Sighting the "old" cottage on Mullett Lake

On the front porch of the cottage on Mullett Lake (Mike, age 10; Joe and Adam, age 6)

Our family's love affair with inland lakes started long ago on Mullett Lake. By the time Ken married me, he had been renting the Panella cottage (on Mullett Lake Road, southeast side of the lake) with his two boys for three years. After we were married in 1988, we continued the tradition with our three boys every year through the summer of 2001. There are many great stories to be told about those years, and we have albums full of photos of the boys, Jonna, and many visitors including Grandma and Grandpa Woodruff.

While on our Inland Waterway trip with the Schneiders, we motored up close to the southeast edge of the lake to see if we could spot the old place. And when I say "old," I mean the site of the old place, now occupied by a decidedly un-quaint new home.

Just before the last year we rented the place, the Panella's tore down their little red cabin and built a shiny new updated home (in preparation for retirement, no doubt). That proved to be the end of our Mullett Lake tradition. With the boys getting older and summer together-time getting scarcer, the loss of the old, familiar cottage was the last straw.

In 2001, we drove up to the cottage separately for some reason--Joe and Adam with me and Ken later. The boys and I had a bit of time to process our own disorientation with the strange and sterile new home by the time Ken arrived. He got out of his car, took one look at the two story garage and home where our cozy red cabin used to stand and said, "Fuck."

That was the last year we rented on Mullett Lake. We attempted to establish a new tradition of renting, but weren't able to find a suitable place or time. (The story of our two stays on Torch Lake is for another time.) So we drifted along with good intentions but without a family gathering place for several years.

Then in 2007, that fateful email from Sharon Emery arrived in my inbox, with pictures of the lake lot on the lane where they owned property. That email led to my PowerPoint pitching the idea to Ken, which led to our trips up north to look at property, which led (in rather short order) to our purchase of the cottage on Black Lake.

But I digress.

Back to the Inland Waterway excursion. We did find the Panella cottage, and although the house stirred no memories, the lakefront, the bench, the bifurcated birch tree, and the dock (upon which our Black Lake dock is based) were still as we remembered.

The Panella cottage as seen from the lake on August 8, 2013