Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mothers in the Keweenaw.

We have now made available the ability to order the KML Mother’s Day Take and Go Box.

Today and tomorrow we are accepting orders for the KML Mother’s Day Take and Go Box. The boxes can be bought for the entire family. They are advanced ordered, and can be picked up at the Lodge on Sunday, May 10th, between 8am and 4pm.

The Mother’s Day Take and Go Box menu:

• Appetizer: choose one option – Fish dip or hummus, with our housemade bread
• Salad: choose one option – Garden or spinach
• Soup: Vegetarian minestrone
• Main Dish: Chicken roulade, with wine sauce — served with vegetables and rice
• Dessert: Chocolate dipped shortbread cookies, with orange zest

There is a limited number of boxes available, and we will offer the boxes for as long as we have these boxes. After that we will close the ability to purchase the boxes online.

And yes, we would have loved to celebrate Mother’s Day with everyone at the Lodge this Sunday. The atmosphere at the Lodge is wonderful. The resort provides a historic, rustic environment, where the fire in one of the grandiose fireplace is special and authentic for a wilderness experience.

Until we can open up to the Lodge facility for lingering by the general public, we continue to be provide a safe and healthy environment for our staff, our customers, and supporters of how we are marrying the history with the future to get to a progressive and vibrant present.

As we think about the history, and look to the future, we wish everybody a Happy Mother’s Day.

Reminder: We are now a cashless resort, all payments are made via credit or debit card.

We are now open for the 2020 Summer Season. As of April 30th, we opened our dining services (take-out only). And as of May 1st, lodging is open again to the general public.

Our dining services are available for take-out only, as the state of Michigan is under an executive order that only allows restaurants to operate their take-out operations. This means we are not able to allow customers to eat in our dining room, nor in the bar, or at the cafe. Rather, customers purchase food from our take-out menu and are able to eat outside on the Lodge property, take the food with them on a hike,  or back to their homes.

During the month of May, we plan on having the take-out dining services open Thursday-Sunday (see hours of operations).  We will make modifications to the take-out menu each week in order to keep our menu fresh.  You can see the take-out menu we opened up with for the first weekend: April 30th – May 3rd menu.

You will discover we offer a limited menu, which is our style as we work to provide patrons authentic rustic food at Lodge.

Our lodging services opened up on May 1st again to the general public. We had 6 cabins open during the winter time for a limited group — friends, and friends of friends of the Lodge. This enabled us to test the cabin infrastructure in winter conditions, and help us make a decision to be open year-round with lodging.  On May 1st, we let the general public know they can stay in the cabins at the Lodge.  Over the course of the month we will open up more cabins. 

Both the dining services and lodging services are being operated according to the state’s executive orders, and in a manner that keeps both staff and guests safe and healthy.

The golf course is scheduled to open for play on May 19th. The golf course maintenance crew will be working to get the course playable by that date. The golf services team is setting up the operations that will enable golfers to book their tee times online (or over the phone), and pay their green fees online (or over the phone).  The golf course will be walking only, no carts, during the month of May.

At 4pm today, Thursday, April 30th, we opened up the food and beverage operations for the 2020 season at the Lodge as scheduled.  However, rather than being able to let people into the dining room, bar and cafe to enjoy the facility, we are only able to offer take-out. 

We are only offering take-out for food at this time because of the executive orders and the health concern for staff and customers.  Thus, there is no dine-in at this time.  And as of tomorrow, we will have our cabins open for lodging, and cabin guests can have their food delivered to them.

More information can be found on our web site in the Dining Services -> Take-out Operations.

We have made the decision to cancel the Guest Chef program for the summer season. This is due to the uncertainty surrounding executive orders in the state of Michigan as it relates to dine-in and restaurants.

The executive orders that have been in place since March 16th in the state of Michigan, and are currently in place until May 15th, indicate that restaurants are not able to offer their dine-in services. We don’t know if these executive orders will be extended or not for dine-in activities.

