Along the Shore

Jackie and Kelley Jackson on the job recently, snowmobiling in to appraise a remote property. | SUBMITTED

By Rae Poynter

TWO HARBORS—After falling in love with a house and having your offer accepted, an important part of the home-buying process is getting the house appraised. Unlike a market analysis, which a real estate agent uses to help price a home, an appraisal is conducted by a licensed or certified appraiser and is one of the steps in the closing process. But what goes into a property appraisal? And what is the job of an appraiser like?

Jackie Jackson is a Certified Real Estate Appraiser with Penfield Appraisers. Although based in Two Harbors, Jackie–together with her husband Kelley Jackson–travel all around Lake County and Cook County to appraise properties. If you’ve taken out a mortgage in Lake or Cook County in the last 20 years, there’s a decent chance that the Jacksons were the ones to appraise the property. It’s a job with quite a bit of variety: Jackie’s days are sometimes spent working on research and reports, and sometimes spent on the road visiting properties, from those right on Highway 61 to remote properties without road access.

“I became an appraiser because I was selling lake homes at Superior Shores,” she said. “My sister was working at a bank and she said that there was a shortage of appraisers in the area. I ended up meeting the people who owned the company I previously worked for and decided to take the classes I needed to become licensed.”

Appraisals can be required for several reasons, the most common being when a lending institution is lending money for a mortgage. (This is true whether it’s a new loan or refinancing an existing mortgage.) Since the property is the collateral on a mortgage, it needs to appraise for at least as high as the sale amount to protect the lender in case of a loan default. Therefore, as part of the borrowing process, the lender brings in a third-party appraiser to give an unbiased determination of the property’s value. If a home doesn’t appraise for high enough, the purchase may be delayed or fall through altogether. Thus, it’s important for appraisers to have a thorough understanding of the area in which they work to accurately assess a property’s value.

Apart from mortgages, appraisals might also take place for other reasons such as a divorce or for calculating estate taxes. Depending on the situation, Jackie said that they sometimes work directly with people buying or selling a property, but that the lending institution is the one who orders the appraisal for anyone in the process of getting a mortgage.

No matter what the reason for the appraisal, Jackie said that the process starts with a visit to the property. “We start by measuring the outside of the house, taking photos, and measuring all of the outbuildings. We consider the view, whether it has water frontage or whether it’s surrounded by woods. Then we go inside and go into all of the rooms to take photos and make notes of the construction materials. We also check the mechanicals, which include things like the furnace, electric or air conditioning, and make sure they’re in working order.”

After the property visit, Jackie compares the listing to other recent sales in the area, looking for properties that are similar in size and location. If it’s a lakefront property, she looks for recent sales on nearby lakes, and for townhomes and condos she looks at other sales in the same building. She uses the data both from her research and the site visit to create a final report, in which the appraised value is given.

Altogether, Jackie said that she enjoys the career path she has chosen. “I like getting to work with my husband as a team and getting to meet lots of nice and wonderful people. Lake and Cook counties are so beautiful, and I like that we don’t have to be at our desks all day and get to be on the road seeing lots of neat places.”

By Eric Chandler

DULUTH—Jonathan Rova is a cross-country skier who lives in Duluth and is a member of the board of directors of the Duluth Cross-Country Ski Club. He traveled to Sweden in February to participate in a unique celebration of their famous Vasaloppet XC ski marathon. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first Vasaloppet held in 1922. The annual race is 90k (55+ miles) long and attracts over 15,000 skiers, making it the biggest XC ski race in the world.

In 1922, there were only 139 skiers. To commemorate 100 years, the ski race held an event called the Jubileumsvasan (“Jubilee Vasa”). The organizers call it a “living museum.” Skiers used the same kind of skis, boots, and poles that skiers used in 1922. They wore clothing from that era. They skied the original course and even the people at the feed stations were encouraged to wear dress from the period. More than 500 people applied to ski and Rova was the only American picked to be one of the 139 reenactors.

Rova has skied in two editions of the modern Vasaloppet. How did he hear about the Jubileumsvasan? “I’m a dork,” Rova said. “You participate in these things and you start to love them. When I say, I’m a dork, I keep up on the skiing websites in Scandinavia. I saw that the Vasaloppet was doing this for their 100th anniversary…For me it was a combination of skiing, making my own skis…a confluence of all kinds of things that, if I got in, would be like a dream.”

