The Northwest Angle area of Lake of the Woods lost a pioneer Thursday.
Charlie McKeever was 90.
Born in July 7, 1927, McKeever lived on Flag Island overlooking the Ontario border most of his life except for a year in the military and the past three years, when he lived at the Warroad (Minn.) Care Center.
McKeever made a living as a self-employed fishing guide, carpenter and, for 45 years, owner of Flag Island Resort. He later ran a summer passenger-boat service from the Northwest Angle mainland to Oak and Flag islands.
In a January 2003 interview, McKeever recalled making the 3½-mile trek one way across the ice in the winter from Flag Island to school on Oak Island.
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Adversity was a way of life in the remote part of northern Minnesota.
"I can remember when I was a little boy coming home from Oak Island from the school program, and it was 57 below zero when we got home," McKeever told the Herald. "It was pretty chilly. We were using horses, and they were in a hurry to get home. It was one of the coldest days or nights I can remember. I was in fourth or fifth grade, so it would have been between 1935 and 1940. We had some cold winters then.
"We burned wood. We didn't have electricity, we didn't have gas."
Even on the coldest days, McKeever recalled, the teacher made them play outside during recess.
"Every day, we had a couple of recesses, and we were ordered out," McKeever said. "We had to go out and play in the cold."
McKeever's daughter, Joe Lyn Landin of Warroad, remembers her dad as a good storyteller who always used to say he never had a job.
"He always had a job, but he always worked for himself," Landin said. "In the wintertime, he lifted burbot nets, he worked at a gas station delivering fuel for Stodgell Standard, and then of course, he ran the resort.
"He was always busy. He was never not working."
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McKeever also had a good memory, Landin says, whether it was telling stories-like the tale of the alcoholic cow that regularly wandered off Flag Island in the winter to eat a moonshiner's moonshine mash on the Northwest Angle mainland-or tending the myriad of details that go with running a resort.
"He never had a computer, of course, but he remembered everything, from when the guests were checking in, how many times they used the boat, how many minnows they got-it was all in his head," she said. "He kept track of everything.
"He could pretty much do it all. He could tear apart a motor, put it back together again, and he knew where all the fish were even if he didn't get out in the boat. You could ask him about anything on that lake, and he would know about it. He was an amazing man."
McKeever is survived by his wife, Hazel, Warroad; daughters Patricia McKeever (Dick Johnson) Warroad; Sheila (Steve) Stoskopf, Warroad; Kathy McKeever-Nash (Dick Nash), Grand Rapids, Minn.; Joe Lyn (Roger) Landin, Warroad; and son Rick (Patty) McKeever, Northwest Angle.
Visitation is set for 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, July 27 at Helgeson Funeral Home, 506 Main Ave. N., Warroad, and a memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, July 28 at Zion Lutheran Church in Warroad.
