In the first episode of Tumblehome: A Boundary Waters Podcast I talk about the basics of planning your first or fiftieth BWCA camping trip, including how the permitting system works, entry point quotas and the questions you should ask yourself when planning an overnight camping trip into the BWCA. Music by The Midnight Sons Subscribe: […]
The post Tumblehome: A Boundary Waters Podcast – Episode 001: BWCA Basics appeared first on Clearwater Outfitters.
Episode Transcript
[0:00:32 – 0:00:40] Erik: Hello and welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast brought to you by Clearwater Historic Lodge.
[0:00:41 – 0:00:47] Erik: I am Eric, who is also from Clearwater Historic Lodge, and this is episode 002, number two.
[0:00:48 – 0:00:56] Erik: I’m joined now and hopefully will be in the future always joined by my good friend and paddling partner, Adam.
[0:00:57 – 0:01:01] Adam: It’s good to be here for episode two.
[0:01:02 – 0:01:05] Adam: I missed the first episode, but that’s okay.
[0:01:06 – 0:01:08] Adam: I think we’ll be here at least until episode 999.
[0:01:09 – 0:01:16] Erik: Yeah, I mean, seriously, that should be the goal of every podcast is at least 1,000 episodes.
[0:01:16 – 0:01:19] Adam: It’s like two episodes for each lake in the Boundary Waters.
[0:01:20 – 0:01:21] Adam: Yeah.
[0:01:21 – 0:01:21] Adam: No big deal.
[0:01:22 – 0:01:23] Adam: We can easily do that.
[0:01:23 – 0:01:24] Erik: Yeah, no big deal.
[0:01:25 – 0:01:25] Erik: We’re going to…
[0:01:26 – 0:01:36] Erik: kind of set the table as it were, um, on this episode for everybody, just to give you guys an idea, uh, where we came from and why we’re doing this.
[0:01:37 – 0:01:45] Erik: Um, I, um, I’m associated with, uh, the Boundary Waters in the way that I am based on the, the job that I got actually.
[0:01:46 – 0:01:51] Erik: Um, and this was, uh, right out of high school.
[0:01:51 – 0:01:52] Erik: Actually, I,
[0:01:54 – 0:01:58] Erik: I used to come up here growing up with my dad.
[0:01:59 – 0:02:05] Erik: He would actually brought me over to the Ely side, bring me over to Smitty’s, Smitty’s on Snowbank.
[0:02:06 – 0:02:09] Erik: Yeah, those were good times.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:16] Erik: I mean, I think the first time he actually brought me into the park where I portaged a canoe, I told him I never wanted to do it again.
[0:02:16 – 0:02:17] Erik: I never want to do this again.
[0:02:19 – 0:02:21] Adam: I think I’ve heard that a lot from people.
[0:02:21 – 0:02:25] Adam: If they’re brought in when they’re young, too, they’re like, no, it was hell.
[0:02:27 – 0:02:44] Erik: Yeah, no, I think those trips were good, but what really caught me was when I started coming up here with friends, when I was able to actually be involved in the planning of a trip.
[0:02:44 – 0:02:45] Adam: Sometimes you just didn’t plan.
[0:02:46 – 0:02:47] Adam: You’re like, we’re going this way.
[0:02:47 – 0:02:51] Erik: Yeah, there was that too, like totally just going off the books.
[0:02:51 – 0:02:55] Erik: Like we had maps, but we had no idea what any of it meant.
[0:02:57 – 0:03:01] Erik: So yeah, I came up with friends in high school.
[0:03:01 – 0:03:10] Erik: And then after one of those trips, we talked about how cool it would be to spend a summer up here and work at a lodge.
[0:03:11 – 0:03:19] Erik: And one of my friends, he had a family cabin on West Bearskin, and so we figured that that would be a good place to start.
[0:03:19 – 0:03:27] Erik: So we sent out our applications, and we actually both heard back from Clearwater, and we both got jobs there.
[0:03:28 – 0:03:33] Erik: And, I mean, really the rest is history in terms of where I am now.
[0:03:33 – 0:03:35] Erik: Like, I started as a dock boy.
[0:03:36 – 0:03:38] Erik: cleaning cabins, going on trips.
[0:03:38 – 0:03:45] Erik: Every opportunity that we got where we had days off, we would be out in the park and be exploring the area.
[0:03:47 – 0:03:54] Erik: That’s how I came to know and found out about the Gunflint Trail and the Boundary Waters.
[0:03:55 – 0:04:01] Erik: Then this was about 2005 for me, which is actually after your first summer up here.
[0:04:02 – 0:04:12] Adam: Yeah, I actually, when I got a job up here, I had never been up here before and never really even heard about it.
[0:04:12 – 0:04:21] Adam: I grew up in Wisconsin, which isn’t that far away, but yeah, we never took a vacation up here.
[0:04:21 – 0:04:23] Adam: I never even read anything about it.
[0:04:23 – 0:04:26] Adam: And then it was 2001.
[0:04:26 – 0:04:31] Adam: It was my freshman year at university.
[0:04:34 – 0:04:39] Adam: And my buddy Neil was like, hey, you should check this job out in the Boundary Waters.
[0:04:39 – 0:04:48] Adam: I was looking at it, and it was for Clearwater Lodge, which is really the connecting thing here, I would say.
