Oberholtzer Foundation and Mallard Island in Rainy Lake, Rainy Lake, Ranier, MN (2026)

04/15/2026

IT IS A TIME of suspended animation. Of anticipation. Of waiting. Of transition. It is no longer winter, but winter's grip is still upon the lakes. The big ones, at least. Rainy Lake is a big one.

The silence of winter still remains, perhaps even more pronounced. The snowmobile trails and ice roads are closed. The islands, like Mallard Island, are still locked in. So the waiting goes on. When will the big date come? The official ice-out? When will the sounds, the music of the lake, return?

We await the singing of the brilliant north woods flute, the white-throated sparrow. We await the midnight cadenzas of loons. We long for the chuckling of wavelets along the rocky shores, and the rumbling of afternoon thunderstorms.

Of course, on Mallard, the soundscape is even more varied than on many North Woods islands. Because of those who come to enjoy its beauty, in the company of other seekers. The sound of a guitar will likely be heard. Or a fiddle, or a mandolin. Perhaps the tinkling of the ivories on one of the old pianos. The warmth of a human voice in song. There will be the soft scratching of pens on paper as poems or stories are written. The creaking of an old rocking chair. Laughter and uproarious conversation in the old Wannigan. Maybe a to-the-death Scrabble game being contested. Or soft murmurrings in the glow of a summer sunset, no one wanting to break the spell.

Perhaps you'd like to visit the Mallard and add your voice, your silence, your attention, your dreams, to the mix. As always, the magic of the island awaits, as it does every summer. Various options are available, including a week called 'Wild Writers', for those who are called to put pen to paper. Simply click the link below in 'Comments' to find info and details on that and other opportunities. Come and listen to the loons, the waves, the voices, the laughter, the music of Mallard Island.

Meanwhile, you can include below your best guess for this spring's official 'ice-out' date. Will you win a prize? Sure! Maybe. We don't know... A good guess is sort of its own prize, right?

04/09/2026

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1280615884174358&id=100066778755992

03/30/2026

WRITERS NEED A FEW IMPORTANT THINGS: They need time to write. They need a good space. They need a little inspiration. And they need to believe they CAN write. There is a little granite island in the North Woods stronghold of Rainy lake where all of these can be found. And more.

Our WILD WRITERS Retreat/Workshop for this summer (July 5-11) is filling up quickly and looks like it will soon sell out--just a few spaces left. If you'd like to explore your writing voice, your skills and passion, in the context of the North Country--blue water, blue skies, pine forests, loon calls, and rocky shores--there are few if any places better suited than Mallard Island. And once you add in the charm of rustic, hand-hewn dwellings and a century of history, none can match it.

Each summer, seekers of all kinds come to Mallard for inspiration. This week is dedicated to writers--of poems and songs, essays and novels and journals and short stories and you-name-it. Each will find the beautiful space and the time and the inspiration needed. And with the support of a small gathering of good-hearted folks and the gentle guidance of Douglas Wood (NY Times best-selling author/musician/wilderness guide) that belief--that you can indeed WRITE--will be found as well.

So come and join Doug. Join the loons and the white-throated sparrows. Join with other writers in a circle around the campfire or in the legendary Drum Room. Rainy Lake is waiting.

REMINDER: if you've already inquired or registered, make sure to send in your down-payment ASAP to hold your spot!

(For more details, info, and registration, please see the link in 'Comments' below).

03/19/2026

WILD WRITERS: July 5-11, 2026
Come to the edge of the wilderness to write about wild things. The call of the loon, perhaps. The sound of wind in the pines or the crashing of storm waves. The gold of a North Country sunset, the blooming of a wild rose, the feel of a canoe on the water. Or the very concept of wilderness itself. The themes and inspirations are limitless.

Join N.Y. Times bestselling writer Douglas Wood, naturalist, musician, artist, and author of 40 books, including the classic 'Old Turtle' series and recent Midwest Book Award winner, 'A Wild Path', to explore or refine your own writing skills. Discover the power of description, the magic of metaphor, the essence of storytelling. Explore the elemental but elusive skill of observation, and the simple pleasure of the written word. This retreat/workshop is for anyone from experienced or published authors to those who simply want to find their ‘voice,’ and enhance their ability to communicate. All that is required is a desire to explore the landscape of words, and the inspiration of the natural world. Everything is fair game, from personal journals to poetry, magazine articles to short stories, children's books to song writing to theater scripts. Even social media platforms. Or illustration if that's your fancy.

