Fishing Superior is a family business

As the sun rose over the horizon on a warm morning earlier this month, Walter Sve and his son Eric pulled nets from Lake Superior in hopes of filling their tubs with herring and lake trout.
Calm waters made for a pristine setting as the family team worked northeast of Two Harbors while flocks of herring gulls circled in hopes of a free meal.
“I have always enjoyed the outdoors, but seeing the sun rise over the lake, watching the seasons change and just being on the water brings a peaceful feeling to me,” Eric said.
The Sve family commercial fishing business began in 1926 when Norwegian immigrant Ragnvald Sve (Walter’s father) began commercial fishing on Lake Superior with his father-in-law. Before that, Walter’s grandfather, Julien Jacobson, also fished commercially. In 1927, Ragnvald and his wife, Ragnhild Sve, purchased the property that still is home to Split Rock Cabins, the family-owned business.
“If we can do 100 pounds of fish a day, then that’s a good day,” Eric said. The Sves sell their catch to several local restaurants including Camp 61 in Beaver Bay, the Rustic Inn of Castle Danger and Russ Kendall’s Smokehouse in Knife River.
While the beauty of the big lake draws many to its shores, harvesting its bounty is hard work, Eric said. The nets are held down by to 300-400 pounds of weights, and the fishing season ranges from early, cold spring to late, harsh fall.
The Sves run three nets totaling about 700 feet. According to Eric, they typically get out before sunrise to start pulling up the nets.
“We get there early so we can get the fish in and clean them. Then we prepare them for transport and deliver them to the buyers,” Eric said.
For the Sves, all the hard work is well worth the effort as they find contentment in being a part of the Lake Superior ecosystem.
“This is beautiful,” Eric’s brother Steve Sve said while standing on shore checking on his 86-year-old father, who was still out pulling nets. “You can’t beat this view.”
Eric and Steve said they were hooked on fishing from an early age when they would go out with their father to watch and help him bring in the day’s catch.
“We would sit up front on the net box,” Eric recalled. “It was great just to be with him doing something fun.”
The life of a fisherman is not always fun, though, especially when factors outside of their control affect their catch. To bring in extra money, Walter Sve also began a charter fishing business in 1945, based at the family resort.
“I did that until about 1960, when (sea lampreys, an invasive species) all but wiped out the trout population,” he said.
Lampreys made their way from the Atlantic Ocean into the Great Lakes in the early 1900s. Using chemicals, traps and barriers, scientists and government agencies have worked to control the lamprey population in the Great Lakes.
“It is rare to find fresh lamprey scars on the fish now,” Walter said.
Walter said another devastating blow was dealt to commercial fishing when what was then Reserve Mining in Silver Bay dumped taconite tailings into Lake Superior. The tailings polluted the waters near shore, he said, causing herring to seek refuge in cleaner water miles away.
“Herring gills are very sensitive to polluted water. They moved way out and stayed out,” Walter said. “It took almost 30 years for the water to cleanse and the herring to return.”
The Sves didn’t abandon charter operations entirely - Eric is now a licensed captain and still does some tours, though the resort “keeps me pretty busy,” he said.
He said Lake Superior was slow to yield its larder this year after a record-breaking harsh winter.
“It was slower than average for both the charter and commercial fishing,” Eric said. “It took a long time for the water to warm up.”
Whether the fish cooperate or not, the Sves enjoy their niche on the North Shore.
“It’s the sound of the wooden boat my dad built gliding through the water, its being out there with a full moon and all the stars and it’s the feeling of how small you are when the waves are big,” Eric said.