Have you ever wondered what the Superior National Forest look like from the eye of an Eagle? You can experience that sight when you fly with “Van Air” right from the docks of Garden Lake Resort. Your flight will encompass spectacular views and the true beauty that the North Country is renowned for. Your flight will be in a floatplane over many of the area lakes. All aircraft are outfitted with an intercom, headsets, and life jackets to add to the enjoyment and safety of your voyage! Imagine a sunset moose tour or a dinner flight with a view. You can take a short 20 minute flight or an hour flight following the route of the early fur trading Voyageurs. See the untouched wilderness and take in the true meaning of “10,000 Lakes”. During this flight it is not uncommon to see moose, bear, deer, and wolves. Looking for a little romance or celebrating a anniversary or birthday? Fly with VanAir for your dinner date to area restaurants on the water. A popular flight is toNelson’s Restaurant, a fine establishment on Crane Lake, at the U.S./Canadian border. Where ever you fly you will always be amazed as you view it with new eyes, as though you are on Eagle’s Wings! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tower, Mn.
Garden Lake Resort Blog
Birds are everywhere in the Ely area and Superior National Forest depending on the season and the habitat. Approximately 155 species of birds breed in the forest.
These include about 100 small and inconspicuous song birds that are often hidden by thick foliage. Their presence is more easily noted soon after dawn during the early summer when they are the most active and in full song. Warblers and vireos comprise about half of the songbirds nesting in the national forest. They spend a remarkably short time on their northern breeding grounds, 3 months at the most, and actually nesting takes about 6 weeks – long enough to produce one brood of young. Upon first arrival in late May, the birds rapidly set up territories. Singing male activity is most conspicuous from June 1 to July 4. Most young are fledged by mid-July and the woods then are very quiet in contrast to the territorial songs heard only a few weeks before. Wandering flocks of post-breeding birds, usually family groups of warblers or chickadees, are encountered beginning in mid-July. Migration really gets underway by late July or early August after the birds have molted.
Most birds migrate for the winter due to the lack of food sources and the climatic conditions. Resident bird life during the winter is augmented by erratic influxes of species from father north or west. Most species originate in the northern boreal forest-tundra zone, but it is possible that some invasions come from large local populations. The species regularly involved in winter invasions include: vertebrat predators – goshawk, great horned owl, hawk owl, barred owl, great gray owl and boreal owl; berry eaters (mostly mountain ash) – American robin, Bohemian waxwing, and cedar waxwing; seed eaters – evening grosbeak, purple finch, pine grosbeak, hoary redpole, pine siskin, red crossbill, and white-singed crossbill.
Tourism in Minnesota is a major industry and creates countless jobs and large revenues for the state. Is it no wonder why the Lodging & Camping facilities, especially seasonal, like to see our public schools letting out early for spring and then start after Labor Day each year. When the state and schools cooperate in doing this, it generates huge additional revenues for both. It also allows students who need to work in the tourism industry, access to jobs that start in early spring and go into the fall. This benefits operators and their employees with work flow issues and gives extra income to their employees! Recently, it has been a disappointment that the State of Minnesota could not come up with a budget for 2011 and have had to shut down all state related business and jobs. The effect is widespread and also has hit tourism hard in camping and state parks revenues. This loss cannot be made up for prime time summer camping. Hopefully, the legislators will soon work out a compromised budget to get the state and tourism rolling again. We need good laws and state supported tourism efforts to keep the industry healthy! Let’s all do our part to support a healthy economy for 2011.
Garden Lake Resort offers high tech options that most travellers expect and need when on their vacation!
Even though you are in a remote location in the heart of the Superior National Forest, you are still able to have FREE high speed Internet access at each cabin and on the properties decks and grounds. Garden Lake Resort has invested in its service to our customers so that they may stay connected with family, friends, and work. Many guests have found they need to be able to work for periods of time during their stay, connecting with employees at their business or work place. With high speed DSL Internet, it is easy to connect with the wireless WI-Fi on your lap top, phone ,or any device needing Internet connection. Downloads and uploads are fast and help to send those pictures of your vacation experience or a picture of the days catch!
Enjoy your own music when you bring your Ipod, phone, CD's or any music device and plug in to our stereo. For those rainy days, bring your favorite DVD's or check out our free rentals at the office.These are only some of the amenities you will enjoy at your cabin during your stay. Although you have the ability to stay connected, we encourage you to disconnect and enjoy the lake & woods, a nightly campfire with good conversations and all they have to offer! Don't forget to check out the night sky for the Northern Lights!
Mark & Dianna are excited to announce that 2011 is the 35th year that they have been operating Garden Lake Resort. Much has change in those 35 years, but much has remained the same. We remain small with exceptional cabins, facilities, and all the amenities that make your stay with us comfortable. We offer our guests a unique 4 season vacation experience!
Resorting in Minnesota has gone from 2,200 Resorts in 1975 to around 850 in 2011. We are one of a small group of Mom & Pop resorts left and continue to operate as such. We are able to continue the tradition of personal hospitality which has been lost in much larger Resort/Motel settings. Customer service is very important to us and making your stay at Garden Lake memorable and lasting is important to us. Families and friends come here to enjoy peace and quiet and recreate in an incredibly special environment. Ely hosts a pristine and naturally beautiful experience that is hard to find anywhere else. When visiting Ely and Garden Lake Resort, you will experience a simpler time when families enjoyed walks, hikes, campfires and fishing together, remembering the past, and discovering new things together. Many of you have become regular guests at Garden Lake Resort and even more special to us have become good friends who we are always glad to see!
