Listening Point in History ...by Milt Stenlund

The area of Listening Point is rich in human cultures and history. Indian cultures beginning some 10,000 years ago included the Paleo, Archaic, and Woodland cultures. Present day native Americans are the Ojibwe whose members were present for six decades on Indian Island in Burntside Lake. These cultures had a water travel route from Lake Vermilion to Burntside and the waters off the Point were a junction where travelers took routes to Lac La Croix or to Basswood Lake. In the late 1900s, timber cruisers, mineral prospectors, homesteaders and land surveyors used this canoe route. The developers of the Ely mines passed the Point enroute to the Burntside River and Long Lake (now Shagawa). The area was surveyed in 1880-81 and several homesteads were claimed on the west end of the lake within site of the Point. Many of the area homesteads were sold to lumber companies who encouraged this activity.

A logging dam was built at the outlet of Burntside River within sight of the Point and the lake level was raised two to four feet. The first raft of logs went through the dam in the spring of 1895. The shores and woodlands of Burntside, Crab and Geraldine Lakes were cut by the Knox, St. Croix, Swallow and Hopkins and Oliver companies in the following 20 years. The rafts or booms of logs were pulled across the lake by a steam powered barge. The remains of one still can be seen in Hoist Bay west of the Point. Here logs were hoisted from the bay and loaded on rail cars. Logs up to 14 inches in diameter were used by the Oliver Mining Company as support timbers in the Ely mines. By 1920 the logging boom was over and the two large sawmills in Winton were closing.

Despite the heavy logging activities, Martin Pattison, mining entrepreneur, P.T. Brownell, Ely businessman, and Andrew Hall, mining man, built summer homes on the lake before 1900. Pattison Island and its log home is still used by the Pattison family.

Burntside Lodge begun in 1914, and Camp Van Vac were early resort ventures. Burntside Lodge is now a National Historic Site. Listening Point has become part of the history of Burntside Lake.

Milt Stenlund grew up in Ely where he was a student of Sigurd Olson's at the Ely Junior College. After service in the Pacific during World War II with the 5th Army Air Corps, he earned a Bachelor and Masters degree at the University of Minnesota in Wildlife Management and spent 35 years with the Minnesota DNR. Milt has published numerous technical and popular articles on wildlife and regional history and has lived on Burntside Lake summers with his wife Althea since 1956.