Episode Transcript
[0:00:26 – 0:00:27] Adam: All right.
[0:00:27 – 0:00:29] Adam: We’re back.
[0:00:29 – 0:00:29] Adam: 007.
[0:00:30 – 0:00:31] Adam: Episode 7 of Tumble Home.
[0:00:32 – 0:00:35] Erik: Yeah, this is Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:00:35 – 0:00:36] Erik: I am Eric.
[0:00:36 – 0:00:37] Adam: And I am Adam.
[0:00:37 – 0:00:38] Adam: Thank you for listening once again.
[0:00:39 – 0:00:39] Erik: Yeah.
[0:00:40 – 0:00:42] Erik: And we’re kind of talking about a bunch of things this week, right?
[0:00:43 – 0:00:43] Adam: Yeah.
[0:00:43 – 0:00:50] Adam: First of all, we are sponsored by Clearwater Historic Lodge and also by Minnesota Gold Lager.
[0:00:51 – 0:00:53] Erik: Call us up, Minnesota Gold.
[0:00:53 – 0:00:54] Erik: Third Street.
[0:00:54 – 0:00:55] Erik: Get out on the ground floor.
[0:00:55 – 0:00:58] Erik: We have 993 more episodes to go.
[0:00:58 – 0:01:01] Adam: Whether they know it or not, they’re sponsoring us.
[0:01:02 – 0:01:06] Adam: It’s a very tasty and reasonably priced lager.
[0:01:07 – 0:01:07] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:01:08 – 0:01:11] Adam: Before we get into this episode, I’d like to spring a question on you, Eric.
[0:01:12 – 0:01:12] Adam: Here we go.
[0:01:13 – 0:01:15] Adam: So there’s currently 12 months of the year.
[0:01:15 – 0:01:22] Adam: I just read a thing that if we just went to 13 months, it could be 28 days each month for 13 months.
[0:01:22 – 0:01:24] Erik: I have actually heard of this theory before.
[0:01:24 – 0:01:27] Adam: Yeah, and then one extra day, which would just be New Year’s Day.
[0:01:27 – 0:01:27] Erik: Yep.
[0:01:28 – 0:01:30] Adam: So that makes a lot of sense.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:30] Adam: It’s kind of interesting.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:35] Adam: And then the first would always be a Sunday, and the 28th would always be a Saturday, and
[0:01:36 – 0:01:58] Adam: you could plan on every the the number of a month would always be the same date exactly yeah um so so you’ve heard of i’m not really springing it on you then this is not that secret of a theory but i just i i came upon it this week and i thought it was pretty interesting that we’re entering ending february which is the shortest month and uh yeah you could just have 13 short months
[0:02:00 – 0:02:06] Adam: But my question to you would be, so we get an extra month in there, where would you put the extra month?
[0:02:07 – 0:02:09] Adam: And if you could, what would you name it?
[0:02:11 – 0:02:12] Erik: Uh, yeah.
[0:02:12 – 0:02:17] Adam: Cause wherever you put this extra month, it’s going to move the other months around a little bit.
[0:02:17 – 0:02:24] Adam: I mean, we’re all going to still get our months, but, and it’s still the same amount of days, but it just would adjust.
[0:02:24 – 0:02:31] Adam: Like we always talk about like October is the new November of paddling or vice versa, you know, or June paddling is really good.
[0:02:31 – 0:02:34] Adam: Their bugs aren’t so bad, but it could be bad.
[0:02:35 – 0:02:39] Adam: So wherever you put this extra month, it would really affect our, our paddling schedule.
[0:02:40 – 0:02:44] Erik: No matter where you put it, it’s going to affect the other months regardless.
[0:02:44 – 0:02:48] Erik: I don’t think there’s any one place you could put it where it wouldn’t.
[0:02:48 – 0:02:51] Adam: Honestly, it wouldn’t matter in like 10 years once everybody got used to it all.
[0:02:52 – 0:02:55] Adam: But in the first 10 years, it would make a big difference.
[0:02:55 – 0:02:57] Adam: So I think it does matter where you’d put it.
[0:02:58 – 0:03:19] Erik: i know what i would have to yeah if i was like uh a politician on the the board of directors who was deciding to add another month to the calendar yeah you would you would probably want to have it be in the middle of a season where it wasn’t necessarily as noticeable um obviously like the the fun answer is like well i want another month of summer
[0:03:20 – 0:03:20] Adam: Yeah, obviously.
[0:03:21 – 0:03:21] Erik: Right.
[0:03:21 – 0:03:27] Erik: Like, let’s make a, like a, what, like joggist or?
[0:03:30 – 0:03:36] Adam: Well, and I’m reading Infinite Jest now, too, and you could just have the 13th month and then auction off the name of the month every year.
[0:03:36 – 0:03:37] Adam: There you go.
[0:03:37 – 0:03:37] Adam: To the highest bidder.
[0:03:38 – 0:03:39] Erik: Auction it off to a sponsor.
[0:03:39 – 0:03:43] Adam: The month of the whopper, the month of the adult depends undergarment.
[0:03:43 – 0:03:43] Adam: Every, yeah.
[0:03:43 – 0:03:45] Adam: The month of the, what have you.
[0:03:46 – 0:03:47] Adam: Yeah, you do it every year.