At the edge of Voyageurs National park, on the very highway of the legendary voyageurs, and atop the great, granite carapace called the Canadian Shield, Mallard Island is singularly positioned for a writer's perspective. It was for a half-century the home of wilderness warrior Ernest Oberholtzer. With its rustic dwellings, its deep connections to the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people, and view of the grand sweep of history, it would be hard to find a place better suited for inspiration, and for writing, than Mallard Island.

So come and discover--or rediscover--your writer's voice there. Listen to your muse. Finish that short story or novel, that song lyric or poem or essay. Or start the one that’s right out there ahead of you, the one you’ve never quite gotten to. Come and be a Wild Writer.

(Please find the registration/info link in the 'Comments' section below. )

03/13/2026

WHEN ERNEST OBERHOLTZER first came to the North Woods/Canoe Country/Border Country in 1909, he found a 'primitive' land, not so far removed from its status of thousands of years. Since the retreat of the great continental glaciers about 11,000 years previously, the territory had become a wonderland of interlaced streams and waterways, and countless lakes--the scooped out 'puddles' of the immense ice fields. Meanwhile, after an initial period of bare, glaciated rock, the lichens and mosses, and later a grand, patchwork boreal forest of pines and spruces and balsams, had reestablished a wild biome of great beauty.

By the time Ober arrived, the arrival of Europeans, the fur trade, the beginnings of the great logging drives, iron ore mines, and even a bit of gold mining, had begun to change the landscape. Ober came in that time of transition. And as he fell in love with the land and waters, he began to make it his life's work to protect it, from the worst of the effects of industrialism and 'progress.' It seemed there was always another dire challenge, another threat to the integrity of the land. But Ober and his allies succeeded in many efforts, particularly the blocking of a series of dams and huge reservoirs by Edward Wellington Backus, that would have raised water levels by up to 80 feet and completely transformed the landscape.

Today we have the preserved and protected areas of Quetico Provincial Park, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and Voyageurs National Park, all a testament to those efforts and a century of stewardship. Yes, modern civilization and economics arrived, but hand in hand with a balancing and countervailing ethos to keep large tracts of the lands and waters as close to wild as possible, looking and functioning as they had from time immemorial. And preserving the ability of thirsty campers and fishers in many places to simply dip a cup into a lake and drink it--now a rare thing on this Earth.

Today, Rainy Lake and its watershed are still intact as an environmental jewel, a 'dark sky' environment, and a wildland unique in America. Threats remain. Debates and battles remain. But for now, so does the land, as Ober and the Cree and the Anishinaabe have known it, as generations have loved it. People still come to Ober's Island to experience a bit of it. To paddle a canoe, perhaps not quite like Ober's old wood and canvas friend, or the birch barks of indigenous peoples, but similar enough. They come to swim in clear waters. To listen to the loons and watch the otters who still fish them. To reconnect to the Earth, and to their deeper selves. To feel a little something of what Ober himself felt, over a century ago.

(Photo from Joe Paddock's book, 'Keeper of the Wild: The Life of Ernest Oberholtzer)

02/25/2026

IN LATE FEBRUARY on Rainy Lake you begin to have days. Days when the eaves drip, and the long -missing music of falling water reappears. Tracks continue to tell their winter tales. But the tree doughnuts (ground circles) around the tree trunks are beginning to expand (the result of the dark-colored bark absorbing the warmth of the returning sun.) The sun itself, higher, and hanging in the sky about two hours (!!!) longer now than at the winter solstice. We are now 66 days away from that last solstice, and only 24 days from the upcoming spring equinox. Days are continuing to lengthen by about 3 minutes per day, with the extra daylight most noticeable in the evenings.

Chickadees are happily singing their wildly optimistic 'Spring's here!' two-note song. Always a delight to hear. Bald eagles are getting active. Great horned owls have already mated and laid their eggs, and those eggs will begin to hatch in a matter of days or a few weeks. Barred owls will lay their eggs in mid-to-late March.

All the Great White North, frozen for so long, is beginning to awaken. Ober's Mallard Island feels stirrings as well, as do all the islands and shorelines of the big lake. It is a timeless thing, known to all living creatures in the Border Country. In the 'old days,' the Voyageurs, for whom the National Park is named, would feel the stirrings as well. Plans and preparations would be ongoing, for once ice-out occurred in the High North, there would be not a moment to waste before the annual journey to Rendezvous, either at Grand Portage or Rainy. The countless miles had to be traversed in the open water season, and freeze-up--the other bookend to the year--was always unpredictable. Their lives contained little to none of the 'relaxation' and 'getting away from it all' of modern visitors to the North. And yet, their journeys were always taken in the context of beauty. Of wildness. Of grandeur.

