ELY – A common pattern seems to emerge as new residents talk about why and how they transitioned their lives to make the Ely area their home.

Four people described their journey here during a special edition of the Tuesday Group gathering this week. Elton Brown presented another segment of introducing new people, called, “New Elyites,” that included introductions from Tom Roller, Sam and Beth Rice, Mark Kawell, and Denis Miller.

The people, the land, and the unique way of life all played a part in their journey.

Tom planned to be joined by his wife, Alicia, but she couldn’t attend the gathering. They are both employed at Piragis Northwoods Co., and she had to work.

“For many years I took trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with my dad,” he said. They always rented canoe trip gear from Piragis and made many great friends and connections.

“About three years ago, I was to make another trip up here with my dad, but he had to back out at the last minute,” Tom said. “Alicia decided to step in. She was my fiancé at the time and I couldn’t think of a better way to see if this lady was really the one for me.”

He said she did great on her first BWCA adventure. “She got bit by the guide’s dog. She stabbed herself with a filet knife, but we came back in one piece,” he said. “She decided to still marry me a month later.”

After that trip, he made a comment to one of the friends he made in Ely that it would be cool to live and work up here. “I was offered a job on the spot for both of us for the summer as outfitters at Piragis. He said they returned to Colorado and quickly decided to quit their jobs, “be crazy,” and move to Ely for the summer.

“That was in 2014 and it was one of the best summers of our life,” he said. As things sometimes just come together, he knew a person at the grocery store he managed in Colorado who happened to have a house in Ely. “That was just too crazy,” Tom said.

After that summer season, it was time to go back to Colorado. “The day before we were to leave, I found out Piragis needed a manager for the retail store,” he said. “Another door opened up for us, and we came back here in April of 2015 with all of our stuff.”

He described the experience of working at Piragis. “It was a huge opportunity for us. Full-time jobs are hard to come by in Ely,” he said. “We are really blessed.” Alicia continues to work in the outfitting department while he manages the store. “It has been great that we can work together. Some people might struggle with working with their wife, but I absolutely love it.”

Sam and Beth Rice have a connection to Ely through Camp Du Nord, and the Twin Cities YMCA organization. “We have a similar story,” Beth said. “We met while working together at a camp in Georgia. We went to school in the Twin Cities and have been part of Camp Du Nord since 2000,” she said. “Working together has been a blessing.”

Sam said as they lived in their big house in the Twin Cities that was now empty of their children, he felt he could use a change.

“I think that we like that part of ourselves the best that is when we are up here,” Sam said. “We find that as well with the kids who come to work up at Du Nord. They find that they like that part of themselves when they are there.”

They sold their house down state, closed up shop there and moved to the Ely area full time last January. “When we are out cleaning cabins at minus 20 and there’s blowing snow, we just look at each other and say, ‘God, I love this.’”

“Everybody knows what they have up here,” Sam said. “It is the most resilient, stoic, uncomplaining group of people I have ever seen in my life. That is so refreshing.”

He is still unable to make his final disconnect from the outside world. “I just can’t seem to let go of my online subscription to the Pioneer Press,” he said.

He said he has joined many retirees in making the move to Ely and appreciates being able to infuse the economy. The problem is, Sam, who has been in a health care career for 20 years in the Twin Cities, still works in the Emergency Room at the Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital. “I see a few familiar faces,” he said. “I can’t recognize some of you with your clothes on.”

“I don’t hunt or fish, but I’m learning to do the stuff you do up here,” Sam said. “I never did cross-country skiing in my life, and now I’m on skis almost every day of the winter.” Their 20-something daughters frequently visit the couple. “They just love it here,” he said.

Mark Kawell has been a frequent visitor to Ely for a number of years. He is now a resident of the Eagles Nest 3 area, having bought property there in 1992. His career as an architect, general contractor and land developer in the metro area came in handy as he built his house primarily by himself.

He showed photographs of many of the organically designed, custom-made, residential structures. He still works at his career while living here.

His connection to the Ely area dates back to his parents’ honeymoon on Moose Lake in the 1940s. Mark came to Ely for the first time in 1961 and started canoeing in the area in 1967. “I did a lot of winter camping well before it was particularly popular,” Mark said. “I spent a couple of evenings in a tent when it was 40 below zero. I didn’t do a lot of winter camping after that.”

Kawell also works at photography and has had his work displayed in galleries and published in magazines.

He talked about the custom design work he did on his own cabin. He reused lumber from another home he dismantled. “I built my cabin in such a way that I only needed to remove two trees on the lot, which is in the middle of a pine forest,” he said.

Denis Miller is in the midst of transitioning his life and career to Ely to join his wife, Cindy, who just recently made the permanent move here.

He was born in Texas, and raised in northwest Illinois. “I raised calves to pay my way through the University of Illinois, and earned a degree in engineering in 1969,” he said.

He promptly moved to LaCrosse, Wis., to learn about the new HVAC (heating, venting and air conditioning) industry he was about to enter. “During that time, a couple of buddies and myself went to this far away place and did a Boundary Waters trip,” Denis said. “I was so enamored with it, that I told my wife to check it out on her way back from a trip out east. She set up a fly-in trip to the Quetico that next year, and we’ve been coming back to Ely every year since about 2000.”

They started out with a truck camper, then bought a motor home, then rented a cabin, then decided to buy a place. “We’ve been working our way toward being here full time ever since,” he said.

“We have more friends here than we do in Denver,” Denis said. “I’ve been to the opera only once in my life, and that was here in Ely.”