[0:03:47 – 0:03:48] Adam: That’s one idea.
[0:03:48 – 0:03:49] Adam: And who would that money go to?
[0:03:50 – 0:03:52] Adam: The Boundary Waters, yeah.
[0:03:52 – 0:03:53] Erik: Oh, oh.
[0:03:53 – 0:03:57] Adam: Go towards the National Park Service and maintaining our great national parks.
[0:03:57 – 0:04:07] Erik: So you’ve got January, February, March, and then Rupert Murdoch, and then May, and all that money just goes to the Boundary Waters.
[0:04:07 – 0:04:11] Adam: No, you have May, and then Third Street Brewery, and then June.
[0:04:13 – 0:04:36] Adam: i think we’re really onto something here like yeah like the calendar is pretty messed up already like it doesn’t really make any sense it doesn’t make any sense there’s no rhyme or reason consolidate it get it down to it’s like the metric the only problem with this is is like you only get paid twice a month but then you end up having an extra month of bills so we’d have to renegotiate like our rent and mortgages and our utility bills to make sure they they were one 13th
[0:04:38 – 0:05:04] Adam: of the year’s uh costs and not just one twelfth otherwise that wouldn’t really be fair you’d get the same amount of paychecks or everybody would have to get raises but you know it seems like this seems like a very uphill battle to try to get something like this done but i do like the idea of every year just selling that month off yeah to a uh an advertiser and all that money just goes towards it’s subsidized time that’s what this is called yeah
[0:05:05 – 0:05:10] Erik: This month brought to you by Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, the cheesiest.
[0:05:10 – 0:05:16] Adam: We might as well just make all 13 months sponsored by Tumble Home Podcast.
[0:05:17 – 0:05:21] Erik: Oh man, I think we’re probably giving away some very evil ideas right now.
[0:05:22 – 0:05:23] Adam: No, this is all out there.
[0:05:23 – 0:05:32] Adam: Anyways, my answer was, I was thinking about it on the drive up here today, and I would add it between May and June, so like after Memorial Day.
[0:05:32 – 0:05:48] Adam: So then it would include the solstice, and if we’re not going to sell it off, then you could just have the month be named Solaris or something to that effect, and we could have a great… And then also boost up the summer solstice as a real event and holiday.
[0:05:50 – 0:06:13] Adam: although you know it comes right before fourth of july so that’s a bit of a problem yeah i do feel like the then then you still get all your you get extra summer really you kind of just bump all the summer months back a couple days so then labor day would get bumped back a little bit i guess but you know september and october paddling would still be good in this scenario but then november paddling not so much but the way the climate’s going you know
[0:06:13 – 0:06:16] Adam: November is the new October, so it’ll all end up evening out.
[0:06:16 – 0:06:18] Adam: We don’t want to add extra winter months.
[0:06:18 – 0:06:25] Erik: Yeah, it’s even a better reason to adjust the calendar just based on now that the summer is longer.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:36] Erik: The shoulder seasons, as they were, are much more distinct in what they’re providing because of climate change.
[0:06:37 – 0:06:38] Erik: Adding another month…
[0:06:39 – 0:06:40] Erik: It wouldn’t even really be adding another month.
[0:06:40 – 0:06:42] Erik: It would just be shaving off days.
[0:06:42 – 0:06:42] Adam: Right.
[0:06:42 – 0:06:43] Adam: It’s just reorganization.
[0:06:44 – 0:06:44] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:44 – 0:06:45] Adam: That’s all it is.
[0:06:45 – 0:06:46] Adam: Yeah, it makes sense.
[0:06:46 – 0:06:47] Adam: What do you think, listeners?
[0:06:47 – 0:06:48] Adam: Are we on to something?
[0:06:48 – 0:06:52] Erik: We can barely even accept the fact that the metric system is the far superior.
[0:06:52 – 0:06:53] Adam: It really is.
[0:06:53 – 0:06:54] Adam: It’s the metric system of time.
[0:06:54 – 0:06:55] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:55 – 0:06:57] Adam: So then we might as well switch to the metric system.
[0:06:58 – 0:07:04] Adam: And, I don’t know, while we’re at it, get rid of rods and go with a real measurement for the length on portages.
[0:07:04 – 0:07:05] Adam: How dare you.
[0:07:05 – 0:07:08] Adam: Implement the portage difficulty scale we’ve talked about.
[0:07:08 – 0:07:09] Adam: How dare you.
[0:07:09 – 0:07:11] Erik: I’m pro rods all the time.
[0:07:11 – 0:07:14] Erik: I want it to stay as esoteric as possible.
[0:07:14 – 0:07:16] Adam: Yeah, let’s switch everything to rods, actually.
[0:07:18 – 0:07:19] Adam: Everything to rods.
[0:07:19 – 0:07:22] Adam: Each month is 28 rods.
[0:07:22 – 0:07:25] Erik: It’s 25,690 rods from Graham Wright to Duluth.
[0:07:25 – 0:07:26] Erik: Everybody knows that.
[0:07:26 – 0:07:28] Erik: I mean, why would you want to change that?
[0:07:28 – 0:07:29] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:07:29 – 0:07:29] Erik: All right.
[0:07:30 – 0:07:31] Adam: Well, anyways, that was fun.
[0:07:31 – 0:07:32] Adam: That was fun.
