Freivalds: Is the cabin getaway really worth it?

Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates (MLRA) note that “seasonal property owners occupy/utilize their properties on average only 55 days a year.”

Not a Minnesota native, I have been struggling to find out what the attraction is. I have used friends’ cabins two hours away near Hinckley, Rice Lake and Amery, Wisconsin; three hours away in Hayward, Wisconsin; and five hours away in Ely. All are on lakes and all have neighbors right next door and the constant hum of personal watercraft and fat-tire pickup trucks with loud bumblebee mufflers all day long.

Peace and quiet? Do I need to mention the constant and enervating presence of millions of dive-bombing black flies and mosquitoes? And if you are not retired and cannot go up during a weekday, Interstate 35, Interstate 94 and U.S. Highway 169 are packed to the gills going north on Friday and the same going south on Sundays.

All the Zup’s markets in Ely, Babbitt, Aurora, Tower, Silver Bay and Cook are full of cabineers buying sausages surrounded by signs warning you not to put your trash in their dumpsters. And I pity the poor millennials who find that it’s hard to get Wi-Fi up north.

Then there is the urban legend that there are fewer rules to deal with up north. Yet the DNR rules up north are sometimes more onerous than zoning rules in the city. Tired of having their shoreline eroded by speeding watercraft, my friends had rocks dumped all along their shoreline. The DNR then said to remove them for A. you didn’t ask us first and B. it is not natural.

My friends fought the DNR and won with the argument the shoreline erosion caused by all the speedboats wasn’t natural either! Every little town up north has signs that warn you: “Zoning Laws Enforced.”

Minnesota Bench Bar put it this way: “Owning a place up north is the stuff of Minnesotans’ dreams but along with rustic setting and the sun-dappled shoreline there comes a thicket of laws, regulations and potential boundary disputes that a wise would-be purchaser will get to know.”

Yet 86 percent of Minnesota cabin property owners indicated to MLRA they would not sell their property in the next three years even though the permanent residents of small northern towns have little affection for the migrators. And some communities even try to hike the property tax rate for nonpermanent residents whose average age is 68 and annual income around $60,000. Again, the MLRA found that 75 percent of seasonal property owners do not believe that there is a correlation between their tax bill and the services they receive.

“It’s getting away, stupid” is how a cabin owner explained going up every year.

MLRA estimates only 8 percent of seasonal property owners buy a cabin as an investment. It is a place to get away, change the narrative and for the family to congregate.

My wife, Linda, and I are hopeless in that we spent our cabin money to build a fancy screened-in porch with high pine ceilings overlooking a marsh surrounded by woods. Here every type of animal and bird in Minnesota comes to visit. (OK, no bears or moose yet but we did have a possum this week!)

This porch investment then enables us to get great sausages from Kramarczuk’s Sausage Factory in Nordeast Minneapolis just 20 miles away and not the 200 miles we would have to drive to get equally savory Zup’s sausages.

Bottom line, whether it’s up north or in the Twin Cities, hopefully you’ve got your little “heaven on earth.”