MISQUAH — Loon Ridge Resort & Golf opened its eighteen-hole course for the season over Memorial Day weekend, drawing the usual influx of guests from the Twin Cities and the usual congregation of Canada geese to the seventh fairway.

The resort, on the western shore of Big Pelican — the deepest, clearest, and most expensive lake on the Chain — is the area’s largest seasonal employer, hiring some forty people from Misquah and the surrounding towns each summer. General manager Renée Fontaine said bookings for June and July are running ahead of last year’s and that the course came through the winter “in tremendous shape.”

Greens fees have risen to $68 for eighteen holes, up from $61 last season, a figure several local golfers were quick to convert into more familiar units. “That’s about a tank of leeches and most of a tank of gas,” said one, who declined to give his name on the grounds that his wife believes he golfs less than he does.

The resort maintains a locals’ rate, the existence of which it confirms and the amount of which it declines to print, saying only that the pro shop is “always glad to discuss it.” Pressed, Fontaine said the rate was “something we’re happy to think about.”

Rules posted at the first tee continue to ask golfers not to feed, chase, or attempt to negotiate with the geese, which arrived before the resort did and have shown no intention of leaving. Groundskeeper Cody Lindholm put the seventh-fairway flock at roughly thirty birds. “You play around them,” he said. “That’s just the rule now.”

The lakeside dining room reopens to the public Friday for dinner; weekend reservations are recommended. The sunset over Big Pelican, the resort’s brochure notes, remains free of charge — and visible, residents add, from the public landing as well.