[0:07:32 – 0:07:34] Adam: So if anybody’s still listening, today’s topics…
[0:07:35 – 0:08:03] Erik: are the famous lakes known as deer and moon they’re almost one lake honestly look at them on a map pretty close they’re really close in elevation and they almost touch where that 15 rod portage is yep talking about deer and moon gonna run down those lakes uh relatively quickly we’re gonna get to uh some uh questions of the week some fact checkers on uh things that we uh
[0:08:03 – 0:08:05] Adam: Yeah, we have some updates on previous episodes.
[0:08:06 – 0:08:07] Adam: Just screwed up last time.
[0:08:07 – 0:08:08] Adam: Wow, we royally messed up.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:15] Erik: Or at the very least, we didn’t talk about it enough to clarify what we were actually talking about.
[0:08:15 – 0:08:16] Erik: But let’s start with Deer and Moon.
[0:08:18 – 0:08:21] Erik: We always like to tell you about how you can get to these lakes.
[0:08:21 – 0:08:34] Erik: You can get to Deer from Clearwater for the third episode in a row talking about that 210-rod portage out of Clearwater where you can hang a left, go to Caribou, hang a right, and head into Deer.
[0:08:34 – 0:08:38] Erik: And if you do that, it actually does become closer to a mile-long portage.
[0:08:39 – 0:08:40] Adam: Yeah, that’s right up there.
[0:08:41 – 0:08:43] Adam: But it’s pretty nice for that last half at least.
[0:08:43 – 0:08:45] Erik: Yeah, it’s on that old railroad grade.
[0:08:45 – 0:08:45] Erik: It’s the old…
[0:08:46 – 0:08:51] Adam: Like it’s one of those old railroad grades where you got the guy in the cart who’s pumping the little handles.
[0:08:51 – 0:08:52] Adam: Yeah.
[0:08:52 – 0:08:54] Adam: And then like whistling a song as he goes by.
[0:08:54 – 0:08:56] Adam: Like it’s a narrow gauge railroad.
[0:08:56 – 0:08:58] Adam: Not an actual railroad.
[0:08:58 – 0:09:02] Adam: This is like a miniaturized human sized railroad.
[0:09:02 – 0:09:02] Erik: Yeah.
[0:09:02 – 0:09:03] Erik: Like, yeah.
[0:09:03 – 0:09:05] Erik: Like the cartoon pump up and down.
[0:09:05 – 0:09:06] Adam: Yeah.
[0:09:06 – 0:09:06] Adam: Welcome.
[0:09:07 – 0:09:08] Adam: Would you like a lift?
[0:09:09 – 0:09:09] Adam: No.
[0:09:10 – 0:09:11] Adam: I can portage my canoe just fine.
[0:09:11 – 0:09:12] Adam: Thank you, old sir.
[0:09:13 – 0:09:20] Erik: Yeah, and we did talk in the last episode about some of the old photos of the area.
[0:09:20 – 0:09:29] Erik: We’ll probably include another link in here just so you can see kind of how the old railroads used to run through the whole area and where these old camps used to be.
[0:09:29 – 0:09:31] Erik: It’s all connected.
[0:09:31 – 0:09:41] Erik: If you want to make a little bit of a different trip, you can head out and go to some of these places where there used to be old camps and try to look for old artifacts and stuff, although…
[0:09:42 – 0:09:59] Erik: uh rules of the boundary waters you’re not supposed to take any of that stuff out of the park at this point but you can try and contact old ghosts and spirits though yep you can there is one campsite session there is one campsite is there anybody here did you hear that i think he said hello
[0:10:00 – 0:10:00] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:10:00 – 0:10:05] Erik: I did get a quick chill over my back right shoulder.
[0:10:05 – 0:10:06] Erik: I think that may have been an old logger.
[0:10:06 – 0:10:08] Adam: Somebody touched my shoulder.
[0:10:09 – 0:10:16] Erik: There’s one campsite on Deer Lake, and that is literally on the portage between Clearwater and Deer.
[0:10:16 – 0:10:17] Adam: Yeah.
[0:10:17 – 0:10:18] Adam: It’s a nice landing.
[0:10:18 – 0:10:19] Erik: It is a beautiful landing.
[0:10:19 – 0:10:21] Erik: It’s like a sandy kind of gravelly.
[0:10:21 – 0:10:23] Erik: You walk right into the water.
[0:10:23 – 0:10:23] Erik: Oh, yes.
[0:10:24 – 0:10:32] Erik: If it’s in the summer and you got waterproof for shoes that you don’t care about getting wet, you can walk right into the lake and set your canoe right down there.
[0:10:33 – 0:10:34] Erik: It’s a nice landing.
[0:10:34 – 0:10:37] Erik: But if you are camped on that site, you’re kind of…
[0:10:37 – 0:10:55] Adam: right there right on the other hand there’s not a lot of traffic in there and i i actually have camped on this site it’s not a great site but i’ve camped there and i never saw anybody while we were there but you’re right on the portage so the chance is there it’s definitely not the nicest portage
[0:10:55 – 0:11:17] Erik: a d plus we just pulling up the ratings yeah we just we pulled up the uh ratings on the clear water what’s that landing grade well i gave it an a because it’s an amazing landing right if it was just a landing but it’s shared with a portage so it’s an f because it’s like yeah it’s a sliding scale it’s not your landing you’re it’s a shared landing yeah that makes sense
[0:11:18 – 0:11:24] Adam: Yeah, it’s definitely not a great campsite, but you do have the whole lake to yourself once darkness falls.