[0:04:48 – 0:04:49] Adam: It’s pretty amazing.
[0:04:51 – 0:04:58] Adam: And I’ll get to it later that I ended up working there in 2001 and then much later, which is how we met after the fact.
[0:04:58 – 0:05:03] Adam: But that Clearwater Lodge, which has been there since 26 or.
[0:05:03 – 0:05:04] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:04 – 0:05:05] Erik: Well, the lodge itself.
[0:05:05 – 0:05:09] Adam: Just the people I’ve met through the lodge itself, like this building.
[0:05:09 – 0:05:12] Erik: It’s more than a building, but this is another episode.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:33] Adam: so neil says you should apply i was like i’ve never been up there it sounds like fun we’ve done a bunch of camping in northern wisconsin in the nicolet national forest and there’s some back country like one lake and stuff you can do up there which is oh you hike in or whatever to this campsite or paddle across a lake to a campsite it’s pretty thrilling
[0:05:35 – 0:05:49] Adam: So he tells me about it and I had no idea, you know, so I got the job, Bob and Marty Marchino on the place in 2001 and they called me and then I later found out that there was like, I did a phone interview and got the job.
[0:05:50 – 0:05:55] Adam: And then I later found out that there was like a ton of people that applied.
[0:05:55 – 0:06:04] Erik: Which is crazy because I now do the hiring process for Clearwater and it’s, I mean, it’s not that many people that I hear from.
[0:06:04 – 0:06:09] Adam: Unfortunately, you’d think it’d be… Well, they used to go to like college job fairs and such too.
[0:06:10 – 0:06:11] Erik: We’ve done that too.
[0:06:11 – 0:06:11] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:11 – 0:06:12] Adam: Me and you.
[0:06:12 – 0:06:14] Erik: We actually did go to… We did go to a job fair.
[0:06:14 – 0:06:15] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:15 – 0:06:17] Erik: In Ashland and Superior, Wisconsin.
[0:06:18 – 0:06:19] Erik: Shout out to Splashland.
[0:06:20 – 0:06:43] Adam: yeah that was nice but uh yeah so i did that phone interview and then they called me back and they offered me a job and i was like okay yeah i had no idea i had no idea where we even like we drove up my my parents gave me a ride up i didn’t i hadn’t even looked at a map or anything i was so unprepared
[0:06:43 – 0:06:44] Erik: That’s crazy.
[0:06:44 – 0:06:49] Erik: That’s so much crazier than my experience, which was I had a pretty good frame of reference.
[0:06:49 – 0:06:56] Erik: I was like, I got a job a mile away from the cabin that I had been spending summers at and basing trips out of.
[0:06:58 – 0:07:03] Erik: I knew exactly what the situation was to a certain extent, like where I was going and what I was getting myself into.
[0:07:03 – 0:07:07] Erik: And you sound like somebody was like, yeah, this sounds like a fun job.
[0:07:08 – 0:07:09] Adam: Yeah, let’s do it.
[0:07:09 – 0:07:11] Adam: It was freshman year in college.
[0:07:11 – 0:07:13] Adam: It was the perfect job for that.
[0:07:13 – 0:07:15] Adam: Like, hey, what are you doing with your life?
[0:07:15 – 0:07:16] Adam: I had no idea.
[0:07:16 – 0:07:17] Adam: How about this?
[0:07:18 – 0:07:19] Adam: Sounds good.
[0:07:20 – 0:07:22] Adam: I hadn’t even really paddled a canoe a lot.
[0:07:22 – 0:07:29] Adam: I mean, we had one growing up, but you just took it to Silver Lake and go out for bluegills or whatever.
[0:07:30 – 0:07:31] Adam: You’re not really paddling.
[0:07:32 – 0:07:32] Adam: There’s no portaging.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:34] Adam: You had no idea what that was.
[0:07:34 – 0:07:36] Adam: I remember my first portage.
[0:07:37 – 0:08:06] Adam: was uh clearwater to caribou the one on the west side yes the first one the real muddy one and yeah the one that everybody hates yeah like i just is super muddy it’s like june it’s always muddy yeah it’s always muddy but especially in june and yeah just you’re in there and you’re like what is that what what am i doing in here this is nuts like to go oh all i was trying to do is go spend a night on deer which now in hindsight it’s like that’s so silly
[0:08:07 – 0:08:09] Erik: Yeah, it was funny looking back on some of those trips.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:19] Erik: At the time, you think you’re doing something one way, and you’re way out in the wilderness and in the bush, and you are.
[0:08:19 – 0:08:25] Erik: But compared to some of the things that we’ve done since those first trips, like going out and camping on deer.
[0:08:26 – 0:08:29] Adam: Yeah, like struggling through a 200-rod portage.
[0:08:29 – 0:08:31] Adam: So what if it was an aluminum canoe?
[0:08:32 – 0:08:33] Adam: I was pretty young and fit.
[0:08:34 – 0:08:35] Adam: Should have been no big deal, but…
[0:08:36 – 0:08:41] Adam: just slogging through the mud, not knowing how to walk through the mud with a canoe, these things.
[0:08:41 – 0:08:42] Adam: You learn these things.
[0:08:43 – 0:08:44] Erik: Yeah, that’s what it’s all about.
