She also wrote a column, "On the Gunflint Trail", that ran weekly for 42 years in the Cook County News Herald.

She developed friendships with numerous Chippewa Indian families who lived north of the lodge on the Canadian border.

In the forward to the book Woman of the Boundary Waters, Les Blacklock referred to her as a hunter, electrician, trapper, canoeist, back-road world traveler, carpenter, beaver skinner, woodcutter, story teller, farmer, dogsled musher, naturalist, zoologist, neighbor helper, stranger helper, poet, telephone lineman, artist, poet, mechanic, newspaper columnist, and lodge builder and operator.

Spunner majored in zoology, minored in philosophy and chemistry, played soccer and volleyball, and joined the Outing Club at Northwestern.

She also learned how to mush sled dogs, repair cars, fix telephone lines, build furniture,[7] and fur trapping.

[3] At the time of the purchase it was five cabins plus small lodge building with a store carrying supplies for the Indians and fishing tackle for the guests, plus a dining room to serve meals.

[6] She developed friendships with numerous Chippewa Indian families who lived north of the lodge on the Canadian border.

[5][9] She met Bill Kerfoot, the son of Hamline University's president, whose foreign service ambitions were dashed in the Depression camped on a beach, desperate for work.

[3][12] In the forward to the book Woman of the Boundary Waters, Les Blacklock referred to her as a hunter, electrician, trapper, canoeist, back-road world traveler, carpenter, beaver skinner, woodcutter, story teller, farmer, dogsled musher, naturalist, zoologist, neighbor helper, stranger helper, poet, telephone lineman, artist, poet, mechanic, newspaper columnist, and lodge builder and operator.

[8] She wrote a column, "On the Gunflint Trail", that ran weekly for 42 years in the Cook County News Herald.