In 1940, two shacks came to the forefront. The first came to us in the newly released movie Grapes of Wrath. Henry Fonda played Tom Joad, the father of the down-and-out Joad family. With the depression and the Dust Bowl wreaking havoc on many families, the Joads leave their shack of a home in Oklahoma and head to the promise of California. 

In early July of  that same year, the bones of a new shack were driven north on a truck from east central Minnesota to the vast logged-over forest near Lake Superior. 

Some of the trucked lumber was salvaged from an old potato warehouse in Stacy, Minnesota. The rest of the building materials were purchased for $29 and some odd cents from a nearby lumberyard. 

After leaving the recently paved Highway 61 and heading inland a few miles on a gravel road the truck finally stopped. 

On July 4th the handful of workers including the family matriarch, Miranda Nelson, two of her sons, Everett and Warren and Raymond Peterson completed building a small shack that was intended to house a half a dozen or so deer hunters. Miranda’s husband Fred stayed back on their farm near North Branch, Minnesota to tend to milking and haying.

Eighty five years later four of us, three Nelsons and an Anderson made the trip up to honor the beloved deer shack’s anniversary.  Unlike the fictional Joad family retreating from their dismal shack we are drawn to the gifts of this Minnesota shanty each fall. 

Every November we relish pushing the unlocked door open and spying the same setting that the 1940 hunters saw. We crave the solitude that comes with no electricity, no plumbing and for that matter no insulation. We find comfort in using the same crude table, benches and bunks that were built 85 years ago.There is satisfaction in pulling out some of the original cookware and water kettles that were used in the shack’s first years. 

We still fetch water in buckets from the river that flows just down the hill. A doorless outhouse sits behind the shack and continues its trouble-free operation. 

In recent years, mobile phones have tarnished the experience of simplicity. Thankfully coverage is very spotty. We haven’t heard the hiss of a Coleman lantern for a few years. Now battery packs power a small nest of LED lights that hangs over the table.

There has never been a lock on the door. In the late 40’s some loggers used the shack for a while and remnants of newspaper clipping featuring Betty Grable withers away on the wall by the upper bunk.But the loggers were always out of the shack when November rolled around.

I made my first trip to the shack in the mid-1960s when I was invited by my buddy John Nelson (Nels) to join him, his dad Clifford (Tip) and his uncle Ev. We went up in mid-October to hunt grouse and the men could check out the state of the shack for the upcoming deer hunting season.  

After parking the car six miles from the shack, we stowed our gear in a small open trailer as Ev hooked up the battery to an old Model A equipped with four oversized tires.  The buggy came to be called the “Hopper.”  Stories continue to be fondly told of this unlikely chariot. 

It was my first trip this far north in Minnesota and I had never seen such wild country.  The Hopper with its oversized tires rumbled, skittered and sloshed those half dozen miles of gravel, logging roads and trails. I felt I was on the edge of a grand adventure. 

Ev was the pilot and the top mechanic of the Hopper. He wore a long red trench coat and goggles to keep the mud off of him as we traversed swamps and even forded the river. As the water rose to nearly the bed of the trailer I recall feeling quite nervous. After what seemed like a very long bouncy ride, the Hopper pulled up to the shack.

Less than ten years ago we replaced its metal roof with a new one but it  basically looks like the same shack I recall as a young teen.

I was honored to be invited to join the annual deer hunting clan in the mid 1980s and am honored to be one of the regulars since then. 

Like other old shacks, the walls of this shelter are darkened with the patina of cigarette smoke that was such a part of the 50s and even the 60s. But the real hidden treasures are the infused stories of big mythical bucks. The walls echo with tales of bears, moose, wolves, lynx, fishers, pine martens, ermine, wolverine, ravens, blizzards and hordes of shack dwelling mice. We chuckle when we reflect on especially memorable stories. 

One year, one of our non-hunting gang members painted half the ceiling white. There was some grumbling as hunters returned after sunset. Change doesn’t come easily but over time we all agreed that the candle and lantern light did reflect off the ceiling better, making it easier for cooking, performing tasks and card playing. An unintended consequence was that the white ceiling began to attract notes and signatures from folks we didn’t know.

In the 1990s, over the mid-October school break, my friend Nels was visiting the shack with his oldest daughter Emily and her friend. The girls were using a spiral bound notebook for keeping score of card games, playing Hangman and creative doodling. When they left the shack for home, the notebook was left behind.  Soon it became a guest book/journal of sorts.

