Christmas at the Northwest Angle, where peace, quiet and walleyes rule

The packed house that greeted the young thespians Thursday evening at the one-room school on Minnesota's Northwest Angle wasn't surprised to learn the title role of Santa was played by a fourth-grade girl, Alyssa Johnson.

After all, only four students are enrolled in Angle Inlet School, two third-graders and one sixth-grader, in addition to Alyssa. So no one in attendance expected Santa to be a rotund old man with real whiskers.

That would have ruined the fun, anyway, in this distant Minnesota outpost which — no surprise to the Angle's 50 or so year-round residents — seems to have been forgotten entirely by designers of the new state flag.

Thursday's drama at Angle Inlet School was titled "Santa Strikes'' and the production required, of course, that parents and others in attendance suspend their senses of disbelief.

Which was no problem. Residing as they do far from the hubbub of the nation's metropolitan centers, and farther still, thankfully, from the calamity of the world's war zones, Angle residents enjoy day-to-day lives, and realities, that at times are much different from those of other Americans.

Even wolves and deer seem periodically to coexist at the Northwest Angle and within its unincorporated community, Angle Inlet. Pine grosbeaks, nuthatches and redpolls also pal up at local bird feeders, joined colorfully at these fast food outlets by downy woodpeckers, chickadees and purple finches. Visiting anglers also seem to fall into line as the Angle transitions just now into winter, arriving with the lower temperatures to parade onto frozen Lake of the Woods, where they tempt walleyes with minnows dropped through icy cylinders.

As commonly found as wildlife is at the Angle, wild living — well, not so much.

"I've been the part-time deputy sheriff here 13 years and it's always been quiet on Christmas,'' said Jason Goulet, whose main job, like those of many who live at the Angle, is running a resort.

Separated from the town of Warroad, and the rest of Minnesota, by 60 miles of Manitoba black spruce, jack pine, white spruce, tamarack and balsam fir, the Northwest Angle is the northernmost point of the continental U.S.

Not everyone who grows up here comes back. But some do, including the school's only teacher, Allen Edman.

"I attended this very same one-room school, before, beginning in seventh grade and through high school, riding the bus to Warroad and back every day,'' said Edman, who was a fishing guide at his parents' Lake of the Woods resort while growing up. "The community takes a lot of pride in its school and our students often go on to do well as engineers and in other professions.''

Edman taught in East Grand Forks, Minn., Brooklyn Center and Warroad before returning to Angle Inlet School. His students, he said, receive a lot of one-on-one attention, though simultaneously teaching a first-grader and a sixth-grader can at times be challenging.

When Edman shot a deer this fall, he brought it to class for his four students to butcher.

"The kids loved it," he said. "They were eager to get the knives in their hands and get going."

When Edman was a student at the University of North Dakota, he, along with other would-be educators, was asked by an instructor why he wanted to be a teacher.

"Well," he said, "I'm a fishing guide in summer and I'm looking for something to do in winter."

The teacher frowned, and Edman asked for a redo.

"The second time I said I had been teaching people to fish my entire life and wanted to extend that interest to kids," Edman said. "That went over better."

As quiet as the Angle is on most winter days, it'll be quieter still this Christmas because some residents will travel to the mainland to visit relatives. Mike Rasmussen, the pastor at the town's only house of worship, St. Luke's Church, is among these.

The church's organist, Jeanette McAtee, also will be out of town.

"Because I know some people will be leaving for Christmas, I changed the time of our Christmas Eve service to 9:30 Christmas Eve morning,'' Rasmussen said. "Mike Hetteen of First United Lutheran Church in Roseau will fill in, and he'll have a good video presentation showing words to the songs on a screen so people can sing along because we won't have our organist.''

Among Northwest Angle residents who will be gone for Christmas is Lance Sage. With his parents, Brian and Jane Sage, Lance operates Sage's Angle West Resort.

A Warroad teacher, Lance was headed to California for Christmas to visit a woman friend, and like any right-thinking Northwest Angle resident, he traveled bearing gifts, including a few frozen walleyes stashed in his luggage.

Notwithstanding these and other holiday scatterings, a packed house greeted Thursday's theatrical production at Angle Inlet School.

Santa, it turned out, who was joined on stage by Mrs. Santa and a pair of elves, had discovered two things about Christmas that were upsetting: Some kids can be greedy, and online stories about Santa's portly figure can be hurtful to the otherwise jolly fellow.

You had to be there to learn how these conflicts were resolved.

You also had to be on hand to feast on the hot dishes and other delectables that parents and other enthusiastic audience members brought to the potluck that followed.

As winter was just beginning, with Christmas a few days off, all of this transpired far from the hubbub of the nation's metropolitan centers, and farther still, thankfully, from the calamity of the world's war zones.

At Minnesota's Northwest Angle.