Justine Kerfoot

Justine Kerfoot
Justine Kerfoot circa 1995
Justine Kerfoot circa 1995
BornJustine Spunner
1906
Barrington, Illinois, U.S.
DiedMay 30, 2001[1]
Occupationauthor, editor
LanguageEnglish
EducationBachelors Degree in Zoology
Alma materNorthwestern University
Genrenon-fiction
Notable worksWoman of the Boundary Waters: Canoeing, Guiding, Mushing, and Surviving (Minnesota), Gunflint Reflections on the Trail
Spouse
William "Bill" Kerfoot
(m. 1934)
Children4

Justine Kerfoot (1906 – May 30, 2001) was an American writer and outdoors-woman who moved to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota in 1927 and helped establish the Gunflint Lodge and the overall Gunflint Trail area. She was the author of two published books and co-authored a third. She also wrote a column, "On the Gunflint Trail", that ran weekly for 42 years in the Cook County News Herald.

She fully experienced outdoor life in the wilderness in an around the Gunflint Lodge related to operation of the lodge, and visiting and traveling with the residents of the forest including trappers and Chippewa Indian families. She developed friendships with numerous Chippewa Indian families who lived north of the lodge on the Canadian border. They helped each other, traveled in the wilderness together, attended each other's celebrations and transacted business. They taught her wilderness skills.

In the forward to the book Woman of the Boundary Waters, Les Blacklock referred to her as a hunter, electrician, trapper, canoeist, back-road world traveler, carpenter, beaver skinner, woodcutter, story teller, farmer, dogsled musher, naturalist, zoologist, neighbor helper, stranger helper, poet, telephone lineman, artist, poet, mechanic, newspaper columnist, and lodge builder and operator.

  1. ^ Brown, Curt: 'City girl' Justine Kerfoot became a North Woods icon; Star Tribune; Minneapolis, Minnesota; May 5, 2019