Taking stock after a crazy week

REGIONAL— Last week, as fires raged, smoke billowed, and people rushed to get out of harm’s way, there was little time to think about the economic fallout for the many businesses affected by the evacuations and closure of the Boundary Waters.
This week, as fire conditions eased somewhat and much of the smoke cleared, there was time to take stock. The outlook is uncertain at best, devastating at worst.
“I shouldn’t be looking at all my canoes in the parking lot this time of year,” said Ginny Nelson, with Spirit of the Wilderness Outfitters. With that, she succinctly summed up the situation for dozens of outfitters, resort owners, and other business owners in the Ely area and surrounding communities, who have watched an otherwise busy summer come to a hard stop in the wake of the July 6 outbreak of wildfires across northern St. Louis and Lake counties and points north in Canada.
For outfitters, in particular, the closure of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness during their usual peak season, portends an economic disaster, the scale of which will depend mostly on how much longer the closure continues.
While cooler temperatures and a little rain helped dampen fire conditions earlier this week, hotter and drier conditions are expected to return by the weekend, which could increase fire activity and smoke levels, all of which puts the timetable for reopening the wilderness in doubt.
“I think there’s going to be a little recession in Ely,” predicts Steve Piragis, co-owner of Piragis Northwoods Co., who said he’s already had to lay off some staff in the outfitting side of his business. Those who remain are there mostly to answer the phones as customers call to talk options for rebooking trips for the future, or check in on the current fire and smoke situation.
Piragis said his retail store is still seeing some traffic, but even there it’s clear the fires, smoke, and the wilderness closure are taking a toll.
As of Wednesday, the Forest Service had extended the wilderness closure until …
As the closure nears the two-week mark, the lost revenue is beginning to add up. Outfitters invest tens of thousands of dollars every year in the canoes and other gear they need to operate through the summer, and they pay off many of their vendors through payment plans that extend into their busy season, the time of year they generate their cash flow.
It’s a brutally short window, and outfitters can’t make up in October what they fail to earn in July. “This is the time we make the money to pay for that gear,” said Nelson. “September is when we generally start to turn a profit.”
That profit is likely to elude most outfitters this year.
But as bad as conditions are right now, Nelson acknowledges it could be worse. She said she’s still seeing a little traffic in the retail store and she’s encouraged by some folks who have stopped in specifically to spread some money around just to help out during a difficult time.
Nelson said she has particular sympathy for the outfitters and resorts located in evacuation zones, who don’t have the relative luxury of a few retail sales to fall back on.
Out at the end of the Fernberg, outfitter and resort operator Bob LaTourell, said he’s been too busy to even think about the financial hit he’s taking following the evacuation order from the Camp Fire.
Besides prepping for the evacuation of his own operation, LaTourell had four of his towboats going nearly round-the-clock last week, pulling evacuating canoeists out of the wilderness.
As dire as the conditions seem, LaTourell sounded some optimism that firefighters and Mother Nature might get the fires under control sooner rather than later. They’ve made tremendous progress in recent days,” he said. “Hopefully we won’t have any more 102-degree heat and 30 mile-an-hour winds.”
That’s a hope shared by Chuck Huber, who co-owns Big Lake Wilderness Lodge with his wife Cheryl. Big Lake is a spectacular, wilderness-edge haven just off the Echo Trail, and Huber said their 16 cabins were 100-percent booked through July and August. But they’ve been shut down since the middle of the month, due to an evacuation order over the massive Bear Trap Fire, which has moved to within a mile of their resort.
“It’s been horrible,” said Huber. “You’re going 90 miles an hour in peak season, then have to just lock up the brakes.” Cash flow dropped to nothing and even went backward as he had to return some of the deposits customers had paid out to reserve cabins he could no longer rent.
Still, he’s thankful for the incredible efforts of the firefighters who have been working each day to protect his resort and the neighboring one, Lodge of the Whispering Pines, just down the road. “This Forest Service crew on the whole Echo Trail, they’re incredible. They’ve brushed everything out. They’re laying water lines. They just don’t slow down. Right now, I feel like we’re in pretty decent shape, but then again, we’ve seen what fire can do.”
Huber, like most of the business owners hurting right now, is eagerly waiting for things to return to normal. He said he’s trying to hold onto reservations that are still on the books in hopes that the evacuation order lifts soon.
That’s a common refrain.
While some of LaTourell’s outfitting customers have pulled the plug on their planned Boundary Waters trips, he said others are showing flexibility and still hope to make a trip yet this summer. If that happens, outfitters might still be able to limit the damage.
That’s Nelson’s hope. “Right now, we’re just telling clients we’re taking it one day at a time. We’re asking folks to sit tight if they can. It’s hard to tell people not to come up, because this is our livelihood.”
Smoke a major factor
While some recent modest rainfall hasn’t come close to extinguishing the fires, it has slowed fire activity and the generation of smoke, both in the Boundary Waters and adjacent northwestern Ontario. That helped to clear the skies from the hazardous levels of smoke the region experienced late last week. While air quality alerts from both the EPA and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency had suggested the continuation of hazardous conditions through the weekend and into this week, the skies had largely cleared by Saturday.
That errant forecast, which undoubtedly prompted many who had planned visits to the area to change their minds, was a costly one for the region.
Better air quality would at least help those area businesses that are suffering mostly from the general drop in visitation to the area. Take the bait and tackle business, for example. Traffic at Arrowhead Outdoors is down about 70 percent compared to the usual mid-summer trend, according to owner and operator Steve Renneberg. And that’s too bad, said Renneberg, given that the fishing “is really good right now.”
Making the case for assistance
While natural disasters, like floods or droughts, routinely prompt rescue packages for affected businesses, that hasn’t been the case for businesses in the area in the aftermath of previous closures of the Boundary Waters. But those closures— the most recent in 2021— came later into the season and were relatively short-lived. With this one possibly dragging on for weeks, some of the affected businesses are hoping for a helping hand.
“Farmers get bailed out,” said Piragis, noting that the outfitting business is nearly as dependent on the weather as farming.
“I would love for them to entertain some economic help,” agreed Nelson, who sounded doubtful, nonetheless. “We’ve never had an assistance package with the other fires,” she noted. “I’m not hopeful about it.”
But there will be a discussion about it this time around, and organizations like the Ely Chamber of Commerce are hoping for a full-court press on lawmakers to figure out some way to help businesses hurt by the situation.
That discussion will take place in earnest at a roundtable discussion sponsored by the chamber, set for 11:30 a.m. on Friday, July 24, at the Vermilion Community College auditorium. Sen. Grant Hauschild and Rep. Roger Skraba will both be present to hear from businesses and individuals who have been hurt economically by the fire and evacuations.
Hauschild said he wants to hear specific stories from businesses in order to make the case for action to other lawmakers. “I don’t know what the answer is,” said Hauschild. “But I will do everything I can to make sure they are championed down at the Legislature to make sure they get some relief.”