Such things are still with us, thankfully. Still present on a little island in historic Rainy lake. A little island where things are beginning to stir...

02/15/2026

WINTER ON RAINY LAKE is different. Different than what, you might ask. Well, different than pretty much anything. Different than summer, to be sure. And spring and fall as well. To be on a small island, like Oberholtzer's Mallard Island, for instance, surrounded by ice... No loon calls, no white-throated sparrows, no waves upon the shore. No people at all, for the most part. At 30-below-zero on a midwinter night, the stars burn so bright it seems you can almost touch them. The northern lights dance hypnotically. The silence feels, not like something missing, but rather a powerful presence, a companion all its own.

In the sparkling brightness of daylight, the cross country skis or snowshoes call. Or the 'snow machine,' as they call them Up North. The sky is a startling shade of blue never seen in the warm weather months. The snow has its own shades as well, not just pure white as you would imagine, but with its own subtle hues of blue and purple. There are tracks to follow along the shoreline. Wolf, perhaps, or the frolicking of an otter family. And the shorelines themselves are transformed. Not merely a collection of rocks, but a fairyland of small caves, crevices, and icy sun-catchers.

It is winter more than summer that defines the North. With a hard-edged reality that brooks no frivolity or wasted energy. Except for the otter, perhaps, who has his own rules and protocols. Yes, winter can be harsh, and it is long. But it is also beautiful. Anyone with an eye can see it. And ears can hear it. For the silence is its own music.

February begins to show a few hints of the changes to come. The sun is higher, the south slopes show signs of a thaw here and there. And in the hearts of those who love a special place, a certain island, perhaps, there is a quickening. It will not be winter forever.

01/05/2026

A NEW YEAR has arrived on Oberholtzer's Mallard island on Rainy Lake. And elsewhere, apparently, as well. On Mallard there were no New Year's Eve fireworks, no giant, dropping balls, no boisterous shouts of 'Happy New Year!' Not much of anything, actually, to denote a change.

In terms of important things, not much ever changes on Mallard, at least not very fast. Oh, the buildings need regular repair and maintenance, for sure. Sometimes a dock needs moving. A screen door is letting in too many summertime mosquitoes, or a tree has fallen across the path to the blueberry patch. Not to mention a constantly shifting and renewing cast of characters discovering, enjoying, and caring for the island. But the important stuff? The sun still rises daily over the east granite point with the ancient logging chain. The rocks still sleep the sleep of eons. The jackpines rooted in those rocks still grow incrementally. The shorelines still echo--in the summer months--with the calling of loons. And in winter with the booming and cracking of ice.

In fact, one of the great charms of the island is that things do not change. So, one has the feeling of stepping back in time--to the days of Ernest Oberholtzer, wilderness champion--with his books, photos, and mementos still adorning the walls and bookshelves of the buildings. Those buildings, unique and whimsical, appearing to rise organically out of the rocks themselves. And, as long before the time of Ober, the stillness, or the slow breathing, or the wild, crashing storms of the lake, all abide and remain. It is all as it has been, seemingly forever, with the changes slow and predictable and manageable, unlike the furious chaos of the modern world beyond the island's shores.

So people come. To step back. To step inside--a cedar-barked house, or a canoe, or a wannigan smelling of marinara or coffee or fresh bread. To step inside themselves, their own skin, once again. Perhaps they play a guitar or write a song or a story. Perhaps they simply sit inside a screen porch in an old rocking chair and listen to the silence. It's all a part of Mallard Island. And it doesn't change much.

12/21/2025

IT IS Winter Solstice Day on Oberholtzer’s Mallard Island in Rainy Lake, and of course all over the Northern Hemisphere. Even in midwinter, it is a day to celebrate and appreciate the return of the light. And there are few places on earth where more glorious examples of light can be found. An island in a great, blue lake is a magnet and a prism for light in all its incarnations.

Below, sunrise over Gull Island. Rainbow over Gull. The channel between Mallard and Crow. Japanese House in the last rays of evening. The east-facing granite point of Mallard…

12/15/2025

IN 1909, Ernest Oberholtzer of Davenport, Iowa and recent graduate of Harvard, was ill. Very ill. His doctor told him he had perhaps a year to live. Ober, not wanting to waste the precious time, decided to head for the Great North Woods. He made for the frontier town of Koochiching, later named International Falls.

In that year, the government of Ontario set aside one million acres as the Quetico Provincial Forest Reserve. Teddy Roosevelt reciprocally established Superior National Forest, another million acres, on the U.S. side.

