put any substantial investment into it. I wrote a letter
to Grandma that she shared with the other owners explaining how grateful we
were to have been given a first option to buy it, our wish to keep the cabin in
the family, and an assurance that Grandma could use it as long as she lived.
We needed creative financing to manage the payments, and Grandma needed cash up front to purchase a car. Mom and Dad lent us a down payment of one-fourth of the sale price, which went to buy her car. A second promissory note to Grandma covered the remaining balance. Uncle Dean, who assisted Grandma with her retirement finances, reviewed the proposal, and (bless his heart) told her it was good for everyone. They all signed off on the sale, and Sue and I became the new owners.
The Sjö Stuga when we bought it in the fall of 1991
Now that we owned it, we were ready to invest in
improvements. Tristan, our oldest son, called us “The Workie Family” because of
our joy in completing projects. A neighbor, when he heard that we had purchased
a cabin, exclaimed, “A cabin…I owned one once. What a work farm!”
I suppose it’s all based on your perspective. Construction was
fun; maintenance and repair—not so much.
As much as I like the sound of a waterfall, when it shows up
beneath the cabin after the water is turned on in the spring, it’s a bummer. It
happened every so often when the water didn’t drain completely from the copper
pipes in the fall. I had to turn off the pump, crawl under the cabin with the
spiders, cut out the section of pipe that had been hemorrhaging, and replace
it. I had to use compression fittings since I never mastered the art of
sweating pipes with solder like a real plumber. With all those replacement
fittings, the pipes under the cabin look like an abacus.
If I could remember a name, I would be on a first-name basis
with the owner of Katz Hardware in Annandale—my go-to resource for a leaky
faucet, a length of copper pipe, or a faulty electrical box.
Prior to Katz’s existence, there was an old hardware store
in South Haven. The floors creaked, the place smelled as old as the bent man
who owned it, and his inventory reached to the ceiling. Hula hoops and bicycles
hung from the ceiling, and everything from toasters to fuses were tucked into his
dusty shelves.
Sylvia’s Bootleggers
The Soo Line Railroad chose South Haven as a coal and water
refueling station, which made it a thriving little town in the 20’s, 30’s, and
40’s. In addition to the hardware store, it had a couple of general stores, a
creamery, an elevator, and even a small hospital.
Bootleggers took advantage of South Haven’s location and
constructed a new hotel shortly after prohibition became the law of the land in
1919. Canadian whiskey was smuggled into northern Minnesota, loaded onto a
train in Thief River Falls, and unloaded in South Haven, the last stop before
Minneapolis. Once the weather improved and the roads cleared, most of the liquor
was distributed using high-powered Packards or Cadillacs, which could easily
outrun police cars.
Some of the bootleg liquor trickled south into a speakeasy
on Lake Sylvia. It was a cobblestone house called “The Jackpot,” which is
located on the north side of the channel entering the east lake. Gangsters from
Chicago and the Kansas City Mob peddled their moonshine, set up gambling tables
and slot machines, and offered women for rent in the upstairs bedrooms.
Another entertainment center, the Bridal Beach Dance Hall was
located on the south side of West Lake Sylvia, just east of the outlet. Al
Capone is said to have visited the dance pavilion in 1929 when another guest, a
man named Charles Munson went missing. A week later his body was found in
nearby Moose Lake.
More Cabin Improvements
Our first project after Sue and I bought the cabin was to
build a tree fort for Tristan and Eric. As I collected the building supplies,
it brought back memories of childhood construction. As young carpenters, we had
no qualms about attaching a warped 2X4 to a tree branch with a handful of finishing
nails.
Little brothers always tested our designs: “You first, Jim.”
Jim, two years my junior, was a little shaver at the time
and soon discovered the advantage of being small. After surviving a ruptured
appendix and three surgeries, he became a wrestler. But after cutting weight
through most of his high school years, he has vowed never to miss a meal. He is
no longer my little brother, but he is a man built of muscle and
resolve. Whenever I need a helping hand, as you’ll see, Jim is at the top of my
list.
By the time we built the tree fort at the cabin, I had
discovered the magic of screw guns, long screws, and pole barn nails—a safer
means of attaching floor joists to a tree. I laid up a plywood platform that
was nearly level and surrounded it with a three-sided railing. The front was
left open to reach the rope swing hanging from an upper branch on one side and
a home-made ladder on the other.