Rova made his own skis, which wasn’t required, but something he wanted to do. “I’ve always been interested in the history of skiing. We had volumes of those in my library. And my grandpa, who was a carpenter, gave my dad his ski building tools which are a bunch of planes that he made specifically to make skis with.” Rova’s grandfather lived in Ely. At one point, his family found two pairs of skis that he built stored underneath a family cabin. He used his grandfather’s tools to make two pairs of skis, one pair from birch and another from aspen.

If that wasn’t enough, he built ski poles using balsam fir from Christmas trees that he dried for a year. He used leather bindings from Frost River on the skis and ordered “beaked” ski boots from Finland made from reindeer hide. The unique pointed toe works to keep the boot in place in the leather bindings. Rova’s family has deep Finnish and Swedish roots. That shows in the gear that he chose to make and use.

Just before leaving for Sweden, Rova showed some concern about skiing with heavy, old-fashioned gear. “I know I’m going to suffer. I’m going to have blisters,” Rova said. “But there’ll be other people there doing it and we’ll be having fun.” He put the event into a larger context. “Meeting these people and having a fun event with them is what I’m looking forward to most…Because why would you ski 90k on old skis, right? I just wouldn’t. So, you get to do something that’s unique and I’m looking forward to just being a part of that.”

Rova flew to Sweden and gathered at the start line with 138 other intrepid skiers on Saturday, February 12. He chose the aspen skis, but in some foreshadowing, Rova said, “Aspen is much lighter, but my worry is there; the aspen breaks a little easier.” After several hours of skiing, before the halfway point, Rova posted on Instagram that he heard a ‘crack.’ One of his skis split beyond repair, ending his race. Rova wrote, “I’m sure someone broke their ski in 1922 so I’ll be that guy.”

Rova’s good humor is proof that the race was only part of a larger experience for him. “I’m a process-oriented guy… The process of making the skis and gathering all the wool clothes...Going there and doing it is kind of the cherry on top. I love the spot and the area there and it’s an honor to be part of their big event.”

Rova shared some philosophy before he knew his ski would break: “It’s one thing I learned as a Lutheran pastor, suffering in whatever form is best done with people. This is voluntary suffering I’m going to do, and not true suffering, but the spirit of doing it together is what life is about.”

By Elle Andra-Warner

THUNDER BAY—So, who first started saunas, when and where? Digging into the history, it seems that saunas began sometime around 2000 B.C. in northern Europe in places like Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia. Today, they are popular world-wide. Havarti (they make electric sauna heaters) estimates there are currently approximately 17 million saunas in the world. There’s even a Guinness World Records listing the world’s largest sauna as the Koi Sauna in Germany.

According to Anni Oviir in her article, “Here’s Why the History of the Sauna is Deeper Than You Might Think,” the oldest known saunas were “man-made caves that were draped closed with animal skins and had a fire burning inside them during the day beneath a pile of stones. After the fire was extinguished and the smoke wafted out, the stones would continue to warm the cave long into the night...Steam rose from the stones when water was poured on them.”

The first known saunas in Finland were smoke saunas (savusaunat), and were made “from pits dug in a slope in the ground and primarily used as dwellings in the winter.” A fireplace heated up stones to a high temperature and water was thrown on the hot stones to produce steam. Over the centuries, the sauna became an important cultural tradition, a central part of life, and for some has a spiritual side to the experience. Archaeologists are finding ancient saunas around the world, and as Oviir notes, “There are remarkable similarities for example between the northern European sauna tradition and the sweat lodges still used today for religious ceremonies by native American tribes on the other side of the world.”

The authentic smoke sauna tradition without chimneys—which many say make the best saunas—is still the basis for the modern-day saunas, though many of today’s stones are heated by electric sauna heaters or wood-fired stoves in buildings with chimneys. Chimneys were not added to the sauna building until northern Europe’s industrial revolution in the 19th century. It was in Finland in 1938 that the first electric sauna heater was introduced by Metos Ltd in Vaasa.

In 2014, UNESCO added the Estonian smoke sauna (suitsusaun) tradition in Võro community into its “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” UNE- SCO explained the smoke sauna tradition “comprises a rich set of traditions including the actual bathing customs, the skills of making bath whisks, building and repairing saunas, and smoking meat in the sauna.” A smoke sauna has no chimney and the smoke from burning wood circulates the room before being vented out when the desired room temperature of around 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) is reached.

In the Northern Wilds country, saunas are part of our northern culture, brought here by Finnish immigrants. These days many camps (aka cabin, cottage, summer residences) have a separate sauna building. While years ago there were a number of public saunas in Thunder Bay, the only public sauna left in the city is Kangas Sauna with its individual sauna rooms (and great main-floor restaurant).

Why have a sauna? Well, in addition to the myriad of health benefits, sauna bathing simply feels so good.