Voyageur family news
If you are on social media then you probably already know about the birth of Aurora Ritter back in September. Cassidy, Matt, Willow and River welcomed her with open arms and she is living the life at the end of the Gunflint Trail.
It seems like yesterday when I was in their place with my babies. But it’s obviously been a few years since our oldest, Abigail just turned 25 years old. After graduating from Cook County High School in 2018 she spent four years at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. The Covid years weren’t the best time to be in college but she made the most of it by participating on the Club Rugby team, intramural volleyball team and travelling abroad to Australia. Her trip to Australia was cut short due to Covid and her trip to the Galapagos Islands was cancelled but since then she has been making up for it by travelling whenever she can. She worked for the Cook County Highway Department on the invasive species team this past summer using her degree in Environmental Science. She hopes to continue that career path after the first of the year.
Our baby Joshua graduated High School in 2019 and followed his sister to St. Olaf where he played football for four years and also made the best of the Covid years. He didn’t travel abroad during college but last year spent several weeks in Europe travelling with his girlfriend Nicole. His plans to start a career keep getting sidelined by hunting opportunities; archery hunting for deer in Ohio, elk hunting in Montana, chasing ducks wherever they may fly and more. Lucky for Mike he usually gets to tag-along on these adventures. When he isn’t hunting or fishing he can be found helping us out at the brewery where he can talk to guests about hunting and fishing while serving them beer.
We didn’t have the opportunity to take as many summer family vacations as we would have liked while we were running Voyageur Canoe Outfitters but luckily our kids still want to travel with us. This past summer we went on a whitewater raft trip with two former Voyageur employees. Andrew Spaeth and Sheri Prom live out in Oregon and they took us on an epic adventure through Hells Canyon of the Snake River. It was a different style of camping than we were used to and a lot less paddling than in the Boundary Waters but a ton of fun.
While we aren’t officially irrelevant at Voyageur Canoe Outfitters yet, we’re pretty close. Once Matt and Cassidy found out they were having twins and had to move out of their yurt and into our house in the lodge we became somewhat homeless at the end of the Trail. It isn’t as easy to spend time up there without a home base so when we do go up we hop between cabins and lodge units depending upon what is available. We had hoped to get a cabin built quickly so we could be around more but things like that don’t seem to happen very fast.
We spend most of our time working at Voyageur Brewing Company in Grand Marais. We thought running an outfitting business was a ton of work but it turns out breweries take a bit of work too. The location isn’t as wonderful as the end of the Gunflint but the view of Lake Superior and the Sawtooth Mountains is pretty nice. The woods around Grand Marais offer all sorts of outdoor recreation opportunities and we love to take advantage of them.
When I’m not working I can be found in the woods hiking or mountain biking, at a lake swimming or paddling, on a softball field, a pickleball court, a volleyball court, at a fitness class, camping or travelling. In the winter the method of travel switches to snowshoes, cross country skis or snowmobile but I will most likely be in the woods somewhere as the woods are my favorite place to be.
Mike, and the rest of our family, including Josh’s girlfriend, fell in love with pickleball. Mike would play every day if he could and we even have a court spray painted on our driveway. While he isn’t currently volunteering on any boards he is constantly lending his business expertise to others. He still enjoys a new challenge and if I entertained all of his ideas who knows where we would be. One place he wants to be is on a boat doing the Great Loop. I’d rather be on a boat in the Caribbean so we shall see if that comes to fruition any time soon.
Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away and I’m super grateful for the life I’ve been able to live. The days on the Gunflint Trail were magical and we were blessed to be able to raise our kids and make a living doing what we loved. Daily swims in the Seagull River, taking the boat out onto Saganaga, paddling and fishing all of the lakes in our backyard are memories we are very fortunate to have. Seeing our kids interact with guests, watching them catch crayfish or collect frogs, taking them fishing and camping and seeing their love of the outdoors grow was amazing.
We have our past Voyageur crew members and all of our guests over the years to thank for allowing us to live a life at the end of the Trail. It was better than we could have ever imagined. With a little luck and some answered prayers we know the Ritter family will survive, thrive and live a wonderful life at Voyageur.