Going, Going, Gone

Editor’s note: Rural Innovation Exchange has partnered with Interlochen Public Radio to share occasional news coverage in rural Northern Michigan.

For Nancy Tulgestka, it all started around 1987. She was in college. Some guys get their girlfriends jewelry, Nancy’s boyfriend got her a woodchipper. He wanted to start a life together running his family’s small logging business in Rogers City. Business was good in the northwoods. After a few years, they opened a sawmill too.

But things changed a lot in 30 years. Small, family-owned sawmills and logging businesses have given way to bigger ones. The Tulgestkas tried to keep their mill open. They refinanced their home and borrowed against some land they own. It didn’t work.

Now the sawmill is up for auction.

At 9 o’clock sharp one sunny fall morning, an auctioneer turns on his microphone. In front of him is a list of tools, machines, trucks: the things that made up the Tulgestkas’ decades-old business. Everyone’s here to buy something or to watch the pieces of a past life get bought. What matters now is surviving.

To listen to the Points North podcast, “Going, Going, Gone,” click here.

This episode is part of The Listeners, a project of the Transom Story Lab that invites public radio reporters, independent producers, and podcasters to make short, hyperlocal, documentary-style portraits that bring us closer to our neighbors.