Dorothy Molter: The Root Beer Lady

Her name is synonymous with the Boundary Waters and root beer. Her story is one of struggle and triumph. Dorothy Molter lived in the BWCA for over 50 years—15 miles and 5 portages from the nearest road. In 1952, a Saturday Evening Post article even declared her “The Loneliest Woman in America,” though nothing could be further from the truth, as she received countless visitors over the years.

This is the biography of the Nightingale of the Wilderness, of a w...