Ober was 25 years old, with no idea of how he was going to make a living. If he even lived at all. He set himself the task of paddling and portaging the entire Rainy Lake watershed. In one open water season. It is now called his 3,000 Mile Summer. During this summer he met Billy Magee (Tay-tah-pa-sway-wi-tong) who became his lifelong friend, guide and companion. During this grand adventure, Ober said is health “improved with every stroke of the paddle.”

Ober’s heart never left the Quetico-Superior Country, where his legend had now begun. And eventually, Ober didn’t leave either. He finally sunk his roots into a sinuous little strip of granite in Rainy Lake, where even jackpine roots struggle to find a foothold. It is called Mallard Island, and it became his home for half a century. And Ober spent that half-century helping to lead the fight to preserve and protect the wild country he loved, from damming and destruction.

Sometimes we don’t know what the future holds. Sometimes we are told we are weak and aren’t going to make it. Sometimes we follow our heart and our enthusiasms anyway, and we heal ourselves. And in that healing, perhaps, help to heal the world.

12/08/2025

OBERHOLTZER'S MALLARD ISLAND is one of a cluster of islands—the Review Islands—in beautiful Rainy Lake, MN. (And Ontario). AI (on the internet) calls them 'historic' and they surely are. They have witnessed or participated in history since before there was any. History, that is. Since the time of the forming of the great Canadian Shield bedrock almost 3 billion years ago--some of the oldest exposed rocks on Earth. Since the time of the gradual erosion and wearing down of that shield and its mountain ranges. Since the time of the great continental glaciers, over a mile thick, which retreated about 11,000 years ago. (Did you know the Northland is still rebounding from the weight of those glaciers? An effect, oddly enough, called 'glacial rebound.' In the Great Lakes Basin, the ground still rising a few inches in elevation every 100 years!) Following the glacial epoch came the time of returning vegetation (merely lichens at first) beginning to reclaim a place on the bare rock that remained. Eventually, forests returned, and animals like mastodons, mammoths, giant beavers, woolly rhinos and musk oxen. Later moose, woodland caribou, and wolves.

The People that anthropologists and archaeologists now call 'Paleoindians' arrived, hunting with Clovis and Folsom-tipped stone tools. Later came a woodland people we know as 'Sioux,' or Lakota/Dakota, and then the Ojibwa/Anishinaabe so closely and deeply associated with this land.

All this was going on before the area was 'discovered' of course, by white Europeans--mostly the French Voyageur fur traders from which the nearby Voyageurs National Park takes its name. Then followed the loggers and the lumber barons, the bootleggers and gold miners (the residual mines are only a few miles away)the commercial fishermen and the resorts and countless guests seeking the peace and beauty of the great North Woods.

So there's a one minute thumbnail of 3 billion years. In any case, the aforementioned AI (this writer does not know what that is, but it is mysterious and scary and somehow useful at the same time) calls the islands not only historic but 'spiritually significant granite outcrops cherished for their wild beauty, history, and peaceful retreats... offering stunning boreal scenery... simple living, inspiring nature connections, and deep North Woods experiences.' Well, there you go. All true, surely. Mallard is, of course, the centerpiece, with its many rustic buildings and ongoing preservation, maintenance, and use for artistic and educational retreats by the Ernest C. Oberholtzer Foundation. But we neighbors on Fawn Island love our Northwoods space as well, and hug to ourselves the notion that we are the 'head' of the archipelago; as the other islands--Mallard, Crow, Hawk, and Gull, are all oriented in a roughly east-west direction, while Fawn is essentially at a right angle--north to south. Much as an admiral's flagship reviewing its fleet. Thus the name, the Review Islands. You can see this orientation in the photos below. Of course, we on the Fawn do not 'lord it over' the other islands in the least, and are grateful for their company.

The AI descriptions on the Internet go on in a rather fulsome manner, with entries on: history, geology, wildlife, spiritual significance, arts, conservation,simple living, solitude and community. It is great, on a winter day, to read all about it, and be taken back in imagination to a summer day, in a canoe, cruising among the islands, the white throats singing merrily, the echoes of loons bouncing off the rocky shores. But in reading, one notices eventually a strange, familiar feeling--that a fair number of the words and descriptions are very similar to books and posts we have written. And others we are fond of. And suddenly the thought occurs, will the AI machine soon be quoting from this very post, in which AI itself is extensively quoted? And at what point--if ever--does this echo effect resolve itself?

Hmmm. Something to ponder as we drift in imagination among the islands. Listening to the loons echoing, echoing…

Oberholtzer Foundation and Mallard Island in Rainy Lake

04/15/2026

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