The tree house
Not long after that, we let the kids entertain themselves by
demolishing the old outhouse. It was a two-holer. Who wants to do their
business sitting side by side with someone else in a smelly shed? That idea is
as obsolete as the outhouse itself, but we still wanted one at the cabin to use
when the water was turned off.
Outhouses are no longer allowed near the lake, so Jim, Dad,
and I constructed a “storage shed” in our garage and hauled it out to the cabin
on a trailer to replace the old one. It became a dual-purpose structure with a
one-hole box in the corner topped with a commercial toilet seat. No one was the
wiser. We slid the shed off the trailer and onto the old block foundation. I’m
comfortable believing that we are not contaminating the lake since we only use
it on rare occasions in the winter, and there is a good seventy-five feet of
gravel between it and the water table.
When Grandma owned the cabin, Dad was as reluctant as we
were to invest time and energy into improvements. As the first-born sibling,
and the one who was blessed with a guilty conscience, John was Grandma’s number
one fixit man. It became a thankless job. As soon as he finished one project,
he was greeted with, “Now, John, if only…” On to the next request.
Once the ownership changed, Dad’s attitude about cabin
improvements changed with it. The next summer, he was on the roof with Jim, me,
and the rest of the family, tearing off several layers of old shingles, replacing
rotted plywood, and giving the cabin a refreshing toupee.
Starting the roof project
Dad and Tristan repairing the roof
We also scraped and painted the exterior that first summer.
We made a regrettable choice of color—gray with red trim. But when that peeled a
couple years later, we called in professionals to cover the drab mess with steel
siding the color of rich cream.
You are supposed to remove all docks in the winter, but the original
dock that came with the cabin never came out in the fall. Each spring the ice
would pull the 4X4 posts loose from the deck, and every April I would wade into
the frigid water up to my chest and straighten the posts. I’d level the deck, use
a couple of pole-barn nails to bang it back into place, and call it good enough
until next spring. In the spring of 1996, Dad designed a replacement. He welded
together a removeable dock on wheels with sections of decking that could be
piled on the “boathouse” for the winter.
The “boathouse” as we call it, is a steel shed that Grandpa
Tib hauled in over the ice one winter and pried it into the bank a few feet
above the water level. Grandpa worked for Standard Oil as a delivery man, which
would have given him an inside track on getting the storage container at a good
price. It smelled of oil and gasoline for years, and occasionally had a
discarded snakeskin in the corner, but it is a convenient place to store skis,
life jackets, and fishing tackle.
We still didn’t have a place to lounge by the lake—aside
from a short length of rotting deck from an old dock—so Sue and I excavated a
flat area to the left of the base of the stairs and laid a foundation of 4X4
treated timbers for a deck. We dug into the steep, gravel hillside, prying rocks
loose until we both agreed that there was plenty of space to drink coffee in
the morning, sip wine in the evening, and watch the kids swim off the end of
the dock during the day. Dad desperately wanted to help with this project too,
but he had recently slipped while getting into the boat and cracked a couple of
ribs. We teased him that this is what hell would be for him: to have to sit by
and watch someone else work.
Winters at the Cabin
The saddest day of the year is when we have to close the
cabin for the winter. We pull the dock, turn off the pump, and drain the water
lines. Although the Sjö Stuga was built to be a seasonal cabin, we wanted to
expand the time we could use it. In October of 1987, with Grandma’s permission,
Mom and Dad gave us their Fuego—a free-standing fireplace with glass doors that
allow us to see the fire. They had to remove it from their home in Worthington
because Mom was having breathing difficulties if any smoke was in the room. The
new fireplace and a couple of electric baseboard heaters warm the cabin to a
cozy temperature in about four hours.
It’s best to arrive, build a fire, turn on the heat, go for
a hike or a ski at Stanley Eddy County Park, and return to re-stoke the
fireplace with wood. We take along five gallons of drinking water, chop a hole
in the ice for wash water, and use a porta-potty or the outhouse in lieu of the
bathroom. It’s kind of like winter camping, but much cushier. There are few
experiences better than standing on the ice in the middle of the lake on a
frigid, calm night with a dome of stars above and the boom of expanding ice
below.
On the rare years when the lake freezes clear and solid, and
when the first snowfall holds off until there are at least four inches of ice,
Lake Sylvia become a gigantic skating rink. We can skate from the cabin all the
way to the island, circle it, and return. It’s like gliding over a massive
aquarium with fish scattering into the weed beds below us. When the lake freezes
rough—as is often the case—we can shovel a rink in the bay below the cabin. On
one occasion, I dropped a sump pump through a hole in the ice and flooded a
rink for the kids.
