The "Root Beer Lady"

The Dorothy Molder museum in Ely is worth seeing.  Dorothy was the last person living in the Boundary Waters.  They let her stay until she died even though the Boundary Waters was a designated wilderness where no people or cabins were supposed to remain.  She became known as the Root beer lady because she made homemade root beer and sold it to the canoeists.  Thousands of people stopped to see her during the summer months. 

They moved all of her cabins and personal belongings to a museum site in Ely.  There was a very old tiny cabin and a summer cabin and a winter cabin.  You can walk through them and see all of the stuff she had obtained over the years.  It would have been difficult to get everything to her cabin because it all had to be portaged in to where she lived. 

They still make and sell her root beer and you can buy it at the museum.  We bought a six pack -- the money goes to the museum -- it was very good.