We had already canceled the guest chef program that was slated to be the first weekend in May with Ben Hunter, and would parlay with the Michigan Tech graduation commencement activities. Michigan Tech had canceled their commencement in late March, and so it didn’t make sense for us to push to have the event even if we were allowed to have dine-in services.

Then this past week, it was discussed at the Lodge if we wanted to push this cool and innovative program with us not knowing if we would be able to offer dine-in services to patrons this summer. The next guest chef week was scheduled for June, and we were to have one each month through October.

If we are able, and feel comfortable, to offer dine-in services later this summer, we will look into the possibility of doing pop-up restaurants with guest chefs.

Until then, we are going to focus on making our bread-n-butter consistently EXCELLENT as a take-out, and eventually dine-in, once we are allowed and feel comfortable to have patrons inside the beautiful and historic Lodge facilities.

We currently are scheduled to open the food and beverage operations at the Lodge for the summer season on April 30th. We will start with take-out, and will open the dine-in activities when we are able and feel comfortable to do so.

Each month we highlight a picture from the Lodge based upon our core values. Here is the April 2020 fun.jouyous.adventuresome team member picture of the month.  

Where is Hank hiding? Hank Baron
[ …a throw back: February 25, 2020 ]

This picture was taken by the guest services lead, Janee Artrip, in February as the team was looking for windows that separated the bar area and the newly restored porch (part of the office-to-porch conversion).  She made the comment when posting the picture in our internal communication system (Slack): “Where is Hank hiding?”

The area that Hank is in in the picture is known to be where the golf pro lived when working during the summers at the Lodge in the early year.

We did find the missing window in the location that Hank is in in the picture.  You can see the windows in the picture below.

Each month we highlight a picture from the Lodge based upon our core values. Here is the March 2020 fun.jouyous.adventuresome team member picture of the month. There are actually 2 pictures this month, with 4 people in them 

Maintenance crew fun: Eric Johnson, Hank Baron, Matt Rastello, and Paul Ketola
[ March 28 & 29, 2020 ]

In March, we experienced the concept of social distancing. Staying 6 feet from one another was important.

In the first picture, Matt and Hank exhibit how we use radios on the property. Are Hank and Matt singing to each other or are they trying to figure out which roof to clear first for the roofing crew next week?

In the second picture, what are Eric and Paul measuring? Could it be associated with a distance of 6 feet? Or are we finishing up the flooring work to make the Lodge building stronger?

The facilities maintenance crew has been on property every day this winter, and continues to be strong. Keweenaw💪

After calls yesterday with leads from Events, Food and Beverage, and Lodging, the decision was made to cancel the first three special events in May. 

This entails “dissolving” the following special events:

• May 1-2: Michigan Tech Graduation – Guest Chef Weekend with Ben Hunter
• May 8-10: Mother’s Day Weekend Package, and Mother’s Day Lunch
• May 16-17: Back 9 Endurance Run

These decisions were made due to the uncertainty with the State of Michigan’s mandates that are being issued in association with the health concerns in the world at this time.

With the current situation, Michigan Tech decided to cancel their graduation commencement. Our first event in May, a guest chef program with Ben Hunter, was geared towards graduating Tech students and their families — to celebrate the graduation with a special feast. With graduation not taking place, we did not feel that we would be able to garner enough guests to warrant having the event (assuming we could hold the dine-in event based upon state mandates for restaurants).

For Mother’s Day weekend and lunch, with the unknown surrounding the operations of restaurants, we didn’t feel we could plan and execute well for a glorious Mother’s Day Lunch in the current situation and environment.

For the Back 9 Endurance Race, we were having people traveling from various locations around the country to run the 12- and 24-hour races at the Lodge.  We did not want our enthusiastic runners to be put in a spot of not being able to cancel their flights if we were not able to hold the event due to state mandates. Thus, we decided to make the decision now to cancel the race rather than wait until we were closer to the date of the event.

We will now focus on having our first special event of the 2020 season on May 23rd, which is a wedding. This is also Memorial Day weekend.

We will still plan on opening the Food and Beverage operations on April 30th, and Lodging on May 1st.

