Acquisition of the Gonnerman cabin started with a near-disaster.

We decided at the spur of the moment in ­October 1980 to visit Lake Superior's North Shore to see the fall color. My wife, Ruth, and I packed for us and two of our children, and headed north.

We wanted to stay at the Edgewater in Duluth. It was full. I went to the phone booth in the parking lot and called every place to stay all the way to Grand Marais. Nothing available. Then I thought of Superior, dashed across the bridge and was fourth in line for rooms that had just become available because a bus had canceled.

On the way home, Ruth and I began to talk about how great it would be to have a place Up North where we could come when we wanted. The next fall we visited Realtors. One sent a note in December that something on the North Shore was coming on the market. We looked at it under 10 inches of snow, and bought it. (It's about halfway between Split Rock Lighthouse and Beaver Bay.)

It was less than modern: toilet outside; an old propane furnace and a wood-burning cook stove; no hot water; and the smallest bedroom (of two) was just big enough to provide a foot of space on both sides of a double bed.

After 15 years of renovation, it is bigger, rewired, finished throughout in knotty pine; and has a propane fireplace/furnace, septic system and a deep well. A new loft reached by a circular staircase sleeps six. Large windows dominate south and east walls, providing great views of Lake Superior. There is a deck. The guesthouse, also renovated, includes horizontal windows above each bunk, a small built-in desk and a screened porch.

Ruth quilts and knits in the small bedroom that has become the sewing room. I carve in the guesthouse porch, and do some writing. We enjoy a small group of hummingbirds that squabbles over three feeders. An eagle flies by almost every morning.

It's an enchanting place for our children and grandsons, and it's very comfortable when Ruth and I stay from the end of May until the end of October. And it all happened because of one almost-disastrous weekend.

Fred and Ruth Gonnerman, Northfield