We will be offering Specials and Hot Deals throughout 2011 to celebrate our 35 years in business! These specials will be found at our website www.gardenlakeresort.com, through email alerts sent to you by Garden Lake Resort, or by calling our new toll free number 855-365-5498 for information about these upcoming great deals! We are excited that some of you might visit us at different times of the season as well as your repeat times with these special offers. September, October, January, February, and March are quickly becoming some of our most popular times. Please check us out at Face Book and Twitter to see what is happening here at Garden Lake Resort year round!
Because Garden Lake Resort is a small resort of four cabins, it's not uncommon for families to book all four of our Ely Minnesota cabins for their family and extended family for a week.
Grandma and grandpa, mom, dad, brothers,sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles share time together in ways that they may not have the opportunity to do in everyday life, especially if they live far apart.
They have time together to share meals, activities, outings, and adventures-but also space apart in their own cabins. They have all the comforts of home-soft bed, hot showers, full kitchen, TV/DVD/Wi-Fi, fireplace-without the to-do's and responsibilities of home. At the start of the day, they may break off into groups to fish, golf, swim, read, hike, bike or nap and then come together at the end of the day to to share food, stories and s'mores around the campfire. Usually by mid-week, they start thinking about booking again for next year, if they haven't already. They recognize that the commitment they make to their week together at the cabins is one of the greatest gifts they can give each other. Booking all four cabins at our northern Minnesota resort is a wonderful idea not only for families/extended families, but also for book club members, high school and college reunions with friends, and other groups of 6-24, any time of year. We'll provide the place and space--you'll create the memories.
E.B. White wrote a number of stories for children and adults, Charlotte's Web being perhaps his most well known. He also wrote an essay, "Once More to the Lake," about taking his pre-adolescent son to a cabin on a lake that he used to go to as a boy with his family. In the essay, White describes seeing the cabin for the first time in years and the joy he felt discovering the lake "right there, right where I left it."
It sounds funny at first. Of course the lake is right there, where it was when he last left it. But for anyone who has ever enjoyed good memories in a cabin on a lake--and returned--White's words make perfect sense.
For our guests who return to Garden Lake Resort every year--or even every few years--there's a certain comfort they feel when they drive the familiar roads to Ely and make the turns that lead them down Garden Lake Road to our Ely MN resort and to the cabin they stayed in last time on the lake that is right there, right where they left it.
We had a stretch of beautiful weather up at our Ely Minnesota resort for a few weeks. Warm days in the mid 70s, cool nights in the mid 50s. Some days have been clear with a sky strikingly blue. Other days the sky has been dappled with white cotton clouds that are as animated and entertaining as a two-year-old child. Perfect weather, really.
The days are long now, and the great weather makes you want to start early and end late and soak up as much of the day as you can. We have over fifteen hours of daylight to fish, swim, hike, bike, picnic, paddle, golf, and camp until--whew!--finally a rainy day.
Thank goodness!
At Garden Lake Resort, we are surrounded by natural beauty. But we like to add to it, too!
Dianna believes something about gardens make a place. She devotes hours tending to the eight annual beds around the cabins and on the piers and a big perennial garden next to the house and office. Perennials around the resort include hostas, old-fashioned bleeding hearts and fern leaf bleeding hearts, bluebells, peonies, lilies, irises, and day lilies. Hanging baskets and potted annuals--geraniums, canna lilies, begonias, petunias and more--can be found all around the resort.
Years ago, Mark and Dianna's oldest son--then a young boy-brought Dianna wild columbine that he dug up in the woods. It didn't come back the next year--not in the same place. Instead it shot out roots and ended up blooming in a different spot. Since then, Dianna lets it do what it will. Every year is a surprise with our wild columbine. "Flowers are enjoyable not only for me but also for our guests," Dianna said. "They're a lot of work, but when you're done and look around, you take a deep breath and enjoy." There are many things that make our Minnesota resort special. Our flowers are just one of them. As Dianna says, "It wouldn't seem like Garden Lake Resort without gardens and flowers." Right now, the wildflowers along the Kawishiwi Trail that leads to our resort are all abloom. It is they--more so than the date on the calendar--that mark the start of summer.
Minnesota resort vacations are relaxing, rejuvenating, and refreshing. No doubt, a week or two up north in a Minnesota cabin can renew your soul. At Garden Lake Resort, a week or two at our Ely MN lodging is good for your body, too--in more ways than one. Since December 2007, we've gone green!
Green
The term green is used to describe efforts and actions that are safe and beneficial to our environment. For us at Garden Lake Resort, green means using natural, non-toxic cleaning products and energy efficient appliances. Green means being aware of our habits and inviting our guests to be aware of theirs, too. Green means doing our part to ensure the pristine wilderness environment we love remains preserved for generations to come.
One of the first things guests do when they arrive at Garden Lake Resort--sometimes even before they check-in at the office--is head to the lake.
They may stand on the dock, sigh deeply, and scan the tea-colored water, making their plans. Or--especially if they're young--they may lie flat on their stomachs on the dock and run their fingers through the water. Sometimes, no matter their age, they kick off their shoes or sandals and stick in a toe. They look beyond their reflections on the water's surface, searching for minnows or pan fish, or crayfish or turtles swimming below. They may skip a rock or two from the shore of our sand beach. Or, they may grab a stick, trying to gauge the depth of the water or pretending to cast.
Reluctantly, they pull away from the lake to check-in and unpack. But soon they're back by the lake with bathing suits on or gear in hand. They may go in the water, or lie beside the water, or go out on the water. Regardless, they head to the lake.
