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.
How to apply: Follow the Apply link for the application. Have you done this previously for us? In March of 2026 we discarded all our old applications. Please fill it out again for us. We do not respond to emails or even look over inquiries from people who have not filled out our application. Sending your resume is not the same as filling out the application. How you fill out the application is your first test of suitability to work at Bearskin (or almost any job, honestly.) If you don’t fill out the application and do it well, then you don’t pass the “test.”
Current openings Updated 2/24/2026
Starting mid to late May or early June, 2026: We will be hiring 3 new, long-term employees starting this May. While we have several roles to fill, our #1 criteria is that the employees all be good at cleaning, organizing, and managing. Our current housekeeping managers are going back to reality after several years here. Whatever other skills you bring to the resort, we are going to need people who can step in to keep our cabins clean, repaired, and supplied.
We all do everything here, but employees tend to find their specialty as well as helping in every other way. Not everyone needs to do all these tasks, but we need to find people who together will fill all these roles:
- Clean cabins and help keep them well repaired, mostly on Saturday and Sunday in summer.
- Greet guests at the front desk
- Clean, maintain and rent our fleet of boats and canoes
- Rake and maintain our beach area
- Pack and clean outfitting gear
- Talk to visitors about our area
- Order supplies, assist with decisions about cabin supplies and furnishings
- Help people plan outdoor adventures and canoe trips
- Mow and trim grass, tend to flowers and gardens
- Help manage and care for the campground
- Assist with summer crafts
- In winter, plow and blow snow, inform guests about ski trails, sell ski tickets
- Help our guests solve all the daily resort dilemmas.
- Nurture your outdoor passions and hobbies while living in one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in America, far from the city life and surrounded by nature.
You will work alongside all of us to do the cabin turnovers. This is a go-go-go job. Every day is a great work-out here. We need high energy, healthy people with a good work ethic, but most of all we’re looking for applicants who have a history of getting along really well with co-workers — no drama, no anger issues, just kindness and cooperation.
Skills we’d love to see on your application:
- Our first priority, we need people who love to clean and organize
- General household repair skills
- A passion for gardening, plants, and flowers
- Solid people skills
- Bright — we are lucky to mostly have a well-educated crew of people who are appreciating an adventurous break from real life (especially these days!)
- Self-starters, because in this job you often have to direct yourself to the next obvious task
- Comfortable with Minnesota-style weather, including winter. “Real winter” is what we sell here for part of the year and it genuinely is snowy and cold.
- A love of the outdoors–there’s no point in being here if you don’t love outside adventures
- A history of getting along with co-workers with kindness and compassion
Available housing: We have housing suitable for two people to share (could be a couple or good friends) and an apartment for one person. Finding another couple is ideal for our housing, but we are also interested in individuals. Pets? Cats, birds, bunnies, and fish only. Almost everyone here has a cat now. No dogs at this time. (One very small, quiet well-behaved dog may pass our scrutiny – the couple who is leaving asked to get a tiny dog and she has been a delight. But it was a very unique dog and most dogs have not worked out.)
Job details: We are fair employers. Your work hours will fall somewhere between 7:30 AM and 6 PM. No night shifts, no funny hours. You will always have 2 days off during the week and we try our best to make them consecutive. We try to schedule couples for the same days off whenever possible. After a 40-hour work week, we pay over-time wages. Our housing is safe and fairly nice. A health-care allowance plan is available to staff after they become permanent. Discretionary bonuses are often paid after successful seasons to employees who finish out the season’s work and who continue to stay with Bearskin. Sticking with us means so much to the entire Bearskin family. We care about your well-being and try to help you solve daily problems.
What’s the time frame for this job? We will need these employees from late May/November for sure, but most Bearskin employees plan to stay for a longer time. For the right employees this is a dream-come-true location to live and work. We are more interested in employees who are looking for a long-term, perfect place to stay a while. The resort is open all year, and is an entirely different experience in spring, summer and fall, and winter.
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.
Are you crafty? Perhaps a great photographer or artist? We will happily sell your stuff, if appropriate, in our gift shop with very limited costs to you.
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.We have a non-smoking environment and we encourage healthy living.
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. Be truthful 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.
Wages, start date: Both negotiable. We pay well compared to most resorts, and give frequent bonuses for sticking with us. We reward you with bonuses for staying.
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. We may not take another dog again, but this could be discussed.
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. The online application is your only pathway to getting a Bearskin job. A resume and cover letter are helpful, but the application is an essential first test to pass.