Sisu Designs

Below is the current information about our Fall and Winter retreats in Minnesota. If you would like to learn more about our Spring retreats in New Mexico, please visit our  Ghost Ranch page.

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We currently have one Minnesota knitting retreat scheduled for this Winter at Camp Du Nord  (see below). . .

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Lost In The Woods Knitting Retreats - Minnesota Locations

Over the years, we have held our knitting retreats at facilities on a number of different lakes in the Ely area, as well as on Lake Vermilion, which is a few miles west of Ely. Currently we are using Camp Widjiwagan and Camp Du Nord.

Camp Widjiwagan is a YMCA youth camp facility, owned by the St. Paul YMCA, which we have been using for many years. Our Widji retreats typically begin with dinner at 6:00 pm on a Friday and end on Sunday with lunch. Usually all meals are prepared and served in Kirby Hall by the Widji staff, but sometimes we do a potluck meal for dinner on Friday evening. We have done both Fall and Winter retreats at Widji.  You are actually welcome to arrive on Thursday at no extra charge, and some of our knitters choose to do that, although you will be on your own for your meals until the official beginning of the retreat with supper on Friday.

Camp Widjiwagan is about a 12 mile drive north of Ely. (See map) It is in a forest of wonderful aspen, birch, spruce and old pines along the shore of Burntside Lake - our most beautiful clear water lake near Ely. Widji is a "Y" camp for kids so we sleep in bunk beds (bottom beds only, unless you're willing and able to climb to a top one) in dorm-like rooms. Bring your own bedding or sleeping bag, pillow, towel, soap, flashlight, personal reading light, and a swimming suit (if you wish) for the wood fired sauna down by the lake. We can also jump in the lake - fall or winter - after getting all steamed up in the sauna. For all the brave souls who are up to taking the plunge when the lake is frozen over, the staff keeps a hole open through the ice! We wear socks for running through the snow to the lake and back.

Possible fall retreat "camp" activities include canoing, walking, hiking, bird watching, and photography, as well as knitting outdoors.  We are usually here during the peak of our autumn colors, and the show Mother Nature puts on for us is always wonderful.  Picture the reds, oranges, golds, yellows and purples against a background of the evergreens, the lake and the sky, full of vibrancy as well as subtlety.  The scene is more muted during our winter retreats and beautiful in different ways.  White snow covering both ground and lake, with bare trunks and branches backed by a somewhat darker evergreen decorated with snow. The low sun in the blue sky provides a different kind of light show for us that can vary from subdued to brilliant and subtle to dramatic.  Walking in the winter wonderland, bird watching and photography are still options, along with cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

The new Sigurd Olson Center (SOC) is a wonderful big room for people to spread out and knit, and for us to display shop yarns, patterns, needles, etc. Two new nearby cabins - East and West Wind - sleep 8 people each on bottom bunks and also provide indoor bathrooms. There are also a couple of other cabins nearby that require a short walk to use the bathrooms in the Shower House. All showers are in the shower house.

Our next retreat at Camp Widjiwagan . . . Friday - Sunday . . . September 30 - October 2, 2011

View the retreat description - download retreat info PDF- download registration form PDF

Camp Du Nord is another YMCA camp facility - this one a family camp - which is also owned by the St. Paul YMCA. Our retreats begin with supper at 6:00 PM on a Friday and end on Sunday with lunch. We do our own breakfasts in our cabins (which have full kitchens) and the Du Nord staff serves us Saturday lunch and dinner, plus Sunday lunch in their large, new dining hall which they will shuttle us to and from in their minibus, though many people choose to walk. You are actually welcome to arrive on Thursday at no extra charge, and many of our knitters choose to do that, although you will be on your own for your meals until the official beginning of the retreat with supper on Friday.

Camp Du Nord is just a little further down the North Arm Road from Camp Widjiwagan (See map), so it is also in a forest of wonderful aspen, birch, spruce and old pines along the shore of Burntside Lake - our most beautiful clear water lake near Ely. We will be staying in four of their beautiful, new Pine Pointe cabins. Bring your own bedding or sleeping bag, pillow, towel, soap, flashlight, personal reading light. We will be knitting in the Morning Glory Program Center which is near our cabins and up high with a great view and a fireplace.

The suggestions for fall and winter retreat "camp" activities for Widji (above) apply also to Camp Du Nord.  Du Nord has an especially well developed trail system for hiking and cross-country skiing.  In fact, this is quite likely the best cross-country ski area in Minnesota, both for its wilderness beauty and for the interesting skiing which ranges from easy to somewhat challenging.

Our next retreat at Camp Du Nord . . . Friday - Sunday . . . February 3 - 5, 2012

View the retreat description - download retreat info PDF- download registration form PDF

* As an extra note of interest, my husband, Carl, helped design and draw plans for Camp Du Nord's Morning Glory Program Center and a couple of the Pint Pointe cabins, as well as several other Du Nord buildings. He also helped design and draw plans for Camp Widjiwagan's Winds cabins and several other Widji buildings, including the roof system log work for their new Sigurd Olson Center building. The web site for his home-based business is at Architectural Drafting & Design .  (His web page should open in a new browser window so, when you are done viewing it, you may close that window to return to this page.)

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