When we dug into the hill for a deck next to the lake, we decided
to keep going. We added another foundation for a small sauna. Just like the new
outhouse, we built it piecemeal in the driveway at home. Then we loaded all
four walls and the pre-made rafters onto Jim’s trailer, hauled it down the
treacherous stairs, and pounded it together in one afternoon. You are supposed
to have only one structure that close to the lake. From the water, it looks
like the sauna and the boathouse could be connected. Close enough to meet the
regs. We purchased a wood-burning sauna stove from Finnleo in Cokato that had
been damaged when it fell off the back of a truck. You can’t see the small dent
in the back.
The sauna expanded the swimming season from ice-out in April
into late fall, but the biggest excitement came with our annual polar plunge.
For a number of years, it became a family tradition to drive out to the cabin
on Boxer Day, December 26, fire up the sauna, cut a hole in the ice, sit in the
sauna until you are too hot to spend another second in the moist heat, then jump
into the hole in the ice. It’s a natural rush for anyone without a heart
condition.
The first hole we chopped was no bigger than what is used
for spearfishing, but as the tradition became established, the kids demanded something
closer to a swimming pool. Rather than chop the hole with a spud bar, we sliced
through the ice with a chain saw. The slabs were so big we couldn’t lift them
out of the hole, so we had to slide them under the ice. When the cousins from Texas
visited and had never even seen ice on a lake, the hole was big enough to swan
dive in one end and swim to the other where a ladder was waiting.
Preparing for the polar plunge
Tristan jumps while Eric and Spencer look on
Eric’s swan dive
It’s hard to get out of the water fast enough
Of course, we swam in the summer too. Tristan and Eric
learned to swim in Peterson Bay, a rare stretch of sandy beach with no cabins
or homes at the time. It was ideal for kids because of its gradual slope and
sand bottom. We had to take the boat to get there, but we were always thrilled
to jump out of the boat, splash in the shallows, and chase the sunnies while wearing
goggles and snorkels.
The problem was that everyone on the lake knew about the
location, and on a Sunday afternoon or on a holiday, there could be twenty
boats tethered on the beach. One fall day, we motored past and saw “No
Trespassing” signs had been posted. The following spring, construction began on
several new homes, and guests were no longer welcome at Peterson Bay.
The bay in front of our cabin has no beach, which is why we
swam at Peterson Bay. Although we often swim off the dock, the bottom is muddy
and weedy. We needed a swimming raft. I made one out of eight 30-gallon teat
dip barrels strapped together under a plywood platform. The kids called it “The
Bobber” because when five of them piled on to play king of the mountain, the
raft floated above the surface like a bobber.
As the boys and their friends outgrew “the bobber” and it began to disintegrate, we looked for a commercial replacement. As luck would have it, we noticed a swimming raft across the lake that still hadn’t been put in the water after the Fourth of July. Sue put a note on the raft asking if they were still planning to use it. A couple of days later, the owner called and said they would like to sell it. We took the boat across the lake, tied a tow rope to it, and pulled it home to our bay.
Eventually, that raft also needed repairs. After we pulled it out of the water in the fall, Sue and I replaced the rotting plywood surface with decking boards made of a composite that would withstand weathering. It had been a challenging project because the raft was lying at a steep pitch in a patch of prickly ash on the bank.
We struggled through the repair but didn’t find out until the next season that we had made a critical mistake.
The raft with a new deck
Swimming off the raft
Watercrafts and Cabin Toys
Over the years, we have had plenty of other toys and watercrafts.
The original wood rowboat had to be painted and varnished every other year. As
young kids, when we arrived at the cabin our first job was to run down to the
dock, pick up a couple of rusty Folger’s coffee cans, and bail the water from
the boat. In a rainy summer, the boat may have been half submerged. (It’s the rowboat
pictured earlier with the cousins on MEA weekend.)
Dad and Mom purchased the aluminum fishing boat shown below
to replace it. I felt pretty proud to be able to pull the starter cord and tool
around the lake on my own. Our archaic life jacket rule at the time was, “You
don’t need a life jacket if you can swim.”
I’m at the helm taking Brother Dan, and Cousins Cindy and Steve on a tour of the lake.
My 19-foot Grumman canoe that survived being towed behind
the speedboat was more convenient to launch, but less convenient to fish in.
Even so, it gave us hours of simple entertainment.
