Friendly neighbors

What did you do first to get Laketrails started?
  Got the bishop's permission. Bishop Schenk as a Diocesan project, it would be a church camp.  He gave me permission right away.  Fr. Jerry and I took a trip for the weekend to Lake of the Woods, it was the first trip there for either of us.  We didn't know where anything was. We went on a Friday night to Warroad and found out there was a passenger boat leaving the next morning at 8:00.  So we got out to Oak Island that day and met Al Hanson, who owed the Bay Store.  We talked about possibilities and if he had a boat we could use for the weekend.  I already new boating at this time, and we wanted to do some exploring around looking for a place to start this camp.
        We only had to make two stops.  We got a little information and went to Little Oak Island.  We looked it over and thought it was pretty isolated and that transportation difficulties would come up a lot.  We also knew that Oak Point was owned by Booth Fisheries at that time and was available.  It had been vacant for about 7 years, because commercial fishing rules had changed and they were no longer catching their own fish up there. So we stopped there and pulled up to a beautiful sand bar connecting Oak Point to Oak Island.  There were bear tracks in the sand.  We got out and looked around at the old buildings.  We walked into this one big old building, that we found out was historically the mess hall for the Booth Fishery's fishermen.  It was about the only thing usable.  There were two other shacks.  One was a latrine, and the other a two story shack with some old engines in it.  But we decided when we looked over the place this might be a good place to start the camp.  The grass was waist high, there were dead birds in the mess hall and you could see the sky through the ceiling.  But the walls were solid and there was a kitchen there already. The floor was made of broken floorboards, Laketrails put the cement floor in later.   We decided that weekend that this is where the camp would be.  We talked a good deal, and made plans for a canoe camp while drivng and boat riding around.