Employment
Jobs with Individual Housing Available For This Summer and Fall, 2025
Bearskin Lodge is the premier family resort located on the famous Gunflint Trail, about 26 miles from the town of Grand Marais, MN. We are on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). Right outside our door are a million and a half acres of pristine lakes and rivers. Our facilities are the best available.
It takes much hard work by dedicated staff to maintain the quality of service our guests have come to expect. If you are interested in joining the Bearskin staff, we would like to hear from you! Fill out our job application and forward it to us.
How to apply: Follow the Apply link for the application. Have you done this previously for us? We keep all our applications, but we have several hundred on file now. Send us an email (sue@bearskin.com) reminding us about who you are, and telling us how you’d fit into our new current needs.
Current openings
Starting May 15, 2025: Permanent, full-time Maintenance/Outdoor/Outfitting/ All-Purpose Person Fun job, with lots of independence and responsibility! This is considered one of the most desirable jobs on the Gunflint Trail.
Do you love to be outside and enjoy being self-directed as you work independently? Are you known for getting along well with your peers? Can you lift canoes and heavy items routinely without experiencing any major back issues? Is it easy for you to load a canoe on top of a vehicle? Do you have a few skills with tools and minor repair experiences, plus a willingness to learn more? Do you have adult decision-making and communication skills? You might be right for Bearskin.
This job offers great variety for an individual who uses time efficiently, and who can get a great deal done during the day. In winter you’ll be plowing and snowblowing, entrusted with some very expensive, essential equipment. In summer you will clean canoes and outfitting gear, mow grass, get boats for guests, use and take care of power tools, paint buildings, care for the campground, put gas in motors, answer guest questions, and help with all other resort jobs. Lead trips and hikes, if you have the skill. Must be independent, self-directed employee with the right clothing and attitude to work outside in all weather, summer and winter. The ideal candidate for this position will also be able to cheerfully help with front desk and housekeeping duties, like we all do here.
We’ve had the best person we’ve ever had in this position for the past few years, preceded by a few who struggled with the skills — so we know exactly what we’re looking for this time. If you have the skills for this job, please fill out the application so we can start communicating.
This job currently includes a roomy lakeside cabin for yourself. Housing could change over time, but you will never share lodging with another employee unless that is your choice. Pets possible under specific circumstances.
Starting September, 2025: All purpose helpful human, a do “everything” job Job requires a very responsible, outgoing person with excellent communication skills, and a willingness to do every job on site. We all do everything here. Greet guests at the front desk, send people out on canoe trips, keep the lodge area clean, answer phones and email, pitch in with the gardens and flowers, clean cabins mainly on weekends, assist with activities (you’re good at leech racing, right?), and be willing help our guests solve the daily resort dilemmas. You will work alongside all of us to do the cabin turnovers on Saturday and Sunday. This is a go-go-go job in the summer and fall. Every day is a great work-out here in the summer. Our perfect candidate for this position could eventually learn the front desk office reservation skills and become the person who is essentially running the Lodge each day.
POSSIBLE: The “Couples Job” that everyone always wants The maintenance person is one of the key positions in the much-desired couples job and will be available shortly. We also have a long-term employee entering a college program at the end of summer — this could be Person #2 of the “Couples Job.” We may be able to tweak this timing a bit to make it work if we have the perfect couple with the skills we need.
College Student Jobs? We don’t think we will be hiring short-term employees this summer.
International Employees? No, we don’t hire any visa program employees at Bearskin. We are too far from civilization to take good care of foreign employees. Please don’t send inquiries. During summer hiring season we get 10 – 20 email inquiries from international employees daily (yes, every day — we are inundated), and do not have the time to properly answer all the international correspondence. Sorry.
About Living Here
Your community: The Gunflint Trail and Grand Marais area is a fun place to be all year, but especially in the summer and fall. Grand Marais has been voted one of the “coolest small towns in America,” and is a hotbed of summer festivals and fun. The Gunflint Trail hosts dozens of young summer employees, who engage in volleyball games, bonfires, and the famous canoe races. Grand Marais is home to the Fisherman’s Picnic and several other 3-day events that attract visitors from all around the Upper Midwest.
Your co-workers: Bearskin has a long history of hiring high quality people, many of whom stay in this community and become a part of it. This group of employees right now are incredibly hard workers with high standards, and super-kind people. This is mostly a young group, and they care about each other. They live healthy and love where they live.