[0:08:45 – 0:08:57] Erik: I mean, and that’s kind of why we’re here, I think, is to share some of these experiences to get you through your, whether it’s your first trip or your 50th.
[0:08:57 – 0:09:03] Erik: It’s always fun to sit down, and especially this time of year in the winter, talk about those summer trips.
[0:09:04 – 0:09:04] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:09:05 – 0:09:06] Adam: I’ve got a few in mind for this year.
[0:09:07 – 0:09:07] Erik: Yep.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:15] Erik: So you had the first summer at Clearwater in 2001.
[0:09:15 – 0:09:17] Erik: Mine was in 2005 or 2006.
[0:09:18 – 0:09:20] Erik: I can’t remember at this point.
[0:09:20 – 0:09:25] Erik: But how we met was you ended up coming back in 2011, right?
[0:09:25 – 0:09:25] Erik: Yep.
[0:09:27 – 0:09:29] Adam: Yeah, so it was 10 years later.
[0:09:29 – 0:09:30] Adam: 10 years later, yeah.
[0:09:30 – 0:09:38] Adam: So I did the one year and then did the career and then decided, you know, it’d be nice to get back up north.
[0:09:39 – 0:09:43] Adam: Where better than to drop a line would be with the Clearwater Lodge.
[0:09:44 – 0:09:46] Adam: Just generic email.
[0:09:46 – 0:09:47] Adam: Hey.
[0:09:48 – 0:09:48] Adam: Like in April.
[0:09:49 – 0:09:49] Erik: Yeah.
[0:09:49 – 0:09:51] Adam: You need any help this summer?
[0:09:51 – 0:09:56] Adam: I can cook pancakes and, you know, portage a canoe and…
[0:09:57 – 0:09:59] Erik: Clean a cabin, yeah.
[0:10:00 – 0:10:02] Erik: How many Clearwater McMuffins you used to make back in the day?
[0:10:02 – 0:10:04] Adam: Yeah, it used to be a big thing in outfitting.
[0:10:05 – 0:10:06] Adam: Not so much these days.
[0:10:07 – 0:10:08] Adam: You know, that’s just the way it is.
[0:10:08 – 0:10:10] Adam: But there’s always the buttermilk pancakes.
[0:10:12 – 0:10:15] Adam: Yeah, they, like, immediately got back to me.
[0:10:15 – 0:10:20] Adam: It was apparently under new ownership, and they’re like, yeah, we need somebody that can help cook and whatever.
[0:10:21 – 0:10:21] Adam: Come on up.
[0:10:21 – 0:10:25] Adam: So I basically got the job, again, within, like, 10 minutes on the phone.
[0:10:25 – 0:10:26] Erik: Yeah.
[0:10:26 – 0:10:36] Adam: Two phone interviews, 10 years apart, about 10 minutes each, and didn’t realize how lucky I was either of these times.
[0:10:37 – 0:10:38] Adam: But there I was.
[0:10:39 – 0:10:39] Adam: So…
[0:10:40 – 0:10:46] Adam: Yeah, I packed pretty much everything I owned into my old S10 and drove up in April.
[0:10:47 – 0:10:49] Adam: And then I met you a couple days later.
[0:10:49 – 0:10:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[0:10:50 – 0:10:53] Adam: And we started, like, sanding floors the next day.
[0:10:53 – 0:10:58] Erik: Well, the first thing we ever did together was sand the floor of the lodge to get it ready to be a new store.
[0:11:00 – 0:11:01] Erik: I remember the…
[0:11:02 – 0:11:10] Erik: I remember you walking in, because I had just adopted a dog from my old sled dog days.
[0:11:11 – 0:11:19] Erik: I brought a dog over with me, and I had her tied up out in front of the lodge, and she was just running around in circles barking.
[0:11:19 – 0:11:21] Erik: Just running in circles and barking.
[0:11:21 – 0:11:25] Erik: And the first thing you came in, you’re like, whose dog is that outside?
[0:11:25 – 0:11:26] Erik: This thing’s going crazy.
[0:11:26 – 0:11:28] Erik: I was like, yeah, that’s Marla.
[0:11:29 – 0:11:33] Erik: She’s an ex-sled dog, and we’re going to try to make her a pet.
[0:11:34 – 0:11:41] Erik: And then, yeah, we spent the next week refinishing the floor in the store at the lodge.
[0:11:41 – 0:11:49] Erik: We started with little palm sanders, and we worked our way all the way up to the huge industrial drum sander.
[0:11:49 – 0:11:53] Adam: Yeah, like two people could ride on it at one time.
[0:11:53 – 0:11:54] Adam: It was that big.
[0:11:54 – 0:12:11] Erik: And then over the course of that summer, we had… Because the summer before the end of that season, I had finally made my way up to Quetico Provincial Park with a friend of mine, Jim.
[0:12:11 – 0:12:12] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:13 – 0:12:19] Erik: And over the course of that summer, like I was telling you stories around the campfire about it.
[0:12:19 – 0:12:20] Adam: I wanted to do it again.
[0:12:21 – 0:12:24] Adam: You started in pretty early, like the end of May.
[0:12:24 – 0:12:27] Adam: Like I got up there pretty much like April 28th or 27th.
[0:12:29 – 0:12:33] Adam: end of April, I got up there and by like the end of May, you’re really like, we got to get back to Quetico.