Sue and Cassie in the bow of the Grumman
It’s a lot easier to let the wind push us around than to row
or paddle, so we wanted a sailboat to add to our collection of boats. Sue’s dad
gave us a dingy that he used to carry on his sailboat. It flew along nicely when
running with the wind, but it was nearly impossible to head up and tack into
the wind.
Judy Hovelson and Sue sail the dingy, a poor excuse for a sailboat
The canoe didn’t perform much better than the dingy as a sailboat
Sue found a thirteen-foot Sunfish sailboat in the back yard
of one of her landscape customers. “Do you want some landscaping around this
sailboat?” she asked. “It doesn’t go very well with the design I have in mind.”
“We haven’t used it for years,” replied the client. “Do you
know someone who might want a used sailboat?”
“I sure do!”
Sue negotiated a modest price and the next week, my sailboat arrived along with a roller ramp where it could be parked when not in the water. It’s the perfect boat to use when you are learning to sail. It moves along in a whisper of wind or flies over the waves in a gale.
Our Sunfish Sailboat
After we moved from Blooming Prairie to Buffalo in July of
1980, Sue took a job at Sandy’s Sport Shop. The following summer, we used her
entire annual earnings to purchase a fourteen-foot Sylvan runabout with a
fifty-horse Mercury outboard motor. That boat was our pride and joy for forty
years!
Although it was undersized for a growing family, we fished
in it, we waterskied and tubed behind it, and even trailered it to Voyageurs
National Park one summer. We piled it full of camping gear, a cooler of food, two
adults, and two kids before heading into the big water of Namakan Lake. We
camped on an island with Eric and Amy Kaiser’s family and navigated north to
Kettle Falls to refill our gas tanks and have a beer on the sloping floor of
the historic resort.
Eric on the old dock
An early family portrait with Alex, the dog in the Sylvan runabout
The boys learned to ski on a homemade (What else?) ski
board. I cut out a 3’X4’ piece of marine plywood with the front corners trimmed
at a forty-five-degree angle. I painted it bright red and added a handle made
from a sawed-off rake. The first time they used it, I rode behind each boy on
my knees with him standing on the board. After shouting, “Hit it!” I slipped
off the back as soon as they got up.
Sue and I skied behind the Sylvan and became comfortable
enough to slalom on one ski, step off from shore, or take off from the dock. Uncle
Dean, at the ripe old age of sixty, gloated that he could do the same. He stood
on the dock with a coil of tow rope in the water below him, waited for the boat
to get to full speed, and jumped. Sue was driving the boat, and I was at the
top of the stairs watching from above. Dean miscalculated his departure from
the dock. He toppled head-first into the water, but instead of letting go of
the tow rope like someone lacking the Wright stubbornness gene, he held on.
With his arms extended and his bald head creating a mini tsunami, he tore
through the bay like a torpedo.
I enjoyed water skiing until a pulled hamstring told me I should stick to snorkeling.
Eric shows better form.
Eric and Tristan on the tube. When they rode it on their own, they often crossed the wake, attempting to flip the tube, and land it again. To keep their egos in check, I made a point of swinging the tube in an arc fast enough to capsize them.
We kept the Sylvan trailered in our driveway for several years until we purchased an aluminum lift.
We sold the Sylvan runabout to our nephew, Damen Fuller in
2021. He claimed, “All it needs is a little love.” That was an understatement
of gigantic proportion, but he tuned up the engine, replaced the seats for the
third time, and repaired the interior. The following summer, he sent a picture
fishing bass in a Kansas reservoir.
Sue and Eric’s wife, Julisa added to our flotilla when they purchased
a kayak for the cabin in the summer of 2023.
Linus in Barb and Larry Janski’s kayak, which they park at the cabin for the summer so that Barb can use it without loading and unloading. It’s convenient to have ours and Janski’s so two people can explore the lake at the same time.
After we sold our 14’ Sylvan in the fall of 2021, we were
without a motorboat, so we struck a deal with Rona and Carol Moore: We bought a
lift to accommodate their 18-foot inboard Crestliner. In return, they docked
the boat at the cabin for most of the summer and used it whenever they wanted
to. Prior to that, the boat had spent most of its life sitting unused in their garage
at home.
Ron and Carol’s 18’ Crestliner
“Noodles:” another water toy. Cassie and Angie, the dogs, with Tristan, Eric, and niece Susan Fuller
Kitchen Remodeling
The kitchen needed improvement. Grandma claimed every spring
that there was “No sign of mouse!” This, despite acorns in the hide-a-bed, the
smell of death in the walls, and tiny, black pellets in every silverware drawer.