[0:11:24 – 0:11:26] Erik: Yeah, once the sun goes down, it’s your lake.
[0:11:26 – 0:11:28] Erik: Ooh-wee.
[0:11:28 – 0:11:31] Adam: Yeah, no, this picture is not really enticing.
[0:11:32 – 0:11:33] Adam: There you go.
[0:11:33 – 0:11:36] Erik: It’s a nice little log fireplace area up in the woods.
[0:11:36 – 0:11:46] Erik: We can’t really see the lake from, but yeah, again, and in the evening you could head down to that landing and just kind of hang out on the shore, you know, not be a bad spot, especially in the summer when it’s nice and warm.
[0:11:46 – 0:11:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:11:47 – 0:11:56] Adam: I think in a previous episode I had talked about how there’s this one trip when I was younger where we literally brought like breading and some butter and a bag of apples and
[0:11:57 – 0:12:23] Adam: this is where we stayed and we actually did have some fish to eat to go with our apples yeah um and we had like those little sandwich the cast iron sandwich maker things we carried them things with us yeah the pudgy pies yeah and like we literally had walleye and we had like a curry like dried curry spice and sprinkled a little that in there with some butter and some walleye and then we just fried those over it sounds pretty good actually yeah
[0:12:24 – 0:12:27] Adam: And I think the walleye we had with us actually wasn’t from deer.
[0:12:27 – 0:12:29] Adam: We had portaged it with us from caribou.
[0:12:29 – 0:12:34] Adam: And so it was Walter de Caribou was the name of the dish.
[0:12:34 – 0:12:35] Adam: It was pretty fancy.
[0:12:35 – 0:12:39] Erik: It pairs well with apples and water.
[0:12:39 – 0:12:40] Erik: Charred apples on top.
[0:12:40 – 0:12:41] Erik: Yep.
[0:12:42 – 0:12:56] Erik: There is actually no official fishery report from the DNR on Deer Lake but the fish species reported are whitefish, pike, walleye, yellow perch and white sucker.
[0:12:56 – 0:13:04] Erik: I know that I have caught walleye in this lake but it is the only thing I’ve ever caught so can’t give too much more information on what
[0:13:05 – 0:13:05] Adam: Yeah.
[0:13:05 – 0:13:07] Adam: No, I have caught a walleye in here too.
[0:13:07 – 0:13:08] Adam: And it was pretty small.
[0:13:08 – 0:13:11] Adam: I remember it was like my first summer up here and it was like a 14 inch walleye.
[0:13:11 – 0:13:14] Adam: We caught it on a little jig with a leech, I believe.
[0:13:14 – 0:13:18] Adam: And then we brought it back and Marty was like, that’s pretty tiny.
[0:13:18 – 0:13:19] Adam: Nice baby walleye.
[0:13:20 – 0:13:20] Erik: Yeah.
[0:13:20 – 0:13:21] Erik: I was so proud.
[0:13:21 – 0:13:45] Erik: but uh no yeah one of the anyways there are some decent numbers of walleyes i believe but i’m not sure it’s like a walleye destination we did go in there and try ice fishing one time for them and nothing right in front of the yeah right in front of that campsite uh one of the more interesting things that uh the university of minnesota slash dnr lake browser has to offer is the
[0:13:46 – 0:13:59] Erik: Overall change in clarity has gone down, which from 1975, it used to be about a 15-foot clarity, and now it’s about half that.
[0:13:59 – 0:14:02] Adam: Yeah, for the area, it is a pretty stained water.
[0:14:04 – 0:14:17] Erik: But also compared to what’s above it, it must be a little bit higher up in the water table or lower, I don’t know, because Caribou is like almost 20 feet, and obviously Clearwater is almost 30 feet.
[0:14:17 – 0:14:21] Adam: Right, and this does flow from the eastern end down into Caribou.
[0:14:21 – 0:14:22] Adam: Yeah, it does.
[0:14:22 – 0:14:27] Adam: In the Caribou episode, we talked about you can hear the creek coming in across from the fourth campsite.
[0:14:27 – 0:14:30] Adam: That is Deer Creek or Moon Creek.
[0:14:31 – 0:14:50] Adam: or maybe flower creek i’m i’m not sure yeah the watershed sets up there it comes from deer i think flower is actually at the top of the yeah i think it goes flower moon deer down to caribou but it’s a yeah it’s a noticeable drop and if you end up portaging from deer down to caribou you will see it’s a very steep drop so yeah
[0:14:51 – 0:15:06] Adam: I have caught a pike in this lake, and it was a very nice pike on a MEPS number three spinner just to the east of the campsite, like, casted perfectly next to a downed tree in the water, and it was one of those where, like, you should have had a net.
[0:15:06 – 0:15:07] Adam: It was a very nice pike, actually.
[0:15:08 – 0:15:10] Erik: Yeah, it’s always the worst, especially when you’re out in the bonjoirs.
[0:15:11 – 0:15:19] Adam: You just somehow luckily end up, you know, grabbing it by the gill, and it’s barely hooked, and you end up getting a picture and getting it back in, so…
[0:15:20 – 0:15:23] Erik: So, yeah, you never really plan on bringing the net with until it’s too late.