[0:12:34 – 0:12:36] Adam: You’re telling me about it real early on.
[0:12:36 – 0:12:43] Erik: It did help that the whole trip was essentially under blue skies without any wind at all.
[0:12:43 – 0:12:46] Erik: This was a trip that took place in October.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:57] Erik: And by the end of it, by the end of that first one, we were kind of like begging for a change in scenery because it was almost too nice.
[0:12:57 – 0:12:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:58 – 0:13:01] Erik: No wind, no adversary.
[0:13:01 – 0:13:03] Erik: No wind, no…
[0:13:03 – 0:13:07] Erik: I mean, the portages are always bad, but the sky was always blue.
[0:13:07 – 0:13:09] Erik: It was never a ripple on the lake.
[0:13:09 – 0:13:10] Erik: It was…
[0:13:10 – 0:13:16] Erik: I mean, we did what we thought was going to take us a month over the course of…
[0:13:16 – 0:13:18] Erik: It only took us 20 days.
[0:13:19 – 0:13:25] Erik: So over the course of that first summer that we met, we talked about that getting back to Quetico because…
[0:13:27 – 0:13:31] Erik: stupidly, I thought it was automatically just going to be the same.
[0:13:31 – 0:13:34] Erik: It’s just going to be this amazing blue sky, windless trip.
[0:13:35 – 0:13:41] Erik: And the first part of it was, but it did end up taking us, I think it was 28 days that fall.
[0:13:44 – 0:13:45] Adam: Yeah, for sure.
[0:13:46 – 0:13:51] Adam: And we actually did get some wind, but honestly, we also were swimming in October.
[0:13:52 – 0:14:01] Adam: I think that was kind of really the start of thinking about it, not so much as a summer place, but this is a place where you can always be out no matter the season.
[0:14:02 – 0:14:04] Adam: We’re out there in October, and we’re swimming.
[0:14:05 – 0:14:10] Adam: But then a week later, we’re in the snow and kind of fighting through a little ice.
[0:14:10 – 0:14:12] Adam: And I was like, yeah, it changes quick.
[0:14:12 – 0:14:21] Adam: But that trip really opened my mind to a lot of things, chiefly, though, like the appreciation for all the different seasons we get up here.
[0:14:21 – 0:14:22] Erik: Yeah.
[0:14:22 – 0:14:28] Erik: I mean, October, if there’s any month that you could come up here and experience the
[0:14:30 – 0:14:32] Erik: Every season, it’s in October.
[0:14:32 – 0:14:39] Erik: Like you said, we swam, we broke through ice, we shivered next to the campfire.
[0:14:40 – 0:14:42] Erik: Everything happened in that month.
[0:14:42 – 0:14:46] Erik: You couldn’t say that in any other month of the year where you could run into…
[0:14:46 – 0:14:52] Erik: Pretty much every condition besides actually walking through feet of snow.
[0:14:53 – 0:15:02] Erik: October, especially the latter half of the month, allows you to get a real taste of the edge of the season.
[0:15:03 – 0:15:20] Erik: And I think that that trip solidified my wanting to continue to explore Quetico and also call the Gunflint Trail, Grand Marais, Cook County, whatever you want to say.
[0:15:20 – 0:15:23] Erik: I wanted to call that home, basically.
[0:15:23 – 0:15:24] Erik: The tip of the arrowhead.
[0:15:25 – 0:15:28] Erik: Tip of the arrowhead, which is coming back.
[0:15:28 – 0:15:29] Erik: We’re bringing that back.
[0:15:30 – 0:15:32] Erik: You know, that trip solidified it for me.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:44] Erik: And the trip that I took the year after that that you weren’t on, I actually took with my, at the time, girlfriend, now wife, was the…
[0:15:46 – 0:16:06] Erik: the, uh, the nail in the good coffin, like a, the, the coffin, uh, is, uh, the, a bad metaphor in this scenario, but, um, those three trips that, uh, I took in, in Quetico and each one of them in October and each one of them, uh, definitely transformative, always, uh,
[0:16:07 – 0:16:14] Erik: causing you to learn something new about yourself and the area is the reason why I’m still here, I think.
[0:16:15 – 0:16:33] Erik: And considering the name of the podcast, and we’ve only been talking about Cuetico, in between that month-long trip and now, we’ve probably spent close to about the same number of days and short little trips in the Boundary Waters.
[0:16:34 – 0:16:35] Adam: Oh, yeah, at least.
[0:16:35 – 0:16:37] Erik: Yeah, and the way that…
[0:16:37 – 0:16:38] Adam: Probably way more.
[0:16:38 – 0:16:39] Adam: Probably way more.
[0:16:39 – 0:16:41] Adam: The little ones add up a lot quicker than you think.
[0:16:41 – 0:16:50] Erik: Yeah, but the way that it works is we took those month-long trips because that was the only time we could take them.
[0:16:51 – 0:17:01] Erik: And so we have all these little two, three-day trips, maybe one three-day trip of getting out into the Boundary Waters because of our jobs.
[0:17:01 – 0:17:06] Adam: The problem is that to be able to live in this paradise, you have to work.
[0:17:07 – 0:17:15] Adam: And the jobs up here require you to work during the good season to paddle for the most part, which is why we’re on these October trips today.
