Gust and the Trout

Jan, Abby and Julia (red helmet) at the top of Eagle Mountain, Lutsen, somewhere around 1600 feet high and the air temp well below zero helped by the lake effect wind.  Out on the horizon is the North Shore of Lake Superior, not yet frozen.  Around halfway down Eagle Mt. a convenient ski in / ski out trail just before the Lutsen Bridge carrying skiers on into the grounds of Carribou Highlands, our resort, past a bonfire burning unattended and ending eventually at a bar made out of ice. The first night we arrived we postponed dinner reservations until seven and then sat down for a nice meal at Mogul's Restaurant

where Jan had a thick slab of prime rib, Julia a filet mignon, Abby some wild rice concoction (once you reach Duluth every third sign along the road advertises wild rice. Julia still wonders what 'tame' rice might look like?) Carly chicken fingers, and I ordered the trout special, something close to the almondine white sauce pictured below but without the almonds and a smoky 'tame' rice mixed with cranberries as a side.

The vast north shore and this fantastic little plate of local trout got me thinking later about A History of Lutsen, in the chapter "The North Shore Fisherman" where the author describes some of the hardships early settler fishermen endured, especially in the cold months.  The Nelson (Lutsen) brothers themselves often made trips in large oaring skiffs – which could carry up to 1,000 lbs. –

to drop their pay catch off at market in Duluth, a trip that would normally take 24 hours of oaring and rest.  One particular trip C.A.A, Alfred, and Gust Nelson made it back home as far as Two Harbors without incident, but the remaining 64 miles took over eleven days.  Marooned on an ice floe, the weather brutal and food scarce, the brothers might have tried to reach shore and walk, but the youngest brother, Gust, was lame, so they stayed on the ice and hoped for an opening.  At one point, suddenly the ice cracked.  The brothers heard a strange small rippling sound in the water, and saw, as the story is told anyway, that a single injured trout had flopped onto the ice near them.  The brothers knew that the ice could break apart at any moment, but also had to reach the fish if at all possible, so they placed branches from the shore across their chests in case they dropped through an ice hole, and Gust, the lightest of the three, reached out and managed to scoop the trout. "The whoops of joy from his brothers may have been heard in Duluth.  The men devour the trout but afterwards, again go several days without food."  They finally found enough open water to oar back home to family members who would not have known whether they were dead or alive.  My order at Moguls Restaurant was good, but I imagine the taste of that one raw trout the brothers had was just fine without the almondine sauce.

Behind us in the picture below is a series of family chronologies describing the origin of Lutsen Resort, where we did not have to oar or float on ice to get to the famous New Year's Eve buffet