If you think Sugarbrooke’s twelfth fairway is a stretch, consider for a moment that it once was a landing strip.

Single seaters. Monoplanes. Biplanes. Thanks to former owners and Minnesota resort pioneers, Art and Eleanor Otis, these planes have been common sights in the skies above Ruttger’s Sugar Lake Lodge. Since the 1930’s, our resort has played host to scores of aviation enthusiasts.

In an excerpt from his book, The Challenge of Sissebakwet, Art Otis fondly recounts times when…”my dreams were filled with flying an airplane over a moonlit landscape under a star-studded sky.” These dreams, no doubt, fueled Otis’ dream of a lodge where guests arriving by sky were as commonplace as those arriving by asphalt.

While our landing strip has been replaced by a fairway, floatplanes are still encouraged to land on Sugar Lake and wheel planes are welcome to land at the Grand Rapids Minnesota Airport, where we’ll have a shuttle waiting for you.