[0:17:15 – 0:17:22] Adam: To begin with, we’ve discovered that October is a real connoisseur’s month for paddling.
[0:17:23 – 0:17:31] Adam: A, because it’s not as busy for the business, but also, like you said, you get everything you want up here, except for the bugs.
[0:17:31 – 0:17:33] Adam: You do not get bugs ever in October.
[0:17:33 – 0:17:35] Adam: That’s the only thing you don’t get.
[0:17:37 – 0:17:38] Adam: That’s another positive.
[0:17:38 – 0:17:42] Erik: That is one of the best positives, and that’s not one of those things where…
[0:17:43 – 0:17:47] Erik: You want to experience the Boundary Waters in a year condensed into a month?
[0:17:48 – 0:17:52] Erik: Well, yeah, that sounds like fun, but the bugs kind of still… No, there’s no bugs.
[0:17:53 – 0:17:55] Erik: You’ll get all the temperatures and the weather.
[0:17:55 – 0:17:56] Erik: You won’t get the bugs, though.
[0:17:56 – 0:18:00] Adam: I’m afraid that the cat’s out of the bag on this October paddling.
[0:18:01 – 0:18:03] Erik: We really should bury this podcast.
[0:18:03 – 0:18:10] Adam: I really don’t think it matters at this point because the last couple times I’ve been out in October, we’ve seen a lot of people, honestly, more than you’d think.
[0:18:10 – 0:18:13] Erik: Yeah, how many people did we see on that first trip that we took?
[0:18:13 – 0:18:20] Erik: I know we saw a handful on a really beautiful weekend where it was nice and warm.
[0:18:20 – 0:18:23] Erik: I think that was the first week right around Agnes Lake.
[0:18:23 – 0:18:25] Erik: I think we saw maybe two to four people.
[0:18:25 – 0:18:28] Erik: But after that, did we really see anybody after that?
[0:18:30 – 0:18:30] Adam: Nope.
[0:18:30 – 0:18:31] Adam: I don’t think so.
[0:18:31 – 0:18:35] Adam: A couple people on Lacroix, like day 21.
[0:18:35 – 0:18:35] Adam: Day 21.
[0:18:35 – 0:18:50] Erik: Oh, yeah, which I think they were probably people that we theorized that we knew them because at some point as we were paddling by them, we thought that they yelled back, Paige, because we were paddling by the guy named Paige.
[0:18:51 – 0:19:13] Erik: he wasn’t even wearing a shirt because it was like 40 yeah it was 45 and you know we had been we were out there slogged through the cuetico river and 20 degree temperatures and sat through two other days of page wind basically just being i think they said page i think they said page did they just say page
[0:19:14 – 0:19:15] Erik: Yeah, I think that looked like somebody I knew.
[0:19:15 – 0:19:17] Erik: And then we just never followed up on it.
[0:19:17 – 0:19:18] Erik: Who knows?
[0:19:19 – 0:19:19] Erik: He probably said nothing.
[0:19:20 – 0:19:23] Erik: We were just delirious from the woods.
[0:19:24 – 0:19:26] Erik: More than likely.
[0:19:27 – 0:19:28] Erik: Yeah, more than likely.
[0:19:29 – 0:19:49] Erik: After the month-long trip, we’ve taken our fair share of trips, and because of being in the service industry and having to serve the people that want to explore the area that we’re fortunate enough to call home,
[0:19:50 – 0:19:52] Erik: Yeah, you just don’t get a lot of days off in a row.
[0:19:52 – 0:19:54] Erik: Yeah, you can’t take week-long trips.
[0:19:55 – 0:19:56] Erik: Here’s a secret pro tip.
[0:19:56 – 0:20:08] Erik: If you want to just know this is what it’s all about, you want to get out, you want to explore the Bajau waters, you want to be able to paddle as much as possible.
[0:20:08 – 0:20:09] Erik: The more days, the better.
[0:20:10 – 0:20:12] Erik: Do not become a Boundary Waters outfitter.
[0:20:13 – 0:20:13] Erik: There is the key.
[0:20:13 – 0:20:21] Erik: Don’t become an outfitter if you want to paddle because you’re spending most of the summer talking to people about their trips.
[0:20:21 – 0:20:31] Erik: That can probably apply to any position up in Cook County here that is service-based.
[0:20:32 – 0:20:34] Erik: Summers are just nuts.
[0:20:34 – 0:20:35] Erik: There’s no time.
[0:20:35 – 0:20:36] Erik: You get two days and…
[0:20:38 – 0:20:42] Erik: What we do with those two days is typically… And it’s not…
[0:20:42 – 0:20:44] Erik: I’m not like… We’re not trying to…
[0:20:46 – 0:20:53] Erik: you know, toot our own horns, as they say, to say the amount of miles that we cover.
[0:20:53 – 0:20:58] Erik: But in two days, we typically do what people do in, like, multiple days.
[0:20:58 – 0:21:01] Erik: I would say probably closer to, like, a week.
[0:21:01 – 0:21:07] Adam: Well, we can because we have been paddling a lot, but also just out of necessity.
[0:21:07 – 0:21:12] Adam: Like, if you want to go anywhere, you’ve got to really put the miles on and go.
[0:21:12 – 0:21:14] Adam: Paddle into the dark if you have to.