If the pellets were found in a load of grain, they could be confused with
ergot. My toxicology professor in veterinary school suggested one way to tell
the difference between ergot and mouse poo was to bite it. Mouse droppings are soft,
and ergot is hard. I didn’t need to test the droppings because the kitchen
cabinets were a porous invitation to any critter smaller than a house cat.
In August of 2009, Kevin and Judy Bergquist helped us pull
out the old cabinets and replace them with a set that were custom-made from
Menards. There used to be a three-foot by four-foot rectangular window on the
southwest side of the cabin that was covered by a door with hinges just below
the ceiling. It swung open over the kitchen counter and was held in place by a heavy
hook screwed into a rafter. We opened it on hot days to get cross ventilation
in the kitchen. It was sad to see it go, but we needed more wall space for
hanging cabinets.
When we removed the floor cabinets facing the lake, we found
a couple of newspaper advertisements: “Start your own 30-day Camel mildness
test today” and “Buy a new Buick for $1,895.60.” The good old days.
The floor still slopes gently toward the lake, but we
replaced the old linoleum with tongue and groove laminate flooring.
The following fall—September 2010—Sue and I replaced the old
kitchen windows with a set of used windows that had been gathering dust in Rick
and Nancy Dehmer’s shed. They are vertical crank windows with screens, which
allow an expanded view of the lake and plenty of ventilation when opened. The
most frightening aspect of installation was when I had to cut through the
relatively new metal siding with a saws-all. I measured more than twice before
I cut.
Now there are far fewer signs of mice in the spring.
The kitchen prior to remodeling.
Sue in demolition mode
We found the old newspapers in this mess.
Kevin Bergquist with Sue and me. Notice the all-important construction tool in my right hand.
We often celebrated my birthday, August 23, at the lake. One
of my favorite sounds was acorns falling from the oaks and clattering down the
lean-to roof over the kitchen. After we added insulation and sheet rock to the
kitchen ceiling, that sound was reduced to a muted rattle. Progress takes a
toll. I still miss that sound.
Outdoor Shower
In May of 2017, Kevin helped us make another improvement: an
outdoor shower with an in-line propane water heater. Now we can bask in a
shower, looking at stars or fluttering oak leaves for as long as we want. Our
niece, Sarah Killough, and her friends have found the experience
intoxicating—especially if you take your shower relaxing in the hot water while
sipping a cold beer or a glass of wine.
The outdoor shower
Sarah and her acting friends have been summer guests for
several years. We welcome them back because they are appreciative of the
cabin’s “wilderness experience” (compared to that of New Your City) and they
leave the place spotless. A couple of years ago, they spent a week shooting a
movie called “We Lack, Definition.” It was written and directed by one of
Sarah’s friends. The nighttime scenes sitting around a fire had to be shot
early in the morning because it was too noisy with boat traffic and neighboring
conversations in the evenings. One of the film’s unexpected highlights was when
a gaggle of geese swam past the end of the dock during a poignant moment. Those
who saw the film later asked, “How did you make that happen?” Dumb luck. The
film hasn’t reached the big screen, but it’s another feather in the cap of the
Sjö Stuga.
The Septic Story
The Sjö Stuga’s septic system is
a temperamental little rascal. It needs to be coddled, and if it feels it has
been mistreated in any way, it throws a fit—usually by refusing to accept a toilet
flush. It’s always at an inconvenient time. Of course, when is it ever
convenient to be unable to expel a poo with the push of a lever?
The septic design is simple: A pipe runs from the sinks,
shower, and toilet to a solid settling tank on the north side of the cabin. A
second PVC pipe empties the liquid effluent from the first settling tank to
another perforated tank about fifteen feet toward the driveway. The
perforations in that concrete tank open into the gravel base, which acts as a drain
field. An inspector arrived years ago and poured dye into the toilet to see if
it reached the lake. It never did, giving me confidence that even though it
would not qualify as a legal system under today’s requirements, it probably is not
polluting the lake.
However, plants thrive on all that high-nutrient sewage, and
the roots of those plants love to creep into the pipes. In 2012, the day before
we were to celebrate Dad’s birthday on the Fourth of July, we had the septic
tank emptied. The driver said that there was a large growth of roots around the
tank and that we should probably get rid of it before it caused a major
problem. We pulled the lid off the tank and peered into the hole with a
flashlight. A boa constrictor of roots had taken up residence around the entire
circumference of the settling tank and obstructed the discharge pipe into the drain-field
tank, thus preventing the liquid effluent from emptying into the second tank.