The current mandate from the governor of Michigan indicates that lodging and restaurants are considered essential businesses.  Thus, we are able to be open for operations. However, we will adjust how we can operate based upon if that mandate goes past our official opening date. For example, if we are not able to have dine-in services at that time because of a state mandate, we can figure out take-out operations to our guests in the cabins and others in the area of the Keweenaw. We take it step-by-step, and adjust accordingly.

This weekend the 40th Great Bear Chase is being held in Calumet on the SwedeTown Trails. It is a wonderful cross-country skiing race that exhibits the winter wonderful of the Keweenaw.

Date: Saturday, March 7, 2020

We are one of the supporting partners of the event, as we believe in what the event stands for, and that it supports outdoor activities in the Kewenaw.

Each month we highlight a picture from the Lodge based upon our core values. Here is the February 2020 fun.jouyous.adventuresome team member picture of the month.

Sled hill research, Mariah Summers
[ February 21, 2020 ]

In February, we made the decision that we would be open year round with the lodging (the cabins). This is after working the past two winters on testing and understanding the infrastructure of the cabins.  The resort has only been open 2 years in it’s previous 85 years of existence (winter of 2009 and 2010). Now we are working on figuring out the winter activities that will go along with staying in a cabin at the Lodge. Mariah volunteered to figure out where the best sledding / tubing location would be on property. She enjoys the winters of the Keweenaw, being a Calumet native — and now living year round in Hancock. You can see how much she enjoys the winter by how much she is smiling in this picture.

And here is an action-video of one of her first tubing runs at the Lodge.

At the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, we have been enjoying the winter wonderland of the Keweenaw and getting ready for the summer season.

Winter Test with 6 cabins, 2-Stages

Stage 1: For the first two months of the winter season we had friends stay in the cabins at different times to see if the cabin infrastructure could handle one-off stays in the weather conditions. This meant keeping the water running to the cabins, the temperature comfortable in the cabins, electricity powered on, and snow removed to make the cabins easily accessible. Stage 1 Results: Pass.

Stage 2: Starting in the middle of January, we increased the load on the cabin infrastructure. This meant having all 6 cabins being used at the same time. Although the utility bill increased accordingly with the temperatures constantly turned up above 68 degrees, the cabin infrastructure held up (even had one guest return for a 2nd stay). Water, heat, electricity, and snow were all manageable. This gives us confidence in moving forward with winter lodging. Stage 2 Results: Passing.

[ Reserve Your Cabins for 2020-2021 Winter ]

Gearing up for the summer season

The snow is deep; however, we continue to do the Yooper snow-2-step around the Lodge property each day of the week. We are busy getting ready for the summer season. This entails working on various projects, some of which are deferred maintenance projects and are much needed…

…while there are one or two projects that are bringing something new to the Lodge this year. As a result, lodging is starting to fill up for the summer season. Our lodging reservations are 75% higher compared to this time last year and we have every weekend in the summer booked with weddings and retreats.

[ Book summer lodging by March 1st and get a 10% discount ]
Use Promo Code “LODGE2020” for the discount

Dining services opening April 30th

The Little Cabin Cafe, the bar, and the dining room will open for the 2020 summer season on April 30th. We have now posted the dining service hours on our web site. We are in the process of building out menus for the summer.

[ Announcing our dining services hours ]

Mother’s Day Weekend stay and play package

Speaking of our dining services, we are getting ready for our Mother’s Day feast. The menu has been drafted and the schedule for the Mother’s Day Weekend activities has been finalized. We are now opening up the Mother’s Day Weekend Package reservations for people that are interested in staying the weekend at the Lodge. We have 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, and 3-bedroom cabins available with our Mother’s Day weekend package. [ Learn more ].

[ See the Lodge now via our Webcams ]

Fun.joyous.adventuresome team member picture of the month

Sled hill research, Mariah Summers (February 21, 2020)

Employment opportunities

If you are interested in being a team member at the Lodge, check out the current job openings or submit a general application. We have on-property employee housing available.

[ Employment opportunities at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge ]