Don & Family

Here we have Don, the patriarch of the family - does everything he can to bring everyone together for this one week out of the year. Don takes his daily walks down the driveway and hops from cabin to cabin where his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren stay. (They feed him - as they should!) The picture is of Don, son Jerry, and great grandson Zaden. Generations of fun. They have been coming to Birch Haven for about 17 years - creating a lot of memories. We look forward to having this group every year - they are so much fun. Volleyball, tether ball, using the game room (wink,wink)...they are active on the lake and the resort and enjoy every minute here.

39th Year at Birch Haven Resort

Bob and Alice and their family have come up for the 39th year. This year they had all the grandchildren up - never a dull moment! We love hearing Bob's stories of how the resort used to be and all the memories they have created here.

Terri's Big Catch

What a catch - caught on the their last day here. Terri was beaming! It is so much fun to see guests pull in something like that! Terri, Fred and their boys have been coming up for about 9 years, enjoying the fishing and other families that have been coming for years.

Fish Cleaning House - THANK YOU!

Time to catch up with the BLOGS! We'd like to thank all you guy that helped raise the fish cleaning table this year. We now have a back friendly fish cleaning table - a great contribution to Birch Haven Resort history.

Family Tradition of 50 Years

We are so proud to say that it is the 50th year for Ruth and her family to vacation here at Birch Haven Resort. Ruth comes for two weeks a year - the first week to relax and inhale the therapeutic tranquility. The second is to enjoy her family, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We couldn't ask for greater guests and love that they love the resort as much as we do. We look forward to many more years with Ruth and her family. As we're told, it's a hard place to leave.

Happy Fishermen

Hard to believe it is the end of June already! We have been having so much fun watching everyone fish and enjoy the resort. The weather has been great...along with the fishing. Here's a picture of Bob & Steve - just another great day fishin'.

Nice Northern

Look at the 33 inch northern pike our guest, Mike from Montana, caught tonight.. His family has had fish fries every night since they arrived. With cooler weather the fishing this year has been exceptional. This is just a great way to start a vacation!

Birch Haven in the middle of it all

My family is making plans to get up to Birch Haven Resort the week after Memorial Day. Traveling all the way from Colorado, we're looking forward to some great fishing, relaxing and good Minnesotan boating. Lakes like Gull Lake aren't around much in Colorado.

In anticipation for our vacation, the kids and I pulled up Google Earth and got this aerial shot of the resort. You can even see Tenstrike on the map.

See how the resort is central in Gull Lake? We are able to get comfortably to any fishing spot in the lake from Kate and Jerry's pontoon. We are SO looking forward to the relaxing trip!

Kate and Birch Haven on the Iowa News

Kate emailed me with a link to the Iowa Boat Show, quite a trip south for she and Jerry. A clip of her take on Birch Haven Resort was captured on the local news. Check out the following link:

Cedar Falls Boat Show TV Clip

You have to wait through the first couple minutes...Kate is at the end. She's quoted:
"We have a lot of guests from Iowa, and I guess they are attracted to Northern Minnesota. It has different scenery...it's almost like a different country, really." - Kate Gaslin

Cabin 8's new look

When ever you start doing something to an old building, you just never know where it will lead. Cabin 8 was no exception to this rule. This is Kate's dad, and I thought it would be interesting to old & new visitors alike to hear "the saga of cabin 8."

Last fall, Jerry & I decided we should replace the ceiling, which had been damaged by a leaking roof. We had plenty of help taking down the ceiling. What a mess! Then entered Uncle Rich. "Gee, we should redo the wiring while we're at it." This lead to a few holes in the walls - and some turned out to be too big to patch, so - off came the walls! Which revealed some really rotten windows. No, we didn't really take the windows out - they just sort of fell out!

The end result should be just short of awesome! Four new 5'x5' slide-by windows offer a beautiful view of the lake. The walls in the living room, dining room and kitchen are weathered knotty pine, there will be new carpet in the living room & dining room, and - oh yes, what we started to do in the first place - a new ceiling in the living room, dining room & bath room.

The warmth of the knotty pine, the field stone fireplace and the beautiful view of the lake should make this a very popular cabin for future guest. The cabin is shut down for the winter now, but early spring will allow us to finish the project. We'll post more pictures at that time.