We were amazed to find how many folks stumbled upon the shack or had been using it for years. It’s not easy to get to the shack. The nearest public road today is two miles distant, but there are hiking trails nearby and old logging roads.

When that first notebook was filled, I brought in a second one that included a brief introduction on the history of the shack and a request to treat it with care and carry out all garbage.  We are now on the third shack journal. 

Here is a sampling of entries:

Feb. 26, 2005

Back at the Deer shack!

Skied up the river yesterday late afternoon as snowflakes started falling and the light ebbed. Skied by once, backtracked and found it waiting dark and cold. But what a welcome sight!

Coffee is drunk, have brownies eaten, and we’re heading out.

Rick and Jane

Duluth

March 20, 2005

First day of spring! Though I am coming to learn the seasons are a bit different up here in Minnesota. Highs in the low-30’s and lows in the mid-10’s all week. Heck back down in North Carolina the college girls are all wearing their sundresses by now.

What an awesome place this is!  I am hiking sea to sea. Having started from Gaspe, Quebec last August. And this is a great treat. I wish every night I had a place to hole up in, out of the weather and off the ground. I suppose that because I do not have such places I am very appreciative of this one. 

Andy Skurka

Sea-to-Sea Route 2004-05

www.AndrewSkurka.com

A week later more visitors

22-24  de Marzo, ’05

What a magical place! We skied by moonlight on the river. I imagine we’ll be the last to do that this season as the ice is melting and open holes are getting larger – quite an adventure. 

I could hardly believe that such a shack existed and being here feels dreamlike. I’m so grateful it exists and that it is shared with all who are adventurous enough to find it. 

Kristin and Cam Dhooge

Brooklyn, IA via Spain, Chile, Brazil, Suriname, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Vermont and Duluth, MN

And this brief entry perhaps sums it up best: “Just like the good old days. Long live this shack!”

It’s clear part of the love and attraction to the shack is that time seems to stand still here. Life is simpler here without all the static and noise of civilized living.

The shack has outlived all of the original builders and those first generations of Nelsons. And we are all very aware that not all of us current shackites will be around to celebrate the century mark of 100 years. There is no guarantee that a shack will physically exist but its silent stature will remain strong in our minds and of those strangers who called it home for a even a single night. It is clear that this four-walled, tin-roofed shelter is way more than a deer shack. It is a “dear” shack.

In 1940, two shacks came to the forefront. The first came to us in the newly released movie Grapes of Wrath. Henry Fonda played Tom Joad, the father of the down-and-out Joad family. With the depression and the Dust Bowl wreaking havoc on many families, the Joads leave their shack of a home in Oklahoma and head to the promise of California. 

In early July of  that same year, the bones of a new shack were driven north on a truck from east central Minnesota to the vast logged-over forest near Lake Superior. 

Some of the trucked lumber was salvaged from an old potato warehouse in Stacy, Minnesota. The rest of the building materials were purchased for $29 and some odd cents from a nearby lumberyard. 

After leaving the recently paved Highway 61 and heading inland a few miles on a gravel road the truck finally stopped. 

On July 4th the handful of workers including the family matriarch, Miranda Nelson, two of her sons, Everett and Warren and Raymond Peterson completed building a small shack that was intended to house a half a dozen or so deer hunters. Miranda’s husband Fred stayed back on their farm near North Branch, Minnesota to tend to milking and haying.

Eighty five years later four of us, three Nelsons and an Anderson made the trip up to honor the beloved deer shack’s anniversary.  Unlike the fictional Joad family retreating from their dismal shack we are drawn to the gifts of this Minnesota shanty each fall. 

Every November we relish pushing the unlocked door open and spying the same setting that the 1940 hunters saw. We crave the solitude that comes with no electricity, no plumbing and for that matter no insulation. We find comfort in using the same crude table, benches and bunks that were built 85 years ago.There is satisfaction in pulling out some of the original cookware and water kettles that were used in the shack’s first years. 

We still fetch water in buckets from the river that flows just down the hill. A doorless outhouse sits behind the shack and continues its trouble-free operation. 

In recent years, mobile phones have tarnished the experience of simplicity. Thankfully coverage is very spotty. We haven’t heard the hiss of a Coleman lantern for a few years. Now battery packs power a small nest of LED lights that hangs over the table.

There has never been a lock on the door. In the late 40’s some loggers used the shack for a while and remnants of newspaper clipping featuring Betty Grable withers away on the wall by the upper bunk.But the loggers were always out of the shack when November rolled around.