I am claustrophobic in small dark spaces, but Sue was
undaunted. “I’ll go down and cut those roots out of there,” she declared. It
was a hot day, but the tank was cool and had only a couple of inches of slurry
in the bottom. Sue wore a swimsuit, rubber gloves, and a pair of my Tingley
rubber boots as she descended the ladder into the tank. The boa constrictor of
roots clung to the seam between the concrete tank and its cover. She sawed,
cut, and pulled. Then sawed some more. As she handed me a severed end, the beast
slowly emerged from the pit. By the time she was done, the monster lay dead in
a pile on the bank next to the outhouse. Sue emerged from the tank smiling and
proud of her accomplishment. She walked to the other side of the cabin where I soaped
her with Surgiclean from my veterinary truck and sprayed her with a hose
before she dove into the lake for a final rinse.
In the summer of 2020, as the world was in lockdown from
COVID-19, we were preparing to celebrate Dad’s 90th and Damen
Fuller’s wedding at the cabin. Ron Moore, my former veterinary partner, and his
family had been using the cabin early in June while we were on a trip out west
to see Eric and family. At the end of their visit, the septic system threw
another tantrum. The toilet refused to flush. Being the good guy that he is, he
called ASAP Septic Plumbing out of Clearwater to pump the tank before they went
home.
Sue and I arrived on June 26th and cleared the
pipe from the stool to the septic tank. That allowed us to flush the toilet,
but it was not the entire solution. Sue returned to the bowels of the tank and
cut loose the offspring of the old boa. When we looked closely, the exit pipe
from the first tank to the drain-field tank was completely clogged with an
extensive mat of fine roots. I tried to clear it with a conventional plumber’s
snake, but that was like digging out of Stalag 13 with a teaspoon.
When I’m in an emergency construction bind, I call Brother
Jim. He came out that evening with a hefty, motorized snake and worked on the
pipe for an hour or so before a squadron of mosquitos forced us to call it
quits for the night.
Did you know that a running toilet can fill a 1,250-gallon septic
tank in five hours? It’s true! Sue flushed the toilet at midnight and fell
asleep without hearing the toilet continue to run. I woke at 5AM and noticed
the float was stuck. I went back to bed thinking we’d probably have a foot of
water in the tank. Nope. It was filled to the brim and overflowed into the clogged
discharge pipe.
The morning of June 27th, Sue and I continued to
nibble away at the roots with Jim’s roto-rooter. We made about six feet of
progress, but it’s a ten-foot pipe.
Jim returned that afternoon with his Bobcat skid loader. He excavated
enough gravel to expose the drain-field tank and the pipe entering it. After he
removed the concrete tank cover with the Bobcat, we peered into the hole.
“Oh boy!” said Jim. “This takes the prize for the biggest
nasty I’ve ever seen…and I’ve seen a lot of nasties.”
“The nasty” was a snarl of oak roots of mammoth proportions.
It extended from the mouth of the discharge pipe to the floor of the tank like
a stalactite. It was two feet in diameter near the top by the concrete cap and
an additional eight inches in girth by the time it reached the floor—a
leviathan that had taken up a comfortable residence, growing slowly but
steadily since the septic system was installed.
I manned up and descended into the tank this time. I chopped
and pried at the roots until I could wrap a chain around the neck of the beast.
Jim completed the extraction by lifting it out of the hole with the Bobcat. The
old boa constrictor now has a partner on the bank.
Once the monster was out of the way, I was able to pull
loose more matted roots from the discharge pipe. We managed to poke a small
hole in the mat from the other side with our roto-rooter. A small trickle of
water lubricated the clog. It finally slipped into my hands with a slurp like a
slab of spoiled salami.
Brother Jim chipping away at “The Nasty”
The roto-rooter is in the foreground. I’m in the hole. Dad and Jim are next to the Bobcat.
“The Nasty” in the drain-field tank
The chain from the Bobcat is poised to extract “The Nasty”
We have a functioning septic system for the time being and
have taken more precautions by flushing the pipes annually with a root killing
treatment. Sue posted a warning next to the toilet. It reads:
Sensitive Septic
System
Please take pity on it by flushing only septic-safe
toilet paper and natural waste.
No tissues, wipes (even flushable), make-up pads, feminine hygiene products,
mice, bats, chipmunks, playing cards, hopes, or dreams.
They can go in the trash. Thanks!!
