Tuesday’s Boundary Waters Connect Speaker was Jess Edberg, executive director of the Dorothy Molter Musuem. Edberg has worked at the museum for 12 years and is an avid amateur Ely historian.
“Our mission is to preserve and interpret Northwoods wilderness heritage through learning opportunities inspired by Dorothy Molter, the last non-indigenous resident of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness,” said Edberg. “We’re doing legacy work… our three main pillars are historic interpretation, collection preservation…and audience engagement.”
The biggest revenue generator for the museum is, of course, the iconic Dorothy Molter’s root beer.
Molter made her living brewing her own root beer, which is now enjoyed by folks all over Minnesota and as far away as Kansas City, Missouri.
The museum now has a map of partnered resellers of Dorothy Molter’s root beer, which can be found at: https://www.rootbeerlady. com/home/root-beer-retailers/.
In line with the museum’s goal of historic interpretation, Edberg had the idea for History Happy Hour right before Covid.
“It’s a 30-minute history program that focuses on local history...History Happy Hour is designed to provide a surface-level scratch of the topic with some wide-ranging facts narrowing down to how it connects locally, and hopefully inspiring folks to that go there to dig deeper and learn more,” said Edberg. Edberg approached the Boathouse about using them as a venue, and was given the go-to as long as Edberg was responsible for all the marketing and getting people to attend.
Despite her uncertainty, Edberg’s initial instinct was right.
“People really wanted to learn about local history, and the first program had a lot of people that attended.”
Typically, Edberg partners with Ely-Winton Historical Society and the Ely Heritage Commission for local resources.
The Minnesota Historical Society and Minnesota Digital Library also have many publicly available oral histories, photographs, and images that Edberg uses to build her presentation.
“A presentation takes me about eight hours to put together,” said Edberg. “This is probably one of my favorite parts of my job, and I am really thankful to the Boathouse for allowing me to do it…this program wouldn’t be possible without other businesses in town to support: Boundary Water Connect, Ely Folk School…both the Ely Echo and the Timberjay.”
History Happy Hour runs from October through May in the off-season.
For seasonal Ely residents, all of Edberg’s History Happy Hours are available on the Dorothy Molter Youtube channel: https://www. youtube.com/@dorothymoltermuseum.
The Dorothy Molter museum is open everyday from now until Labor Day, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum will hold three open houses over the summer, taking place June 28, July 26 and Aug. 23.