[0:21:15 – 0:21:16] Erik: Right, which we have.
[0:21:16 – 0:21:24] Erik: It’s not two days, like two nights, a day in advance and a day after.
[0:21:24 – 0:21:27] Erik: I mean, it’s like literally 48 hours sometimes that we get to work with.
[0:21:28 – 0:21:34] Erik: And what we’ve done with 48 hours has been pretty amazing, I think, considering…
[0:21:36 – 0:21:44] Erik: that you’re within that 48 hours, you’re still subject to wind and weather and, uh, we make the best of it.
[0:21:45 – 0:21:56] Erik: And I think over the course of the years after that month in Quetico, our, our two day little, little stint trips, um, have, uh,
[0:21:57 – 0:22:21] Adam: have led us to a point where i mean i think we feel comfortable talking about what we’re talking about now and what we’re uh eventually going to talk about in the future i think yeah i i feel like we’re at that point in our careers as paddlers it’s not a career it’s a it’s a way of life nice you can just get out there
[0:22:23 – 0:22:37] Adam: with a handsaw and like a handful of birch bark and a hammock and be count, you know, we’re pretty comfortable, but yeah, it all, it all did start with that, that first trip into Quetico.
[0:22:38 – 0:22:45] Adam: And we’ve seen a lot of the park, so hopefully in the course of this podcast we can focus on some routes we’ve done.
[0:22:45 – 0:22:49] Adam: We’re definitely going to look at a lot of the lakes that we’ve hit.
[0:22:50 – 0:22:52] Erik: Yeah, definitely looking forward to it.
[0:22:52 – 0:22:55] Adam: Maybe lake-by-lake profiles, like we’ve fished a lot of the lakes.
[0:22:56 – 0:22:58] Adam: I feel like the more that we paddle, though, the less we fish.
[0:22:59 – 0:23:06] Erik: Yeah, that’s definitely been a transformation that I’ve noticed over the years from the first couple of trips that I did that were primarily fishing.
[0:23:06 – 0:23:08] Erik: Like it’s all about you got to catch some fish and eat fish.
[0:23:08 – 0:23:09] Erik: Or here to fish.
[0:23:09 – 0:23:24] Erik: Like I only, like I did a trip, the second trip that I did ever, I did with some friends and we only brought the accoutrements to fish.
[0:23:24 – 0:23:26] Erik: So like crackers and tortillas.
[0:23:26 – 0:23:27] Erik: Yeah.
[0:23:27 – 0:23:33] Adam: Yeah, I’ve been on a trip where we brought, like, a pack of saltines and, like, five apples.
[0:23:34 – 0:23:35] Adam: Like, we’re going to be fine.
[0:23:36 – 0:23:36] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:36 – 0:23:39] Erik: And those are the trips that then, like… And then it rained the whole time.
[0:23:39 – 0:23:42] Erik: Yeah, you don’t catch fish.
[0:23:42 – 0:23:49] Erik: All of a sudden, you’re catching and keeping, like, 10-inch bass because you have to eat.
[0:23:50 – 0:23:51] Erik: You don’t have anything else.
[0:23:51 – 0:23:52] Erik: There’s nothing wrong with that.
[0:23:53 – 0:23:53] Erik: Well…
[0:23:54 – 0:23:57] Erik: I mean, that might be a discussion for later.
[0:23:57 – 0:24:01] Erik: But 10-inch bass, I think, generally should not be kept and eaten.
[0:24:02 – 0:24:04] Erik: But, you know, that was the way it was.
[0:24:05 – 0:24:09] Erik: We had a cornucopia of breadings.
[0:24:10 – 0:24:13] Erik: Like, we bought every breading from the, like, fish breading aisle.
[0:24:14 – 0:24:16] Erik: But nothing else to go with it.
[0:24:16 – 0:24:19] Erik: Like, if we didn’t catch fish, like, you can’t just eat spoonfuls of breading.
[0:24:20 – 0:24:20] Erik: Well…
[0:24:21 – 0:24:22] Erik: Yeah, it wouldn’t be very good.
[0:24:22 – 0:24:23] Erik: No.
[0:24:24 – 0:24:29] Erik: We had crackers, tortillas, cheese.
[0:24:29 – 0:24:35] Erik: Don’t let us forget that I did have an amazing assortment of malt vinegars as well.
[0:24:36 – 0:24:38] Erik: This was a trip based on catching fish.
[0:24:38 – 0:24:38] Adam: Yeah.
[0:24:40 – 0:24:42] Adam: So naturally, you ate lots of fish.
[0:24:44 – 0:25:06] Erik: we did but it was like touch and go and there was like some afternoons and evenings where we were just out there fishing after we really wanted to be fishing because we had to eat so don’t base a canoe trip on only catching and eating fish well yeah nowadays it’s like I still bring fishing gear but now I’m down to like
[0:25:07 – 0:25:32] Adam: three lures that i know i can trust and i maybe like troll for a little bit and then like you just just fish right from camp i guess like the more i go it’s like well i’ll bring some good stuff to eat i’ll carry a little extra pack weight to just have the food and then you don’t have to worry so much about the fishing it makes it more enjoyable
[0:25:33 – 0:25:37] Adam: And then I think this is the whole way everything’s going with me as far as the park.
[0:25:38 – 0:25:41] Adam: Like, you just want to be comfortable.
