ALONG BIRCH LAKE — In an era when many small resorts are sold off for their waterfront land values and developed into condos or lake homes — Minnesota has fewer than half the “ma and pa” resorts it did 50 years ago — Sean and Jill Leary are bucking the trend. The Learys are building North of North, a three-cabin resort on 11 acres of raw land at 12265 State Highway 1, 10 miles east of Ely, from scratch. The first cabin was ready for guests last week, the other two were just about finished and their website went live this week to accept reservations.
“It’s taken a little longer than we expected, but we’re almost there,” Jill Leary said as she unpackaged steak knives from a box for one of the cabin kitchens. “There was nothing here before. No driveway.
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The first time we came to the property, we had to come by boat.” It’s been exhausting work and many trips back and forth from their home in Minneapolis. They cut a path from Highway 1 into the property and slowly figured out how the cabins would fit onto the landscape.
North of North is an all-new destination for lovers of the Ely experience, the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — just a stone’s throw up the Kawishiwi River. But it’s also perhaps unique in the Northland woods for being built, from the ground up, to be fully accessible for many people with disabilities. It hasn’t just been Sean and Jill Leary on the job.
It’s been a family affair with daug.