Introduction

By Elinor Wright and Bernie Troje

    County Road 4 and the many back roads pass by mail boxes and driveways (inroads), but not many structures and less often, people.  Even from the lakes, if it weren’t for docks and yard lights, we don’t see many people.  We’re low profile people here.

    Therefore, it was amazing when well over a hundred people showed up for a memorial graveside service for Luise Anderson in the spring of 2006.

    It began to make sense, however, as mourners shared their memories of and connections to Luise and her husband, Bud.  These stories were so similar to those other families have from their stops at Anderson’s store and post office.  Max Mercantile was for years as much a center for community news and activity as anyplace else.

    It wasn’t just Bud’s freshly butchered beef and his patty rice and maple syrup. As he pumped gas, he’d catch us up on local news.  If it was before lunch and Luise was done sorting mail, you might be treated to a fresh roll and cup of coffee in the kitchen adjoining the grocery store.  Once a week Bud made the trek to Duluth to fill our orders for roof shingles, ladders, and wheelbarrows – anything he didn’t carry in his basement hardware/clothing store.

    Now that many people like Bud and Luise are gone, their absence reminds us of how much we take each other for granted, how much we count on our being there for each other.

    Actually, though no one really replaces someone else, our small community calls on each of us to share ourselves, our time and our talent as the Andersons did.

    Our friends and families, when they visit, marvel at how many people we connect with daily, often mixing chores, social visits, business and news.  Imagine the volumes we could fill if we put to written words our day-to-day lives here – our own Sand Lake “Almanac.”

    That’s what we’ve attempted to put down while it’s still available so that the personalities and events that have enriched our lives in this community can be shared and passed on.  These are glimpses of our lives here that we might forget otherwise, even if they have helped weave the fabric of this area.  This is a celebration of us.

    The geographic boundaries, name-consolidated directories, and city-center cemeteries so familiar in small European towns are the outward signs of their histories and traditions.  We have the same here without maybe the more outward signs.  Our boundaries are blurred, and our cemeteries in the woods.  They aren’t constant reminders.

    In fact, these suggest important aspects of our community.  We are a collection of individuals as unique as our homes are different from each other.  The woods help keep our distances, but the paths and gravel roads enable us to come together.  That’s our community.  We’re close even though distances separate us.

Writing “Link 2 Our Past” is an important undertaking.  We are stretching, s t r e t c h i n g  maybe beyond our capabilities, to acquaint a community with itself through the people who live here.  It is our dream to unleash a powerful energy by sharing our stories with one another.  We live here together.  We have a common love of country, laced together by tall trees and clean waters and wailing loon calls.

    We are connected, you and I.  And not just because we exist on the same planet.  We, you and I and you and you – we have the rarest of Links to one another.  We love the same obscure smudge on the map here in Northern Minnesota and Northern Itasca County.  We are solely and soul-ly connected by quiet bays of water and by ordinary forests with ordinary names like Red and Jack and White and Scotch.    There is no affectation in calling a black spruce a black spruce.

    We are part of that grand design of the North.  We share an intimate inter-relationship with all its living things, and in the particular, one to another; we are an important part of this complex pattern of which all life is an inseparable part.

    The difference here in the North is that we can have it all.  Right here.  We can see the connections of the earth to the fungi and the fungi to the forest and the forest to the birds.  We can check out the mosses and the woodbine, the dewdrop and the spider web, the tiny blue anemone protected by hiding under a simple blade of grass.  It is all part of our grand point of view, our significance in a world available to all, a vision possible to everyone who has a receptive, yearning curiosity to determine one’s very own role in this magnificent scheme of things.  One thing we know.  We matter.

   

So, who are you?

What is your reason for being?

What brings vitality and importance to your life?

When your time on this planet is done, what will you leave behind?

With what, or whom, will you connect?

These are some of the questions we have asked you.

    George Orwell said it:  “To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle.”

    Writing “Link 2 Our Past” is a means and an excuse for spending time out of doors and with our friends, and we need your help to examine who we are and why we are here.  It’s the first step to a life of celebration and appreciation.  I think it has a lot to do with that Golden Rule thing.

One more thing –

    Think on this:  The loon’s natural environment is northern.  When they’re out of their natural environment, they’re just another bird.

    Many residents have been interviewed so far by us for “Link 2 Our Past.” We have already written profiles of many year-round and summer residents.

    Along with the interviews, we’ve been taking photos of the interviewees and other participants in our community groups and activities.

    We plan to continue to gather material.  If you have ideas for us, whatever and whomever you consider interesting facets of community life in the area, please let us know.  We are eager to hear from you.  We welcome any ideas on how these stories can be shared. We encourage you to submit your own profile or write one of someone up here you find interesting.

    We want to thank those of our Sand Lake family who have shared their perspectives and memories and those who have smiled for the camera at our get-togethers.

    The “Link 2 Our Past” project is helping all of us realize how vital and interesting are the lives of the people in this part of Itasca County.  The prospect of interviewing more of you is exciting, and we look forward to receiving your entries.

    This is our philosophy for the project.  It may sound high-minded and a bit overblown for the simple recording of not so ordinary lives in a not so ordinary place, but it reflects how we feel about what we’re doing.  Our idea is to make the lives around us more meaningful to ourselves and to each other by determining what values we live by and pass on.  We are proud of ourselves, but why?  Who are we anyway and how did we get that way?

   

The Stories