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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Wintergreen is back

Ely clothing company settles dispute over rights to brand

Keith Vandervort
Posted 9/2/15

ELY – The Wintergreen name is back where it belongs.

To the cheers of their staff, founders Susan and Paul Schurke removed the temporary awning banner at their Sheridan Street store on Tuesday …

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Wintergreen is back

Ely clothing company settles dispute over rights to brand

Posted

ELY – The Wintergreen name is back where it belongs.

To the cheers of their staff, founders Susan and Paul Schurke removed the temporary awning banner at their Sheridan Street store on Tuesday to reveal the Wintergreen name – this time for good. 

The event followed a year-long tug-of-war over trademark rights between the Schurkes, who founded the company in 1989, and its recent owners, Curt and Becky Stacey.  A legal settlement returned rights to the brand and its full name, Wintergreen Northern Wear, to the Schurkes, who also operate Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge on White Iron Lake.

“We got our name back on Monday and we couldn’t be happier,” Susan said as she gathered with employees Tuesday afternoon to watch her husband Paul remove the old sign banner from the front awning to reveal their new, old sign.

With temperatures reaching 80 degrees, the staff donned the company’s winter coats for the occasion. “I’m sweating, but it’s worth it,” Susan said.

The Staceys bought the clothing company from the Schurkes in 2009, but went out of business in 2013.  In October 2014, the Schurkes repurchased the main building and some of the production equipment and resumed production of the Wintergreen clothing line. 

The Staceys responded by challenging the Schurkes’ use of the Wintergreen name and threatened legal action for trademark infringement.  As the issue ground through legal channels during the past year, the Schurkes continued operating instead under the name “Susan Schurke’s Northwoods Apparel.”

In June, the issue became contentious when the Staceys attempted to thwart business efforts by placing misleading posts on the Wintergreen Northern Wear Facebook site, which they still had access to. 

“In these posts, the Staceys claimed they were reopening the company themselves and moving production to China. They later acknowledged to Ely area newspapers that their claims were false and the Facebook site was shut down,” Paul said.

“It feels great to finally be free of those headaches,” Susan said.  “Our staff is elated to be sewing Wintergreen labels on our garments again.”  

Now that the legal challenges are behind them, the Schurkes will be sprucing up their building with a new sign with raised lettering on the prominent west wall: “Wintergreen Northern Wear, Made with Pride in Ely.”

The 26-year-old company, whose apparel line is renowned for a layered jacket system called the “anorak,” currently has 12 full and part-time employees and plans to have its new Wintergreen Northern Wear website up and running later this month. 

“We’re so pleased to be pumping life back into that building and to be part of the downtown community again at a time when Ely is clearly on a roll,” Susan said.

“We are just so happy to get this kerfuffle behind us so we can move on,” Paul said. As he took measurements along the west exterior wall for the new signage. “We’re going to paint this side and put new windows in and we’ll have a new sign up there. It will really look nice.”