[0:15:24 – 0:15:24] Erik: Right.
[0:15:25 – 0:15:30] Erik: So, yeah, deer, you know, so-and-so campsite right on the edge of the Boundary Waters.
[0:15:31 – 0:15:35] Erik: You may or may not have people walking through there, but you’re right on that portage.
[0:15:35 – 0:15:36] Erik: Yeah.
[0:15:36 – 0:15:46] Adam: One of my special memories from deer is early in the days, and we were paddling back towards moon, and that back east side of deer is pretty shallow.
[0:15:46 – 0:15:46] Adam: Yeah.
[0:15:46 – 0:16:14] Adam: came around the corner and there’s a large bull moose just standing in the water grazing yep and uh you don’t see that too often these days so like now that you go back in time it’s like those memories become more and more special and i still remember that one’s just burned into my memory very vividly yeah anytime you can actually see a big animal like that a big moose from a canoe it’s way different than seeing him when you’re driving by in a car
[0:16:14 – 0:16:20] Adam: It seems like always when you, when that happens, you come around the corner and you see them at just the back of the animal.
[0:16:20 – 0:16:32] Adam: And then like you, it senses your canoe approaching and the head rises up with like some, some seaweed dangling from the, the antler and kind of looks at you and then just back to its own business.
[0:16:32 – 0:16:33] Adam: Does not care.
[0:16:33 – 0:16:44] Erik: I like to think that the way that you feel when you come around a corner and you see a moose like that, you kind of get that like tingly hair standing on end.
[0:16:44 – 0:16:50] Erik: I like to feel like that feeling is shared between the human and the animal.
[0:16:50 – 0:16:54] Erik: He’s also being like, what is that?
[0:16:54 – 0:17:10] Adam: monkeys in a canoe yeah right all right i’m out of here just crash crash crash into the woods but for that second like we’re both feeling the same thing well he should have known deer is kind of an entry point lake you may want to go farther in if you’re gonna leisurely graze in the shallows yep
[0:17:10 – 0:17:15] Erik: So, yeah, between Deer and Moon, there is a basically non-existent 15-rod portage.
[0:17:15 – 0:17:15] Erik: It’s there.
[0:17:15 – 0:17:19] Erik: You got to lift out of the lake, but it’s, I mean, it’s flat.
[0:17:19 – 0:17:25] Erik: It’s a little rocky, some bigger boulders, but not anything that’s going to kill you.
[0:17:25 – 0:17:37] Erik: You can also get up into Moon from the south out of East Bearskin, about 115-rod portage with a little staircase going down towards the end.
[0:17:37 – 0:17:39] Adam: I actually haven’t done this one.
[0:17:39 – 0:17:41] Erik: Yeah, it’s a surprising staircase.
[0:17:41 – 0:17:55] Erik: It’s not a lake that you would assume there would be, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s any, you know, it’s not the stairway portage between Duncan and Rose, but pretty decent, you know, maybe 30, 40 steps straight down to Moon.
[0:17:56 – 0:18:02] Erik: And Moon Lake is an excellent fishing lake, maybe not so excellent of a camping lake.
[0:18:02 – 0:18:04] Erik: There are three campsites on the lake.
[0:18:05 – 0:18:14] Erik: And I would say that they’re mostly below average based on the little bit of experience that I have with them.
[0:18:15 – 0:18:16] Erik: I’ve camped on one of them.
[0:18:16 – 0:18:20] Erik: I’ve explored all three thoroughly, and I don’t think that any of them really
[0:18:20 – 0:18:21] Adam: No, I haven’t.
[0:18:21 – 0:18:24] Erik: Unfortunately, not really the greatest.
[0:18:24 – 0:18:25] Erik: I don’t know why.
[0:18:25 – 0:18:35] Erik: The first one from west to east is out in a little point, and it’s probably the second best site on the lake.
[0:18:36 – 0:18:38] Erik: It’s got a couple of little tent pads.
[0:18:38 – 0:18:40] Erik: The landing’s okay.
[0:18:40 – 0:18:43] Erik: The fire greats, whatever, nothing special.
[0:18:44 – 0:18:48] Erik: All three of the campsites on this lake kind of have one thing in common, and they’re just all really rocky.
[0:18:48 – 0:18:49] Erik: They just have like…
[0:18:50 – 0:19:19] Erik: randomly like angled jutting rocks up into the ground like then there’s not really any nice big trees to work with i think there was maybe like a very localized old storm because it seems like all three of them are kind of somewhat affected by blowdown even though the area in general was never affected by the blowdown in 99 right right i think there may have been this area was maybe more affected than any other because they all seem like they’ve got younger growth trees and um
[0:19:20 – 0:19:21] Erik: Yeah, they’re just a little bit more scrubby.
[0:19:22 – 0:19:27] Adam: I think it’s just generally they don’t get used as much, which is nice.
[0:19:27 – 0:19:28] Adam: You can count on that.
[0:19:28 – 0:19:30] Adam: You’re not going to see a ton of people back in this neck of the woods.
[0:19:30 – 0:19:35] Adam: But on the flip side, it’s definitely not manicured.
[0:19:35 – 0:19:36] Adam: It’s a little rough.
