Reviewed by:

• Root Beer Lady the Musical by Barbara Cary Hall
• Eero Laine

If you drive far enough, you eventually run out of road. And if you’re driving north through Minnesota, you might hit the end of the road right around the town of Ely. You can keep traveling, but you’ll need a canoe to transport you through the federally designated wilderness that borders the town. Throughout its history, Ely was a mining town, a logging town, and also a tourist town—a gateway to the wilderness for anglers and campers, youth groups, and adventurers.

Ely is also an arts town. Photography, painting, and other visual arts have flourished in Ely since the turn of the twentieth century in no small part because of the beauty of the landscape. The area, it seems, is also full of singers, poets, musicians, and actors. The Ely Music and Drama Club celebrated its centenary in 2023, and Ely’s Historic State Theater has been significantly expanded and updated in recent years. If you find yourself at the end of the road during Ely’s annual Harvest Moon Festival in September, you will likely have a chance to see Root Beer Lady the Musical, which premiered in 2017 and has been performed in different iterations ever since. The musical celebrates and remembers Dorothy Molter, who spent her life not in Ely but out past the border of what is today the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Molter lived on an island called the Isle of Pines for the better part of the twentieth century. It is a small island, and it’s still there on Knife Lake, if you are willing to paddle a canoe for half a day and carry it over a series of portages and small rapids. That is more or less how Molter got to and from her island home for most of her life. She moved there in the 1930s and stayed until her death in 1986. Not long after she moved to Knife Lake, the federal government began buying up private property with the intention of converting the area to federally managed wilderness. The process took decades, and as it wore on, Molter saw modern conveniences and connections to society recede one congressional bill or executive order at a time.

Molter supplemented her income by selling supplies and snacks to passing canoeists. However, a 1949 federal law prohibited float planes from landing in the area, making it difficult to transport enough inventory. Realizing she had a significant supply of glass pop bottles on the island, she began to brew and bottle root beer that she could make with lake water and dry goods that were more easily transported by canoe. She then offered the root beer to summer canoeists and campers for a donation. She was eventually known in the region (and nationally) as the Root Beer Lady. Her obituary in the New York Times reminded readers that she had once been described as the loneliest woman in the United States, living alone, on an island, in the pine forest of northern Minnesota.

And what better way to commemorate a woman who lived and died in the solitude of the wilderness [End Page 241] than with a comedic jukebox musical featuring polka music, local pop and folk songs, and Scandinavian and eastern European waltzes? Fittingly for the region and for an homage to Molter, the ten-person cast of Root Bear Lady the Musical was costumed in denim, plaid, and fishing caps. The set featured pine tree silhouettes, and a large screen filled the back of the stage. As the cast sang and waltzed through the various songs, linked loosely by skits and scenes from Molter’s life, images of Molter herself and the Isle of Pines on Knife Lake were projected across the back of the stage. The overall production swung wildly and charmingly, between huddling together in a wood-paneled living room to watch a family slideshow and a Hamm’s Beer-fueled night out at the...

 审阅者：

• 
  芭芭拉·卡里·霍尔 (Barbara Cary Hall) 音乐剧《根汁啤酒女士》
•  埃罗·莱恩

如果你开得足够远，你最终就会耗尽道路。如果您向北穿过明尼苏达州，您可能会到达伊利镇周围的路尽头。您可以继续旅行，但您需要一艘独木舟来运送您穿过与城镇接壤的联邦政府指定的荒野。纵观其历史，伊利既是一座采矿小镇、一座伐木小镇，也是一座旅游小镇——是垂钓者、露营者、青年团体和冒险家通往荒野的门户。

伊利也是一座艺术小镇。自二十世纪初以来，摄影、绘画和其他视觉艺术在伊利蓬勃发展，这在很大程度上归功于美丽的风景。该地区似乎也充满了歌手、诗人、音乐家和演员。伊利音乐和戏剧俱乐部于 2023 年庆祝成立一百周年，伊利历史悠久的州立剧院近年来也得到了显着的扩建和更新。如果您在 9 月伊利一年一度的中秋节期间发现自己走到了路的尽头，您可能有机会观看音乐剧《根啤女士》，该剧于 2017 年首演，此后已多次上演。这部音乐剧旨在纪念并纪念多萝西·莫尔特 (Dorothy Molter)，她的一生不是在伊利度过的，而是在今天边界水域独木舟地区荒野的边界度过的。

莫尔特在二十世纪的大部分时间里都生活在一个叫做松岛的岛上。这是一个小岛，如果您愿意划半天的独木舟并穿过一系列的港口和小急流，它仍然位于刀湖上。莫尔特一生中的大部分时间或多或少都是这样往返于她岛上的家的。她于 1930 年代搬到那里，一直呆到 1986 年去世。在她搬到 Knife Lake 后不久，联邦政府开始购买私人财产，打算将该地区转变为联邦政府管理的荒野。这个过程花了几十年的时间，随着时间的推移，莫尔特看到现代的便利和与社会的联系一次一次地撤回了一项国会法案或行政命令。

莫尔特通过向路过的皮划艇运动员出售用品和零食来补充收入。然而，1949 年的联邦法律禁止水上飞机在该地区降落，导致运输足够的库存变得困难。意识到岛上有大量玻璃汽水瓶供应后，她开始酿造并装瓶根汁啤酒，她可以用湖水和更容易用独木舟运输的干货来制作。然后，她向夏季独木舟运动员和露营者提供根汁汽水以进行捐赠。她最终在该地区（乃至全国）被称为“根汁啤酒女士”。 《纽约时报》刊登的她的讣告提醒读者，她曾被形容为美国最孤独的女人，独自生活在明尼苏达州北部松树林中的一座岛上。

还有什么比以波尔卡音乐、当地流行歌曲和民歌以及斯堪的纳维亚和东欧华尔兹为特色的喜剧点唱机音乐剧更好的方式来纪念一位在荒野中生活和死去的女人[结束第241页]呢？音乐剧《根熊女士》的十名演员身着牛仔布、格子花呢和渔帽，非常适合该地区，也是为了向莫尔特致敬。布景以松树剪影为特色，舞台后面充满了大屏幕。当演员们边唱边跳华尔兹的各种歌曲时，莫尔特生活中的短剧和场景松散地联系在一起，莫尔特本人和刀湖松树岛的图像投射在舞台后面。整个制作过程疯狂而迷人，有时挤在镶木板的客厅里观看家庭幻灯片，有时又在酒吧里喝着哈姆啤酒度过了一个愉快的夜晚……