CRANE LAKE- A century of family history drew well over 500 people to Handberg’s Marina on Saturday, Aug. 1, filling a sprawling dining tent and keeping lines moving steadily for food and ice cream until both were gone.
The tent, pitched in the yard in front of the gift shop, provided dining space for about 250 people, while scores more gathered outside. Historical panels mounted along the main office building traced Handberg’s development from Handberg’s Northwoods Lodge to the full-service marina now preparing to pass into its fifth generation of family ownership.
For Jeff Sanborn, who owns and operates Handberg’s with his wife, Lori, the turnout was overwhelming. Now 60, he said he has been part of the business for 57 years.
“It’s more of a stewardship thing than an ownership thing,” he said. “I was joking earlier, it’s our turn to pay the taxes for 30 years and then someone else can do it for 30 years.”
Some families have been Handberg’s customers for nearly as long as the business has existed, including some relationships extending across four generations.
“It’s kind of a cool thing. It’s a great thing,” Sanborn said. “It makes you want to get up and do it every day.”
The Handberg family’s North Country story began in Norway. According to the family history presented Saturday, Peter Handberg emigrated to the United States in the late 1800s with his eldest son, Jack. The family first settled in Crystal Falls, Mich., where Peter worked in iron mining, and later moved to Ely.
Jack came to Crane Lake in 1910 to work for the recently established U.S. Forest Service. There, he met Ruby Gund, whose family was homesteading on land now occupied by Nelson’s Resort.
Jack and Ruby married and started Northwoods Lodge in the early 1920s. The family dates the formal establishment of Handberg’s to 1926, when it became a Johnson Outboard dealer.
The business endured the Great Depression, World War II, fires, floods, the creation of Voyageurs National Park, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Along the way, each generation reshaped it to meet changing needs at Crane Lake.
Jack and Ruby’s son Gil and his wife, Edna, eventually took over, becoming sole owners in 1962. Gil moved the business increasingly away from its lodge origins and toward boat and motor work.
Gil and Edna’s only daughter, Shirley, married Jim Sanborn in 1965. They took over Handberg’s in 1969, beginning the Sanborn chapter of the family business. Shirley, representing the family’s third generation of operators, was among those attending Saturday’s celebration.
Their grandson Scott Sanborn, who presented much of the family history Saturday, credited Jim with developing the marina operation familiar to customers today. At the time, he said, Handberg’s had little more than a dock with a T at the end.
Jim began adding rental slips, and the first indoor boat-storage building was constructed in 1977. There are now five.
“It’s really cool to see the old photos of a dock with another dock tied to it compared to what we have now,” Scott said. “It’s just, it’s cool. It’s amazing.”
Jeff and Lori married in 1994 and took over operations the following year. Lori developed and expanded the gift shop, while Jeff built the boat, motor, and marine-service sides of the operation. Handberg’s partnered with Yamaha Motors in 2001 and added its Marine Sales and Service building in 2018.
The marina employs a core group of year-round workers along with additional seasonal employees. For many of its customers, dependable boats are essential for transportation as well as recreation.
“Our core customers are the cabin owners here, and a lot of them are water-access cabin owners here,” Jeff said. “We’re a big part of them being able to do that. They don’t worry about their boats. That’s off the table. We worry about their boats.”
Saturday’s celebration was designed in large part as a thank-you to those customers, employees, friends, and community members who sustained Handberg’s through the decades. The family planned to feed 500 people, a number the turnout apparently exceeded.
Following dinner, Jeff, Lori, and Scott addressed the crowd before drawings were held for an array of boating equipment and other prizes, including a Yamaha kicker motor.
“The woods, the water, the beauty, that is the attraction to this country we call home,” Jeff said. “But it’s really about people. Everyone. Customers, staff, friends, family. Just people.”
Lori emphasized the contributions of current and former employees, including some who have worked at Handberg’s for decades.
“A family business is not built by family alone. It’s built by the team,” she said. “We carry the family name, but you know, it takes a team to do it.”
Scott credited Handberg’s employee Elspeth Wallace with researching the family history displayed on the panels and helping organize the celebration.
The next generation is already at work. Jeff and Lori’s sons, John and Scott, grew up around the marina, handling boats and working on the docks. John later served five years in the U.S. Marine Corps, while Scott attended the University of North Dakota. Both have since returned to Handberg’s and intend to become its fifth generation of family operators.
“They’re in. They want to do it,” Jeff said. “They’ll go one more generation, five.”
Scott announced Saturday that the family is assembling a time capsule intended to be opened on Aug. 1, 2126, exactly 100 years after the celebration. Its planned contents include brochures, paper currency, current prices, information about the operation, and a letter from Scott to the future Handberg’s team describing how the business works today.
What that team and Handberg’s might look like a century from now is impossible to predict. Jeff’s hope for them was characteristically straightforward.
“I hope we can do another 100.”