I made my first trip to the shack in the mid-1960s when I was invited by my buddy John Nelson (Nels) to join him, his dad Clifford (Tip) and his uncle Ev. We went up in mid-October to hunt grouse and the men could check out the state of the shack for the upcoming deer hunting season.  

After parking the car six miles from the shack, we stowed our gear in a small open trailer as Ev hooked up the battery to an old Model A equipped with four oversized tires.  The buggy came to be called the “Hopper.”  Stories continue to be fondly told of this unlikely chariot. 

It was my first trip this far north in Minnesota and I had never seen such wild country.  The Hopper with its oversized tires rumbled, skittered and sloshed those half dozen miles of gravel, logging roads and trails. I felt I was on the edge of a grand adventure. 

Ev was the pilot and the top mechanic of the Hopper. He wore a long red trench coat and goggles to keep the mud off of him as we traversed swamps and even forded the river. As the water rose to nearly the bed of the trailer I recall feeling quite nervous. After what seemed like a very long bouncy ride, the Hopper pulled up to the shack.

Less than ten years ago we replaced its metal roof with a new one but it  basically looks like the same shack I recall as a young teen.

I was honored to be invited to join the annual deer hunting clan in the mid 1980s and am honored to be one of the regulars since then. 

Like other old shacks, the walls of this shelter are darkened with the patina of cigarette smoke that was such a part of the 50s and even the 60s. But the real hidden treasures are the infused stories of big mythical bucks. The walls echo with tales of bears, moose, wolves, lynx, fishers, pine martens, ermine, wolverine, ravens, blizzards and hordes of shack dwelling mice. We chuckle when we reflect on especially memorable stories. 

One year, one of our non-hunting gang members painted half the ceiling white. There was some grumbling as hunters returned after sunset. Change doesn’t come easily but over time we all agreed that the candle and lantern light did reflect off the ceiling better, making it easier for cooking, performing tasks and card playing. An unintended consequence was that the white ceiling began to attract notes and signatures from folks we didn’t know.

In the 1990s, over the mid-October school break, my friend Nels was visiting the shack with his oldest daughter Emily and her friend. The girls were using a spiral bound notebook for keeping score of card games, playing Hangman and creative doodling. When they left the shack for home, the notebook was left behind.  Soon it became a guest book/journal of sorts.

We were amazed to find how many folks stumbled upon the shack or had been using it for years. It’s not easy to get to the shack. The nearest public road today is two miles distant, but there are hiking trails nearby and old logging roads.

When that first notebook was filled, I brought in a second one that included a brief introduction on the history of the shack and a request to treat it with care and carry out all garbage.  We are now on the third shack journal. 

Here is a sampling of entries:

Feb. 26, 2005

Back at the Deer shack!

Skied up the river yesterday late afternoon as snowflakes started falling and the light ebbed. Skied by once, backtracked and found it waiting dark and cold. But what a welcome sight!

Coffee is drunk, have brownies eaten, and we’re heading out.

Rick and Jane

Duluth

March 20, 2005

First day of spring! Though I am coming to learn the seasons are a bit different up here in Minnesota. Highs in the low-30’s and lows in the mid-10’s all week. Heck back down in North Carolina the college girls are all wearing their sundresses by now.

What an awesome place this is!  I am hiking sea to sea. Having started from Gaspe, Quebec last August. And this is a great treat. I wish every night I had a place to hole up in, out of the weather and off the ground. I suppose that because I do not have such places I am very appreciative of this one. 

Andy Skurka

Sea-to-Sea Route 2004-05

www.AndrewSkurka.com

A week later more visitors

22-24  de Marzo, ’05

What a magical place! We skied by moonlight on the river. I imagine we’ll be the last to do that this season as the ice is melting and open holes are getting larger – quite an adventure. 

I could hardly believe that such a shack existed and being here feels dreamlike. I’m so grateful it exists and that it is shared with all who are adventurous enough to find it. 

Kristin and Cam Dhooge

Brooklyn, IA via Spain, Chile, Brazil, Suriname, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Vermont and Duluth, MN

And this brief entry perhaps sums it up best: “Just like the good old days. Long live this shack!”

It’s clear part of the love and attraction to the shack is that time seems to stand still here. Life is simpler here without all the static and noise of civilized living.

The shack has outlived all of the original builders and those first generations of Nelsons. And we are all very aware that not all of us current shackites will be around to celebrate the century mark of 100 years. There is no guarantee that a shack will physically exist but its silent stature will remain strong in our minds and of those strangers who called it home for a even a single night. It is clear that this four-walled, tin-roofed shelter is way more than a deer shack. It is a “dear” shack.