Davis Lake Timber Sale, 1948-1952:

The Davis Lake Timber Sale was located in a remote region, within what is now the Boundary Waters, around Brule, Winchell and Moon lakes. According to Robert Lee, who served as one of the camp clerk on the Davis Lake Timber Sale, the sale was the last camp logging operation conducted by the North Star Timber Company and combined both old and new logging techniques.

Camp 27, located a half mile west of Winchell Lake on Davis Lake served as the main logging camp for the sale. Working from the camp, timber crews mainly cut the area’s black spruce forest.

Timber harvested from the sale was then transported during the winter along an ice road maintained across Brule Lake. From Brule Lake’s Cone Bay the road continued along a land road just west of the South and North Cone Lakes crossing the North Cone-Davis portage on to the camp. The camp was located on the north east end of Davis Lake.

The sale was close-out in 1952 but Camp 27 on Davis Lake remained intact until 1964 when the USFS ordered it destroyed. With the destruction of the camp an important landmark of Boundary Waters history was lost forever.

From an unpublished document by Robert Lee, "North Star Timber Co. and the Davis Lake Timber Sale," May 2005.