Special Events
Damen Fuller, Nat’s son, and his fiancé, Janet asked to be
married at the cabin on July 11, 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, so we
created an outdoor family “bubble.” They arrived pulling a trailer with Damen’s
classic ’37 Chevy’ and decorations for the wedding. We spread a path of wood
chips from the outhouse to the front yard for the bride to make her entrance. Sue
qualified to be an officiant for the wedding in case Nat came down with COVID
and couldn’t be there to do the honors, but Nat stayed healthy and officiated
over the ceremony with the guests seated in lawn chairs overlooking Lake
Sylvia. After the wedding, the happy couple drove away in Damen’s classic car to
spend their honeymoon night at the Thayer Hotel in Annandale.
Most of the special celebrations at the cabin were for
birthdays. I mentioned that mine was on August 23 and Dad’s was on the Fourth
of July. His birthday was always celebrated
with fireworks over the lake. When cherry bombs, rockets, and multi-shot cakes replaced
“Safe and Sane” fireworks like sparklers, snakes, and smoke bombs, a friendly
competition developed among Lake Sylvia’s residents. We anchored the boat in
the middle of the lake and waited until a little after ten when it got dark
enough for the action to begin. The swivel seat in the front of the boat
offered the best view of the show as it swung around from one explosive delight
to the next. The rest of us craned our necks in anticipation of where the next
light show would erupt.
The first year I remember watching the event was the summer
of 1999 after having spent the month of January volunteering in Tanzania, a
developing country in East Africa. Here in the United States, we can dedicate
thousands of dollars for a light show that lasts twenty minutes, where the same
resources could feed hundreds of people for a month in Tanzania. None the less,
I stuff my guilt into my back pocket and look forward to the show every year.
A flotilla of boats gathers in front of the cabin for the annual Fourth of July fireworks.
A few years ago, the GLSA—the Greater Lake Sylvia
Association—asked for donations to sponsor the fireworks and eliminate the
competition. A professional team is now hired to manage the fireworks show
using Camp Chi Rho as its base. Hundreds of boats cruise into the lake between
our dock and the camp to watch the display. We can join the boats or sit on our
deck to watch.
Eric’s birthday is July 18. On his eighth birthday, Sue made
him a special cake. No, it was not emblazoned with a green Rafael or Leonardo
turtle as usual. This one was a sheet cake composed of torn bits of Wonder
bread laced with chunks of strawberry and lime Jello—all covered with a
generous supply of whipped cream. The party participants—the Walz’s, the Ebeling’s,
Tristan, and a couple more of Eric’s buddies—were seated around a table in the
front yard. Sue delivered her creation with appropriate pomp and circumstance.
Eric looked warily at the cake but blew out the candles. Right about then,
Tris, who was in on the joke, shouted, “This is the worst cake I’ve ever seen!”
He picked up a handful of “cake” and threw it in Eric’s face. “Food Fight!”
It only took a moment for the boys to jump into the action
and fling the whipped cream/Jello mixture at one another. Poor, shy Laura Walz,
the only girl in attendance, was mortified. She leapt from the table and
scurried behind Leslie before you could say, “Happy birthday.”
After the food fight: a whipped cream free for all.
The brouhaha tumbled down to the deck where the whole party
jumped in the lake to rinse off. The sunnies gorged themselves when the real
cake arrived for the kids.
After the Food Fight
On May 11, 2007, we celebrated Grandma’s 99th
birthday at the cabin. I picked her up from the nursing home where her only
complaint was that there were not enough people who could keep up with her in a
card game. According to the guest book, Lorraine Holsing, Marjie Onstott,
Lenore Zellman and her driver, Nancy Link, Mom, Dad, Jim, Spence, Sue, and I
were in attendance. Grandma wanted her picture taken next to a couple of pieces
of furniture I had made for the cabin bedroom—a wardrobe and a dresser. When Sue
lifted the camera to take the picture, Grandma shouted, “Wait! Set my walker
over there. No one needs to see that.”
Grandma Adalyn Wright on her 99th birthday. No walker for her!
Lenore Zellman, Marjie Onstott, and Lorraine Holsing toast the birthday girl
99 Big Ones!
When we finished the cake and wished the guests good-bye,
Grandma took a long, wistful look at the lake before she stepped into the car. It
was as if she knew that would be the last time she saw the view from an earthly
perspective.
When we arrived back at the nursing home, she said, “If only
we had seen a deer.”
Two weeks later, on May 26, 2007, our cabin matriarch passed
away.