[0:25:41 – 0:25:45] Adam: You learn how to, like, you can catch fish and eat them.
[0:25:46 – 0:25:51] Adam: And it’s great when you get a fresh fish for dinner or perhaps breakfast.
[0:25:53 – 0:25:55] Adam: You know, that’s always amazing.
[0:25:56 – 0:26:02] Adam: It’s not so much about, like, hey, we’re just going to, like, wing it and get nuts, and I’m not going to overpack.
[0:26:02 – 0:26:24] Adam: to the point where i’m slogging it but it’s this happy medium that you find with time in the park that really makes it like it is the greatest place in the whole world and we live here we’ll live right on the edge of it right here now uh we can take a hike out there tonight if we wanted to
[0:26:24 – 0:26:24] Erik: We could.
[0:26:24 – 0:26:27] Erik: We just got off the lake a little bit ago.
[0:26:27 – 0:26:33] Erik: We were not in the boundary waters, but we were out on a lake.
[0:26:33 – 0:26:37] Erik: We saw a truck drive by over the three hours that we were out there.
[0:26:38 – 0:26:38] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:38 – 0:26:40] Erik: I mean, we had the whole lake to ourselves.
[0:26:40 – 0:26:41] Erik: I mean, that’s the beauty of the place.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:52] Erik: It’s definitely a little bit of heaven that, if anything, this podcast will convince you to drop it all.
[0:26:53 – 0:26:54] Erik: Just give it up.
[0:26:54 – 0:26:56] Erik: Leave your wife too, whatever.
[0:26:57 – 0:27:00] Erik: Just boot your family out the door.
[0:27:00 – 0:27:01] Adam: Yeah, disappear.
[0:27:01 – 0:27:03] Adam: Don’t even take any of your clothing with you.
[0:27:04 – 0:27:06] Adam: Just move up here and buy wool stuff.
[0:27:06 – 0:27:06] Adam: Yeah.
[0:27:07 – 0:27:08] Adam: And then disappear.
[0:27:08 – 0:27:09] Erik: I’ll be over now.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:11] Erik: Just drive up here.
[0:27:12 – 0:27:16] Erik: Probably better yet, fly to Duluth.
[0:27:16 – 0:27:18] Erik: I’m sure you can find a cab.
[0:27:18 – 0:27:21] Adam: Or, you know, like, find a sassy way to quit.
[0:27:21 – 0:27:21] Adam: Yeah.
[0:27:21 – 0:27:23] Adam: Just stick it to your boss.
[0:27:23 – 0:27:27] Erik: Yeah, but you have to also on that same day, like, then head right up here.
[0:27:27 – 0:27:27] Erik: Yeah.
[0:27:28 – 0:27:34] Erik: And then just stop at Ben Franklin in Grand Marais and buy a bunch of woolen goods.
[0:27:35 – 0:27:38] Adam: You’re going to need at least two pairs of everything in wool.
[0:27:38 – 0:27:41] Adam: This is the worst advice ever.
[0:27:42 – 0:27:43] Erik: Quit your job, leave your family.
[0:27:43 – 0:27:47] Adam: This is like when we went to the job fair at the college.
[0:27:47 – 0:27:51] Erik: Yeah, we spent that whole job there convincing college kids that they should quit college.
[0:27:51 – 0:27:59] Adam: Eric was actually trying to get kids to come up for the summer, but then I was just there like, hey, just quit your degree or whatever you’re doing.
[0:27:59 – 0:28:00] Adam: It’s a waste of time.
[0:28:00 – 0:28:01] Adam: College is a sham.
[0:28:01 – 0:28:25] Erik: yeah like you up north i was sitting at the table just shaking his head and you were like you were just like you know a dark alcove like with a trench coat and you were like flipping the trench coat up and you were showing them amazing pictures of like sunsets in the wilderness like hey man this could be yours you just quit this college thing the thing is i’m pretty sure nobody we talked to at that job fair actually followed my advice
[0:28:26 – 0:28:27] Erik: I never heard from any of them, no.
[0:28:28 – 0:28:29] Erik: I can tell you that for sure.
[0:28:29 – 0:28:30] Adam: No leads were followed.
[0:28:32 – 0:28:32] Erik: No.
[0:28:33 – 0:28:34] Erik: Which, you know.
[0:28:35 – 0:28:41] Erik: Nobody… You’re not listening to this podcast and seriously taking our advice as of yet, especially in episode two.
[0:28:41 – 0:28:52] Erik: But I think the point is, you know, you should put yourself in a place that you can walk out your back door and find yourself where you want to be.
[0:28:53 – 0:29:01] Erik: I mean, yeah, it’s one of those things where you get people coming in on a daily basis, for me at least, as an outfitter, where, you know…
[0:29:02 – 0:29:25] Erik: yeah here you are sitting behind the desk and you’re you know you never really get to just say i’m gonna go out and take a week-long canoe trip but i would rather be able to say um done at four or five i can head right out and it’s right there versus having to drive five hours to get to the place um and uh
[0:29:26 – 0:29:47] Erik: Yeah, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at, and I am looking forward to being able to talk about the things that I’ve experienced, the things that I’ve learned, and to be able to put it down on virtual paper, as it were.
[0:29:49 – 0:29:49] Adam: Virtual paper.
