Written by Park Ranger Erik Ditzler
The US Civil War led to a surprising bit of legislation. As our young country grew and expanded, settlers moved west into the new territories for agriculture. A difficult task for little payoff.
Congress had for years, tried to pass legislation encouraging people to take on the task of moving into the new west, but there was much opposition. Northern industrialists feared many of their workers may move out of the crowded cities and abandon their factory jobs, if given any incentive to do so. Southern slave owners were worried that rapid settlement in the west would create new states populated by small farmers opposed to slavery. With the secession of the southern states, the opportunity to pass legislation had come. The obstructionist Southern Democrats left Congress, so in the early years of the Civil War the Homestead Act of 1862 was passed. It opened unoccupied public lands for pioneers to legally call their own. Settlers from the crowded cities could move west to less populated states and territories and create a new life for themselves. They were offered 160 acres for a small fee, and after 5 years of residence and improving the land, it would be theirs. What a deal! Homesteading could be difficult but rewarding.
We can only imagine the difficulties that Northern Minnesota’s extreme seasons posed to its earliest settlers. Few roads led to what would eventually become Voyageurs National Park in the years after the Homestead Act was passed, but that didn’t mean people wouldn’t try to build a life here. Homesteaders were promised rich farmland - if they could drain the marshes and clear the timber.
A 1909 article in The Farmer – Minnesota’s major farm magazine of the day – proclaimed that Northern Minnesota had 7 million acres of swampland which, when drained, could be developed into some of the richest farms in the world. The sale of trees would pay for the clearing of the land. The author claimed that the region would lead all others in raising livestock and dairy products. In the article, Northern Minnesota was named “the very best place in which these city people going back to the land might settle”. These accolades weren’t exactly honest, but they probably did encourage hardy people to homestead in the North Woods. (Drache, Hiram “Taming the Wilderness” 1992)
Around the time the Homestead Act was passed, Finnish immigration to the United States was at its height. 1864 to 1924 saw around 300,000 Finnish immigrants, primarily farmers and unskilled labor, cross the Atlantic looking to start a new life. The climate and forests of northern Minnesota would have held a certain familiarity for these newcomers from the Nordic nation of Finland, as they did for the many Norwegian and Swedish immigrants here.
Walter Kaukola’s cabin on Kubel Island
A Finnish immigrant named Walter Kaukola was issued a homestead of 36 acres on Kubel Island, on Namakan Lake. In many ways, Walter was typical of those Finnish immigrants of the period. He was born in Finland in 1890 and was Walter Kaukola’s Cabin a lifelong bachelor. He earned his living here as a trapper and worked in the nearby logging camps. He built a simple cabin in 1922, and after living there and improving the land, took ownership of the homestead in 1929.
There was another Finn living on Kubel Island when Walter had his cabin there. Lydia Torry emigrated around the same time as Walter from Finland with her brother. She traveled with him to Virginia, MN where he worked in the mines. Lydia was introduced to, and wrote letters to another Finnish immigrant, Emil Torry, a commercial fisherman on Namakan Lake. After a year or so of correspondence, he eventually invited Lydia to visit his cabin on Kubel Island, and they later married. Emil died in 1954 when he drowned on Kabatogema Lake. She would continue to live alone in the cabin until the 1980s, always embodying the pioneering spirit of the immigrants from Finland.
Lydia Torry with her dog and sled, hauling ice for drinking water
Lydia remarked that Namakan Lake “almost looked like my old country”. Its rocky islands and forests reminded her of Finland, and of the home she left as a young girl. She raised rabbits, chickens, and grew vegetables on her corner of the rocky island, surviving alone on the island for much of the rest of her life. Eventually, poor health would force her into an assisted living facility in town.
Lydia’s fish house and ice house were knocked down in a storm years ago, and her cabin no longer looks out over Namakan Lake, but her story is there to inspire and amaze us to this day. Nearby, a campsite named Torry Fish Camp was built with funds from Lydia Torry’s estate. Here, visitors camp on the same island she called home, surrounded by the same trees, stars, and sounds of nature that kept her company all those years ago.
Luckily, Walter’s cabin survives. If you have an adventurous spirit and a boat, you can find your way to Kubel Island and walk the shorelines and paths that Walter and Lydia patrolled for half a century. It is fascinating to imagine what the bachelor and widow may have said to each other on that lonely island.
The Kaukola cabin is a wonderful example of a hand-built cabin, constructed from materials harvested on site. It is presently maintained by the National Park Service as one of four Discovery Sites in Voyageurs National Park and can still be visited on Namakan Lake.