[0:19:36 – 0:19:36] Adam: No.
[0:19:37 – 0:19:37] Adam: But that’s okay.
[0:19:38 – 0:19:38] Adam: Yeah.
[0:19:38 – 0:19:38] Adam: Yeah.
[0:19:38 – 0:19:40] Erik: So, I mean, and they are what you make them.
[0:19:41 – 0:19:41] Erik: We’ve said that before.
[0:19:42 – 0:19:43] Erik: You know, they’re always subjective.
[0:19:43 – 0:19:48] Erik: You can make a campsite a five-star site based on the kind of time you’re having.
[0:19:48 – 0:19:56] Erik: But the second one, just to the east of number one, is probably the best site on the lake.
[0:19:56 – 0:19:59] Erik: It has that classic feel of a campsite.
[0:20:01 – 0:20:02] Erik: It’s easier walking.
[0:20:02 – 0:20:06] Erik: The real downside is the landing is pretty much…
[0:20:07 – 0:20:29] Erik: um non-existent you kind of just got to make it what you can make it it’s real rocky you’ll be lucky if a snapping turtle doesn’t eat your feet while you’re trying to get out of this one it’s just yeah nothing nothing to step on it’s just yeah the fire grade area is nice and flat you know it’s a it’s a reasonable spot i would say you know c plus in general that’s fair
[0:20:29 – 0:20:44] Erik: Yeah, the last site, the third site right across from, not right across, but just adjacent to the portage into Deer is probably one of the, let’s just say it, it’s probably one of the worst sites in the area.
[0:20:44 – 0:20:45] Adam: Yeah.
[0:20:45 – 0:20:46] Adam: I think I’ve been on this one.
[0:20:47 – 0:20:48] Erik: I don’t even know.
[0:20:48 – 0:20:50] Erik: Like when I got into it, I was like, how is this still a site?
[0:20:50 – 0:20:53] Erik: I mean, it’s, uh, it’s maybe got one tent pad.
[0:20:54 – 0:20:57] Erik: Uh, and it’s also like going to be way back into the brushy woods.
[0:20:57 – 0:21:01] Erik: The fire grade area is essentially like old blow down wood.
[0:21:01 – 0:21:03] Erik: Uh, I’m pretty sure.
[0:21:03 – 0:21:07] Adam: And I’m, I think I can share this story that, uh, this is my first summer up here.
[0:21:07 – 0:21:09] Adam: I think I did stay at this one.
[0:21:09 – 0:21:10] Adam: I definitely stayed on moon.
[0:21:10 – 0:21:11] Adam: I believe it was this one.
[0:21:11 – 0:21:12] Adam: It had to have been this one.
[0:21:13 – 0:21:21] Adam: And yeah, I was walking around nude in the campsite and somebody actually paddled right by and I had to kind of dart back into the tent.
[0:21:21 – 0:21:25] Adam: So my apologies to whoever that was in 2001.
[0:21:25 – 0:21:29] Erik: If you’re listening, 16 years later, Adam does apologize.
[0:21:30 – 0:21:33] Adam: A long time coming on that apology.
[0:21:33 – 0:21:38] Adam: But maybe, you know, seeing that probably is not as bad as seeing this landing.
[0:21:38 – 0:21:45] Adam: This is really, there’s just, this campsite is festooned with old charred logs and
[0:21:46 – 0:21:52] Erik: Yeah, these are kind of like what the campsite looks like with the wood on the ground the way it is.
[0:21:52 – 0:21:59] Erik: It looks like what Petrified Forest National Park looks like if there wasn’t other trees around.
[0:21:59 – 0:22:00] Adam: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.
[0:22:00 – 0:22:02] Adam: That’s a very apt description.
[0:22:02 – 0:22:09] Erik: So in like 500,000 years, if you come back to this campsite, you will find beautifully petrified wood.
[0:22:09 – 0:22:22] Erik: Besides that, I call it a port in a storm campsite because, yeah, unless it’s an absolute emergency, there’s really nothing good to say about this site or any real reason that you should camp here.
[0:22:22 – 0:22:23] Erik: Yeah.
[0:22:24 – 0:22:30] Erik: That’s one of the things that I think we take seriously on this show is being honest.
[0:22:30 – 0:22:30] Erik: Yes.
[0:22:30 – 0:22:31] Erik: I’m trying to sugarcoat.
[0:22:31 – 0:22:33] Erik: This is not a good campsite.
[0:22:33 – 0:22:33] Erik: Sorry.
[0:22:34 – 0:22:36] Erik: Not every campsite in the Bonjou Waters is amazing.
[0:22:36 – 0:22:41] Erik: Though you are in the Bonjou Waters and you can make it a fun experience.
[0:22:41 – 0:22:47] Adam: No, I think 2001 me thought this was an amazing campsite because I was out in the middle of nowhere and I could walk around with my…
[0:22:47 – 0:22:48] Adam: And you still are.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:50] Adam: My bun’s out, but…
[0:22:50 – 0:22:53] Erik: I’d rather camp at this campsite than walk around the Mall of America.
[0:22:53 – 0:22:54] Erik: I can tell you that much.
[0:22:54 – 0:22:56] Adam: Or camp at the Flower Lake Campground.
[0:22:56 – 0:22:56] Adam: Come on.