[0:29:50 – 0:29:51] Erik: Yeah, man.
[0:29:52 – 0:30:02] Erik: Yeah, Tumble Home’s good, but I think we’re going to have to shut down and re-edit everything so that it’s called virtual paper.
[0:30:08 – 0:30:08] SPEAKER_00: Cat.
[0:30:09 – 0:30:21] Erik: And without continuing to go on and on, we’re going to bring it to a head here and kind of get to the thesis, I guess.
[0:30:22 – 0:30:28] Erik: And probably not a thesis that would ever be accepted in any kind of collegiate form.
[0:30:28 – 0:30:30] Erik: It’s going to be long-winded and rambling.
[0:30:30 – 0:30:31] Erik: But, you know…
[0:30:32 – 0:30:39] Erik: Um, we’re, we’re, we’re doing this to bring attention to our favorite place on earth.
[0:30:39 – 0:30:40] Erik: We’ve said that multiple times.
[0:30:40 – 0:30:41] Erik: I said it in the first episode.
[0:30:42 – 0:30:48] Erik: Um, we want to be able to share our experiences to expose the boundary waters wilderness for what it is.
[0:30:48 – 0:30:51] Erik: I mean, it’s obviously not an unknown place.
[0:30:51 – 0:30:53] Erik: But I think it could be more well-known.
[0:30:53 – 0:31:07] Erik: And if it gets forgotten or if it’s not talked about in relevant ways, I think it can lend itself to being taken advantage of.
[0:31:07 – 0:31:09] Erik: So that’s what we’re talking about.
[0:31:09 – 0:31:16] Erik: We don’t want to come across as being people that don’t like seeing other people use the park.
[0:31:16 – 0:31:17] Erik: I love seeing people out in the wilderness.
[0:31:18 – 0:31:23] Adam: It’s great when you get on a trip and you don’t see anybody for a couple days.
[0:31:23 – 0:31:28] Adam: But usually when you see somebody in the park, they’re pretty friendly anyways.
[0:31:28 – 0:31:33] Adam: But, you know, it’s like my buddy Neil told me about the place.
[0:31:34 – 0:31:36] Adam: Everybody finds out about the park in their own way.
[0:31:37 – 0:31:42] Adam: And I guess we want to try and help get the word out on this place.
[0:31:43 – 0:31:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:31:43 – 0:31:45] Adam: Because it always takes something.
[0:31:45 – 0:31:46] Adam: Nobody just…
[0:31:48 – 0:32:13] Adam: finds the park by random like somebody always leads you to it and we want to try and help in that way to like you know we we want to keep this park thriving we want the people coming up here who want to be here that’ll like make it the kind of place that it needs to be yeah you know when you whenever you run into somebody else in the boundary waters
[0:32:14 – 0:32:16] Erik: you immediately have something in common.
[0:32:17 – 0:32:19] Erik: It’s not like running into somebody at Target.
[0:32:20 – 0:32:28] Erik: You’re running into somebody who has, especially if you’re out in it, you know, 10, 15, 20 miles away from an entry point or a road.
[0:32:29 – 0:32:32] Adam: Yeah, the farther from an entry point, the better when you meet somebody.
[0:32:33 – 0:32:33] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:33 – 0:32:37] Adam: You can always be like, hey, you want to have a sip of wine from the bag?
[0:32:38 – 0:32:39] Erik: Yeah, those are amazing moments.
[0:32:39 – 0:32:41] Adam: Yeah, and then how did you get here?
[0:32:41 – 0:32:42] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[0:32:43 – 0:33:09] Erik: how long you been coming up here and all of a sudden it’s you know you’re an hour in chat with somebody yeah you just met in the middle of the woods a great balance which is the key to everything if you ask me is it is a walking a perfect balance between i want the place to myself but i know if i only have it to myself that it’s not going to be the same it’s for everybody and
[0:33:09 – 0:33:13] Adam: Yeah, and like I said before, somebody always introduces you to it.
[0:33:13 – 0:33:16] Adam: So trying to share, bring them in.
[0:33:18 – 0:33:22] Adam: It always takes somebody to like, hey, you should check this place out.
[0:33:23 – 0:33:32] Adam: And if you listen to our future episodes, we’ll be talking about a lot of specific places you can go, entry points and routes and so forth.
[0:33:33 – 0:33:34] Adam: But…
[0:33:34 – 0:33:36] Adam: It’s a great place to live.
[0:33:36 – 0:33:37] Adam: It’s a great place to visit.
[0:33:37 – 0:33:40] Adam: And either way, we hope you get to enjoy it.
[0:33:42 – 0:33:45] Adam: It’s our little slice of heaven up here on Tumble Home.
[0:34:08 – 0:34:11] SPEAKER_00: I still invest in butters to the pet store.
[0:34:19 – 0:34:21] Erik: All right, once again, thank you for joining us.
[0:34:21 – 0:34:24] Erik: This has been Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:34:25 – 0:34:30] Erik: If you want to check us out, find us on Facebook at Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:34:32 – 0:34:40] Erik: You can also get in touch with us via email, tumblehomecast at gmail.com.
[0:34:40 – 0:34:44] Erik: You can find our podcasts posted at clearwateroutfitters.com.
[0:34:45 – 0:34:48] Erik: And until next time, happy paddling.