The Wright’s Sjö Stuga gave her
plenty of joy over the years, but there was a while when nostalgia and loss
took over. Grandpa Tib died of a heart attack in February of 1963, leaving
Grandma a widow at fifty-seven. I’m sure it was hard for her to visit the cabin
without thinking of her favorite fishing partner. Her entry in the guest book
dated October 12, 1965, reads, “Adalyn closed up cabin by myself. Mighty
lonesome.”
Healing Waters
Whenever I plunge into the lake from the end of the dock, I
roll on my back, look into the clear blue sky with the cabin on the hill in the
background, and think, “Ah…the healing waters of Lake Sylvia.” It’s like a
cleansing baptism. My worries melt away and I think how fortunate we are to
have this place of retreat.
Over the years, I’ve taken five “personal retreats” to the
cabin. (January 1992, October 1994, March 1997, December 1997, and March 2001)
These were years when Sue and I were fully engaged in our careers, the kids
were demanding our full attention, and I was heavily involved with church
council and committee work. A break from our hectic routine was a welcome and
necessary reprieve. A weekend of contemplation, goal setting, and nature’s
therapy always left me refreshed.
Sue’s brother, Nat, took a similar personal retreat in March
of 1995. His entry in the guest book says it all: “Spent four days in a winter
haven—rested and refreshed and purged in more ways than one. Now ready to
re-join the human race.”
The cabin is not only a place for emotional healing. I had
hip replacement surgery on June 29, 2015, and spent the following month
recovering at the cabin. Sue was my physical therapist. She pushed me to perform
excruciating leg lifts. She guided me to the bathroom when the pain meds caused
my bowels to seize up. And she encouraged me as I transitioned from walker to
cane to unassisted walking.
I had visions of holding court at the lake with visits from friends,
laughing and sipping wine to pass the time. The reality was that alcohol held
no appeal and Sue was plenty of company. One of the meds prescribed to help me
sleep was Valium (Diazepam). It wasn’t until later that I found out that Diazepam
is also prescribed to treat alcohol withdrawal, which explained my lack of
interest in wine. That side effect didn’t last.
Wildlife
Even though the Sjö Stuga is now situated on the edge of a
metropolitan area, we still host plenty of wildlife.
Loons welcome us with their haunting cry every spring, and every
fall they depart for their winter retreats on the Gulf of Mexico or the
Atlantic coast. We often hear their warning yodel when an eagle or osprey flies
overhead.
A pair of loons with their baby
Sandhill cranes serenade me with their prehistoric croaking as
I sip coffee on the deck early in the morning.
One cold and rainy Mothers’ Day weekend, we huddled in the
cabin and counted fifteen species of migrating birds that stopped by the window
feeder—from the common cedar waxwing to the uncommon scarlet tanager. Trumpeter
swans gathered in the melted edges of ice-out to herald the approach of spring.
A male bluejay attempted to build a rickety nest in the back-yard
oak tree for a discriminating mate. Every time she showed up to inspect her potential
future home, she turned up her nose and screamed insults at him. I expect he is
still a lonely bachelor.
Swallows dart over the water at sunset to pluck mosquitoes
from the air. Last summer, they built a nest in a corner under the boatlift. Ma
and Pa Swallow worked incessantly to feed the five demanding chicks. After they
fledged the nest, they returned in the evenings to roost. By the time we left
for home, the baby swallows were confident enough to be on their own.
An occasional white tail deer visits the cabin. One night in December, a couple of deer huddled beneath the cedar tree in the front yard for the night. One of them frightened Sue when it got up and peered in at her through the front window. During another visit, a lone doe had spent the night behind the sauna. When we flushed it from its hiding place, it jumped into the water and swam toward the island. Boaters tried to direct it back to shore, but that only frightened it more. Once people left it alone, it found its way safely to shore.
The Next Generation
We eagerly share the cabin experience with our grandchildren
in hopes that the next generation will come to love our Sjö Stuga as much as we
do.
We park the Trekster (our Roadtrek camper) on the lawn when we host family guests so they can use the cabin while we have a separate private bedroom and bathroom. Tristan watches Nadia and Aidan blow bubbles.
Sue, Brother Jim, Elenora, Eloise, Henry, and Cordelia roast marshmallows on the deck.
Cordelia paddling the kayak with Elenora and Henry
Nadia, Linus, and Aidan prepare for a swim.
Linus, Cordie, Aidan, and Nadia catch a turtle.
Cousin Camp with Linus, Cordie, Aidan, Ellie, and Nadia
The Wright’s Sjö Stuga continues to deliver the gift of joyful
experiences to all who cross its threshold.
Welcome!
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