[0:22:56 – 0:22:56] Erik: Yeah, right?
[0:22:57 – 0:23:00] Erik: Well, Flower Campground is still better than probably this site.
[0:23:02 – 0:23:03] Adam: At least you have friendly bears there.
[0:23:04 – 0:23:31] Adam: yeah that was probably the other thing if you camp at this campsite you will not run into bears because nobody ever camps here right uh we should mention too on the portage front uh that you can get in here from flower lake yes there is a from the west relatively unknown this is an unrelated trip from the one i was speaking of but i i actually got into here one time that way and so you take like flower lake has two arms on the west on the east side
[0:23:31 – 0:23:51] Adam: and you take the northernmost arm and then there’s a 115 going into moon and we’re on the portage and this is we didn’t know what we were doing this is way back in the day and we somehow like end up looping around back to the south and then to the west and ending up in the south arm of flower and
[0:23:52 – 0:24:13] Adam: and then we’re we get it we actually get in because we think it kind of looks like how moon should look it’s narrow and get in and we’re paddling there’s this little buoy kind of at the tip of that point there where you like know you’re in the the park then yeah and for paddling we see this buoy we’re like what we’re so confused and it’s like it’s this minute of confusion followed by this dawning of the
[0:24:15 – 0:24:18] Adam: Ah, we’ve somehow portaged all the way back around, back into Flower.
[0:24:19 – 0:24:22] Erik: Well, it’s not the old, but it’s the ski trail.
[0:24:22 – 0:24:22] Erik: Right.
[0:24:22 – 0:24:24] Erik: You took the ski trail all the way around.
[0:24:24 – 0:24:34] Adam: We somehow took a right when we should have taken a left, and then, so we ended up, oh, we paddled back around, same landing, and then took the left, and we got in there about an hour later than planned, but…
[0:24:35 – 0:24:35] Erik: It’s still there.
[0:24:35 – 0:24:46] Erik: In the winter, sometimes I’ll ski out and take it, and it’s not as maintained or cleared as a Boundary Waters official portage, but it is a portage still, I think.
[0:24:46 – 0:24:46] Erik: Right.
[0:24:47 – 0:24:51] Adam: So, you know, you can laugh at yourself when you make a mistake like that.
[0:24:51 – 0:24:52] Adam: It’s not the end of the world.
[0:24:52 – 0:24:55] Erik: Yeah, but we do have actual numbers on Moon Lake.
[0:24:56 – 0:25:03] Erik: And walleye were the most present and had the best numbers in this lake.
[0:25:03 – 0:25:03] Erik: And it’s a pretty good…
[0:25:04 – 0:25:12] Adam: I feel like this is like an established walleye lake where, hey, if you want to go in there with a slip bobber in June, this would not be a bad spot to go.
[0:25:12 – 0:25:14] Erik: Yeah, and these are numbers from 2010.
[0:25:15 – 0:25:20] Erik: The numbers, I think, reflect my experiences as well.
[0:25:21 – 0:25:26] Erik: They’ve got northern pike in there between 25 and 34.
[0:25:26 – 0:25:29] Erik: There’s a pretty good number of them caught.
[0:25:29 – 0:25:30] Erik: The walleyes are in the…
[0:25:31 – 0:25:32] Erik: Yeah, that’s pretty good.
[0:25:33 – 0:25:37] Erik: Yeah, and the numbers of walleyes that were caught are in the 15 to 24 inch range.
[0:25:37 – 0:25:38] Erik: Pretty good numbers.
[0:25:38 – 0:25:39] Erik: There’s white sucker.
[0:25:39 – 0:25:40] Erik: You’re not probably going to run into them very often.
[0:25:41 – 0:25:43] Erik: And then a ton of tiny yellow perch.
[0:25:43 – 0:25:44] Erik: So it’s basically a walleye lake.
[0:25:45 – 0:25:47] Erik: I’ve never heard of anybody catching any small moth.
[0:25:47 – 0:25:56] Erik: I’ve never caught any small moth, which is kind of nice because you get into those lakes where you really want to catch walleye and it can be impossible to get by that.
[0:25:56 – 0:26:00] Adam: It’s pretty impressive that between flower and then caribou and deer that…
[0:26:00 – 0:26:25] Erik: which all have smallmouth and this does not yeah this is kind of a pure lake so there’s the campsites maybe not so great but the fishing the fishing is good it’s a it’s a great uh day trip lake and uh my go-to spot you know in general is uh just south of the portage from deer there’s a little hump that comes out and there’s a weed bed that grows up like a cabbage yeah it’s nice cabbage
[0:26:25 – 0:26:52] Adam: weed right on the edge of that right where those weeds end is a good place to kind of try uh slip bobbers and if it’s windy bring some rope and grab a couple rocks you can make yourself a couple anchors yep and you can sit there without having to spin around too much and you can control the slip bobber it’s a pretty nice setup the one time we went there though i don’t and did that exactly i don’t think we actually caught a walleye and i i did catch a couple nice pike though some just general trolling on the lake works pretty well too sure
[0:26:53 – 0:27:19] Erik: i’ll i mean basically throughout whereas you know on deer i would say that eastern arm gets a little shallow and mucky probably want to stay on the west end of deer but moon uh yeah i would say pretty much throughout you control those shorelines especially on that south shore between the portage from east bearskin and a little nice steep shore there hump on the north just south of the portage into deer so um
[0:27:19 – 0:27:22] Erik: Yeah, I think that about does it for deer and moon.
