Setting the Stage:
Ely, Minnesota is a small town that’s home to a few thousand people nestled into Superior National Forest. Located two hours north of Duluth, we’re pretty darn close to Canada. Summers boast spectacular sunsets, warm temperatures, plentiful mosquitos, and the occasional awe inspiring thunderstorm. Folks often spend time outside canoeing, fishing, hiking, and ATV riding. Winters are cold, -40F/C isn’t uncommon and snow tends to pile up on top of dozens of inches of ice on area lakes. Winter activities include skiing, dogsledding, fishing, snowmobiling, and northern lights hunting. There are exciting things to do up here year round such as the Ely Marathon, Ely Winter Festival, Ely Film Festival, a lovely farmers market, Blueberry Arts Festival, and more!
One Day in Early Spring:
“Hey you want to make some mittens?”
“Hmmm, maybe. How many?”
“A few hundred pairs”
“…”
We like to think our origins are as simple as our products. A local cold weather outfitter in Ely, MN was looking to replace their rental mitts with new, locally made mittens capable of fending off the harsh Minnesota winters.
The summer of 2021 was a whirlwind of prototyping (see example below). Mitten M1.0 underwent more than a dozen of prototypes, incorporating feedback from cold weather experts.
Ely is a small town and as with many small towns, word travels quickly, especially in the outdoor recreation community. Shortly after prototyping began, an area dogsledding kennel reached out with some pattern advice and expressed interest in insulated fleece mittens. With some trial and error, we were able to incorporate a high-quality continuous filament insulation into our Type One, leading to the insulated Type One.
During all this mitten making, more and more people reached out wanting to buy locally made, simple, and robust mittens. One thing led to another, and Ely Mitten Project was born. But mittens were just the beginning…