The Naniboujou Club Lodge is a resort and restaurant built as part of a private club on the North Shore of

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

Cook County, Minnesota Cook County is the easternmost County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 5,600, making it Minnesota's seventh-least populous county. Its county seat is Gr ...

, United States, about east of Grand Marais. It is named after Naniboujou, a character from the

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

, and the lodge's décor has both Native American and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

influences. Commenced in the twilight of the Jazz Age, the club's grandiose plans succumbed to the economic realities of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and only the clubhouse was built. That building retains its original design and is listed as a historic property.

History

Wealthy businessmen from

Duluth, Minnesota , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

, planned a resort on along the newly opened North Shore Highway and announced the project in 1927. The name selected was that of a

spirit of the woods, and the membership sales pitch was rooted in Indian legend. Ground was broken in 1928, and the club opened for business in 1929.Gardner, Denis (2004). ''Minnesota Treasures''. St. Paul:

Minnesota Historical Society Press The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehoo ...

. pp. 266–268. ,
289
Membership was to be limited, and free memberships were given to public figures of the day in order to attract other members. Members included celebrities

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

Jack Dempsey William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (June 24, 1895 – May 31, 1983), nicknamed Kid Blackie and The Manassa Mauler, was an American professional boxer who competed from 1914 to 1927, and reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. ...

, and

Ring Lardner Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre. His contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Wo ...

. Plans included a golf course, swimming pool, tennis courts, a marina, a 150–room clubhouse, and an inland hunting lodge, but only a smaller clubhouse was built. Financial difficulties during the

led to foreclosure in 1935. The facility was sold in 1939. Much of the land became part of Judge C. R. Magney State Park, but the lakeshore property on which the lodge is located remained in private hands.Bogue, Margaret Beattie (1977). ''Around the Shores of Lake Superior''. Madison:

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

. p. 43. ,
p. 43
/ref> Thereafter the lodge has had a number of owners, who operated it as part of a hotel chain and later as a family resort.

Architecture and décor

The Naniboujou Club Lodge is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. It was nominated for the Register in 1982, as it had retained "its original design in a good state of preservation". Design elements include architectural features such as polygonal towers, cedar shakes, a

gambrel roof A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was "Dutch roof".) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, w ...

pierced by

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

s, and

French door A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a ''doorway'' or ''portal''. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security by ...

s topped by sashes with pointed crowns. The

theme of the lodge is displayed in the common room, which has a 200-short-ton (180 t) native rock fireplace about high. Inset above the hearth is a native welcome symbol in the shape of a sunburst, made of the same water-rounded stone used in the fireplace. The chamber's walls and ceilings were painted by the artist Antoine Gouffe (who was of French descent and studied art in Paris) with other native-inspired designs and have been called a "psychedelic marriage of

and traditional Cree Indian patterns".

The lodge today

Now known as ''Naniboujou Lodge and Restaurant'', the property is a privately owned hotel and restaurant. The sleeping wings contain the hotel rooms, and the former common area, still bearing its original decoration, is now the dining hall. Later changes to the building have continued the Cree theme. Facilities include a restaurant, in the former Great Hall club commons, and a solarium. Lake Superior and the Brule River adjoin the plot on which the resort is located. Across the highway are the exotic rock formations and natural beauties of Judge C. R. Magney State Park, created from the former club's lands, including the Devil's Kettle. Nearby are other state parks and the

Superior National Forest Superior National Forest, part of the United States National Forest system, is located in the Arrowhead Region of the state of Minnesota between the Canada–United States border and the north shore of Lake Superior. The area is part of the grea ...

, which offer canoeing, hiking, camping, and fishing in the

North Woods The Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, also known as the North Woods, is a forested ecoregion in eastern North America. Among others, this terminology has been adopted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Similar, though not n ...

and lakes of Minnesota's

Arrowhead Region The Arrowhead Region is located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Minnesota, so called because of its pointed shape. The predominantly rural region encompasses of land area and includes Carlton, Cook, Lake and Saint Louis counties. ...

Naniboujou in modern culture

Naniboujou Lodge has been featured in books on tourism in Minnesota or the North Shore. Monica Ferris' murder mystery novel ''Unraveled Sleeve'' is set at Naniboujou Lodge. Naniboujou Club Lodge has also been featured in ''Minnesota Monthly''.Call of the Wild
/ref>

Nanabozho

In Anishinaabe mythology, particularly among the Ojibwa, Nanabozho is a spirit who figures prominently in their storytelling, including their account of the world's creation. Nanabozho is the Ojibwe trickster figure and culture hero (these two archetypes are often combined into a single figure in First Nations mythologies). He plays a similar role as the Saulteaux Wiisagejaak (Cree Wisakedjak).

Notes and references

External links

Website of the Naniboujou Lodge and Restaurant

History

Gallery of photographs
*Gihring, Tim
"Call of the Wild"
''

Minnesota Monthly Greenspring Media is a publisher of Minnesota-focused publications. The company publishes two subscription magazines, ''Minnesota Monthly'' and ''Midwest Home'', as well as custom publications including ''Real Food'', '' Where Twin Cities'', ''Twin ...

'', January 2011. Section on Naniboujou is o
second page
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