Fourteen miles up the Caribou Trail is Tait Lake. The roads around the lake, Cap’s Trail and Billie’s Trail, were named for my aunt and uncle Mathilde “Billie” Petersen and Martin “Cap” Petersen. They once owned the land upon which today’s Tait Lake residents have built their homes. The original Tait Lake Lodge, which Cap and Billie built, was their passion — this is their story.
Photo courtesy of Jocelyn Thornton Cap Peterson, proprietor of Tait Lake Lodge in Lutsen, enjoyed fishing—and visiting with his interesting neighbors.
Neighbors were not plentiful but they were unique!
Gust Hedberg, or Jock Mock, as he was better known, lived in a cabin on what is now Jock Mock Lake. He was pretty old by the time Cap and Billie knew him. He was still trapping but mostly lived off of social assistance.
He liked, as they say, “to drink a bit.” He made mountain ash berry wine and kept it in a large jar, with a ladle in it, on a stool by his bed. He also had a glass eye that he would remove at night and place in a glass on this same stool.
One night he got roaring drunk and drank his eye. He went to Grand Marais in search of a replacement but social services refused to cover the cost and turned him out on the street. Townsfolk, horrified by his unsavory appearance, flooded social assistance with complaints and Jock Mock soon had a new eye.
Another neighbor, Earl Worthing, lived in a cabin on Wills Lake. He used to walk 14 miles to Lutsen for supplies. He was still alive in 1950 and ’51 when my brother was a little boy and living at the lake.
Ron remembers driving down the Caribou Trail with Cap and coming upon Earl striding into town. Cap would always stop and offer him a ride but he would never accept one. I found a letter my brother wrote home when he was 12 and spending the summer of ‘55 at the lake. He, Cap and a guest hiked down the trail to Wills for a day of fishing. He writes, “Stopped in at Earl Worthing’s old shack. We went in and found a saw, some fire wood ready to burn, the remnants of a stove, Prince Albert tobacco cans full of nails, a frying pan, a dipper, his bunk and a shovel with a broken handle. It was so small I couldn’t stand up in it and I had to bend way over to get through the door (it was really just a hole). The little window still had glass in it and the glass wasn’t broken. Some day I will take you there.” Jocelyn Thornton recalls “the life and legacy” of her aunt
and uncle, Billie and Cap Peterson, original proprietors of
the Tait Lake Lodge in Lutsen. The News-Herald will publish
one of this series of eight reminiscences each month.
Do you have an old picture or a story from years gone by that you would like to share with Cook County News-Herald readers? Give us a call,
or stop by our Grand Marais office. We’d love to hear your Historical Reflections. Call (218) 387-9100; e-mail starnews@boreal.org; or stop by
our officeat 15 First Avenue West.
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