Other basics: There’s no way to live here without a car. Sorry, we won’t hire anyone without a vehicle.You are 26 miles from a grocery store. If you love wilderness, we are adjacent to the BWCA and staff is allowed to use our canoes and kayaks. Unless the position has been advertised as a short-term job, we rarely hire people for 3 month stays (there’s too much to learn). Be honest about how long you hope to work here — this is a small, family-run business so leaving early puts an unfair burden on your co-workers/friends and our family. If we all get along, you can keep working here for a long time but at the very least, we are hoping for 2 or more seasons of your time. Our best employees have a great deal of integrity–be honest about your plans and your skills.
Wages, start date: Both negotiable. We pay well compared to most resorts, and give frequent bonuses for sticking with us.
Bearskin does not have the permits to hire international workers. There is no need to send emails about this.
More info: Lakeside cabin or apartment, absolutely top-notch talented co-workers, and pretty decent employers. You do need to fill out the application below to be considered. We get many, many applicants for each job, so we don’t even start to look over the applicant’s skills until we have received a completed application. A cover letter explaining why you are a great fit for our remote location and sent to sue@bearskin.com will help get your application noticed, but you also need the application.
Basic requirements: You need a driver’s license as part of your job; you need a vehicle in order to survive up here (26 miles to the grocery store, no public transportation); and we do not hire international workers.
Pets are a “maybe”— cats are always ok, bunnies are good, goldfish are wonderful. Dogs need to be calm, quiet, no-anxiety animals who can pass the interview process just like the person does. Few dogs have made the cut; if they do, they need to get along with the dogs who already live with staff members.
Should I stop in to the lodge or call the resort? No, please don’t unless you have already filled out the application and we have communicated with each other. Your first step is to fill out the application.
Please Note
Not everyone will be happy working at Bearskin. We are on the edge of one of the nation’s great wilderness areas, and we truly understand that isn’t a perfect fit for everyone. This is the deep Northwoods. Groceries and the closest (small) town are 26 miles away. There are very limited social activities nearby, although our current staff is fantastic at creating fun for everyone. We do our shopping online (UPS comes every weekday.) This is Minnesota, just a few miles from the Canadian border, so it gets cold here in the winter and you need to have serious winter clothing and boots for December – April. We no longer hire staff without a vehicle. In the summer you will need your own vehicle to even to get groceries — there is no public transportation, no Uber or Lyft. Your winter vehicle should be 4-wheel drive, or at least front-wheel drive. Think about who you really are before you decide that this is the right job for you. This is an amazing place to work, but it’s not right for everybody.
Do you want to know more? Lots of info here
We don’t have much turn-over in jobs here. Bearskin staff tends to get hired and then stay a long time, but in the next few months there are some transitions that will be occurring. It’s always hard to say goodbye to a beloved group of employees as they move on to their next adventures in life, but we also always look forward to meeting our new “Bearskin family.”
Working at Bearskin is considered one of the most desirable jobs on the Gunflint Trail. We try our best to be fair employers, we offer on-site lakeside housing, and we give our staff options to get out and enjoy our beautiful environment. The best employees are always the ones who explore this area while they are here. It’s a challenging environment if you wanted a job in the city, but if you’d love to live in the Boundary Waters/Gunflint Trail area then working at Bearskin can be a dream-come-true.
Our ideal employees have a good work ethic, are personable and get along well with guests and colleagues, have excellent communication skills, and are willing to do whatever needs to be done to help Bearskin function well. We work very closely together, so happy, drama-free employees are greatly appreciated. This is a small enough staff that if you don’t fully do your part, the burden falls on your co-workers/friends. There’s no “extra” here, we need employees who truly contribute.
We do hire some short-term employees, but we are most appreciative of employees who want to stay a while. It’s not a life commitment — we know your next adventure is eventually out there. But we are a small family resort, and it’s super nice if we don’t have to re-train new employees too often.
Are you doing online school?
Get your masters or finish your degree while you work at Bearskin. Our internet is good, and we can usually adjust your schedule to fit classes.
Are you an artist or creator?
We will support you in your endeavors and have helped many up-and-coming creative types grow their skills and market their wares.
Our jobs can become permanent for people willing to commit for a while, and benefits are available after you are considered permanent staff.
Guest services / housekeeping / all-purpose helpful human/ Available September, 2025
Skills needed: Attention to detail, a good work ethic, a friendly nature, and a willingness to tackle every job, outdoors or indoors. Good communication skills essential. You’ll have your own small lakeside apartment, with access to canoes, skis, and snowshoes. Wages negotiable, depending on experience. This employee could eventually join our permanent staff, if you are a successful fit for working here. Health insurance and dental insurance benefits are available to our permanent employees.
Outdoor, general purpose resort maintenance employee – the perfect job for a good problem solver! /Available May 15, 2025
Our resort guests rely on this employee to help them solve daily maintenance and boat problems. This person regularly checks that heat and water are working in every cabin, that light bulbs and smoke/CO detectors are functioning, and makes sure that our guests are warm and safe. Ability to make small repairs, do occasional vehicle maintenance, and independently solve problems to keep our resort world functioning is very helpful. Everyone at Bearskin cleans cabins when needed, and everyone at Bearskin puts in occasional stints at the front desk, but most of your time in this job will be working independently outside. In the summer, these outdoor tasks include grass mowing and trimming, dock maintenance, canoe rentals and cleaning, caring for outfitting gear, boat maintenance and rentals, and campground care. In the winter, the job includes snow-plowing and snow-blowing, firewood stacking, shoveling, car-starting and miscellaneous winter tasks, in addition to all the other ways this employee helps out. Lots of lifting in this job–you need a strong, healthy back to do it. Maintenance skills a big plus for this job, but if you have an aptitude for these skills then we can teach you.
Resort Couple — POSSIBLE OPENING IN 2025, COMBINING MAINTENANCE EMPLOYEE STARTING 5/15 AND ALL-PURPOSE PERSON AT END OF SUMMER
Live on the edge of the BWCA with someone you enjoy, and experience outdoor escapades together.
We love to hire couples on our staff. It’s nice to have a built-in friend to go on adventures when you’re here. If two of you fit our needs, we’re happy to hire you together. Both individuals need to offer skills we’re looking for, and there has to be an understanding that if one person doesn’t work out then both jobs are affected. That has happened…never. Both members of the couple need to fill the roles that are needed, as listed above. Housing unit is a full lakeside cabin to yourselves. Simple, but much-loved.
This is the job that has introduced so many young couples to Grand Marais and given many the foothold that allowed them to begin or buy their Cook County business, or start their permanent “up north” life. Ideal job candidates who are high energy self-starters, are willing to stay awhile, and who are able to fill the maintenance and housekeeping/front desk positions. Potential management roles in the future for the right people. We try to give couples days off together and similar work hours, although we can’t promise it will always work out. This is the dream couples job for the right people. Let’s talk and find out if you’re the ones. Wage and start dates negotiable.
Seasonal, general resort/outfitting/front desk help/NO SEASONAL JOBS FOR SUMMER 2025 — CHECK BACK, THIS COULD CHANGE
Most Bearskin employees stay for longer than a summer, but sometimes we may hire one or two seasonal employees. If you are a good worker and you’d like to be part of our staff, apply now.
General info for all applicants
What it is like to be on our staff: We hire a few seasonal and short-term employees, but most of our staff tends to be happy here and they stay with us. We try to be kind to our staff, as we know they are what makes our business possible. Our staff members get along, and are drama-free — to us, your ability to pitch in and work, to enjoy living in the middle of nowhere, and to get along with our other staff means more than skills. Non-smoking housing, no tolerance for drugs or for excessive alcohol use. Live healthy here.
Living and working here
We offer lakeside housing with a BWCAW lake view that would be the envy of many in Cook County. This is a healthy, non-smoking environment that is ideal for people who get along well with others, who like working hard, and who can find joy in living and working in a remote wilderness location. Funny hours, working on some holidays, vacation times only in the quiet season — these may all be part of a Bearskin job, so if your dream job is 9-5 M-F, then this isn’t it. Salary negotiable, but we pay employees very fairly. If this sounds like where you want to be, contact sue@bearskin.com
Info for summer and short-term employees:
All of our summer employees are cross-trained in numerous areas — you will probably work at the front desk, answer phones, help with canoe trips, advise tourists on good hiking destinations and because all of us do this all the time, help clean cabins. Clean cabins are how we all get to enjoy this life on the edge of the BWCAW! Some of our employees need to be able to lift canoes, mow and trim lawns, stack wood, and clean up at the campground.
It is important when you apply that you provide us with accurate ending dates for your summer availability. If you will be returning to college after the summer, please check your college’s 2025/2026 calendar before you apply. We don’t hire “extra” people like larger resorts often do, planning that a certain percentage of employees will quit or get fired. We truly intend to keep you all summer if you are hired here. We choose our staff based on employing the correct number of people to get us through the season, so ending dates are very important for short-term employees. Choosing to leave Bearskin earlier than your contractually agreed upon end date leaves your co-workers and employers overworked and unhappy. Please decide on the right end date from the time you apply.
We pay an hourly wage, not a set “per month” salary. We adhere to fair employment practices. A work week is 40 hours; anything over that is paid over-time, as the law requires. You will not be asked to work a large number of unexpected hours, and if circumstances require many more hours, you will be paid well for your extra time.