[0:27:22 – 0:27:25] Erik: We probably talked longer than I was expecting we were.
[0:27:25 – 0:27:32] Erik: A couple of, I would say, unrecognized lakes not talked about necessarily.
[0:27:34 – 0:27:35] Erik: Lesser than average campsites.
[0:27:36 – 0:27:37] Erik: Pretty good fishing, though.
[0:27:38 – 0:27:45] Erik: You know, if you’re up on Caribou and you feel like you’re just surrounded by canoes, everybody else is fishing, which does get pretty busy, you know, head on down to Deer or Moon.
[0:27:46 – 0:27:47] Erik: Those are pretty good lakes.
[0:27:48 – 0:27:52] Adam: Yeah, not a whole lot of extra effort to get there, honestly, and it’s going to be a little quieter.
[0:27:53 – 0:27:56] Adam: You may not have the beautiful campsite there, but…
[0:27:57 – 0:27:59] Adam: you know, that’s okay if you’re there for the fishing.
[0:28:00 – 0:28:02] Adam: It’s certainly a nice option, and it’s right there.
[0:28:02 – 0:28:13] Adam: Like, if you want to really, like, bring in a lot of fishing gear and focus on the fishing, not too bad to portage into those, and then you kind of can be left to yourself to sit there and hopefully slay some walleye.
[0:28:14 – 0:28:19] Erik: Yeah, or, I mean, if you’re camped on caribou, instead of fishing the lake, just day trip down to deer or moon.
[0:28:19 – 0:28:21] Adam: That’s also a nice option, yeah.
[0:28:21 – 0:28:26] Adam: I mean, for that area, if you really want to get a walleye, those two lakes are pretty good targets, I would say.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:27] Erik: Oh, definitely.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:28] Erik: I would agree with that.
[0:28:30 – 0:28:34] Adam: Okay, so next up, we’ve got to get the fact checker.
[0:28:36 – 0:28:39] Adam: Fact checking previous episodes.
[0:28:39 – 0:28:44] Adam: We have a few things we need to revisit from our previous recordings.
[0:28:44 – 0:28:46] Adam: We need some clarification, really, and revision on.
[0:28:47 – 0:28:48] Adam: We don’t want to confuse people.
[0:28:49 – 0:28:51] Adam: When you’re recording live in the moment, sometimes you misspeak.
[0:28:52 – 0:28:59] Adam: Like when we were talking about the CCCCS or CCC or whatever, we were a little unclear.
[0:28:59 – 0:29:07] Erik: Yeah, no, I think I said the CCS or the CCCS in terms of who was naming lakes up here.
[0:29:08 – 0:29:14] Erik: And I knew I know what I wanted to say, but I didn’t say it.
[0:29:14 – 0:29:17] Adam: And listening to them in hindsight, we’re like, oh, man, that could be a little confusing.
[0:29:17 – 0:29:18] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:18 – 0:29:23] Erik: It’s probably more on us that we want to clarify than anybody actually getting really bent out of shape.
[0:29:23 – 0:29:30] Adam: Well, I mean, we’re early on in our run here, and I don’t want to just lay the groundwork for, like, hey, we just said something a little off, and we’re just going to leave it be.
[0:29:31 – 0:29:38] Adam: So this is a brief and probably frequent, at least early, segment we will be running just to clarify anything.
[0:29:38 – 0:29:39] Adam: Clear the year.
[0:29:39 – 0:29:46] Erik: So, yeah, we were talking about why there are two caribou lakes named the same, basically within 10 miles of each other.
[0:29:47 – 0:29:48] Adam: Like, who did that?
[0:29:48 – 0:30:10] Erik: yeah and i was like yeah it must have been the ccs it’s a i meant the ccc which is the civilian conservation corps uh back in the uh early 30s and 40s they were uh a young man’s opportunity for work play study and health well actually a part of uh fdr’s new deal and it provided uh uh
[0:30:11 – 0:30:35] Erik: unskilled manual labor for people that were looking for work and in especially in areas that were uh undeveloped so cook county was right for that and um a lot of those guys were involved in naming the lakes so that’s what i meant when i was uh rambling on about cc this or cc that so yeah i think we also talked about like how many caribou lakes are there and
[0:30:36 – 0:30:38] Adam: Yeah, and we ended up… And we’re like, yeah, I don’t know.
[0:30:38 – 0:30:39] Adam: Who knows?
[0:30:39 – 0:30:42] Adam: Yeah, we looked up… Because we hadn’t researched it, and we just got onto a tangent.
[0:30:42 – 0:30:45] Adam: But we actually… Eric went in and did some research.
[0:30:45 – 0:30:50] Erik: Yeah, we did some research on… We were also talking about moose and wolf named lakes.
[0:30:51 – 0:30:58] Erik: And in the Boundary Waters, there are two moose lakes, although there are 22 total in the state.
[0:30:59 – 0:31:04] Erik: There are no wolf lakes in the Boundary Waters, but there are 14 total in the state.
[0:31:04 – 0:31:04] Erik: Okay.
[0:31:05 – 0:31:17] Erik: The most interesting one was the fact that there are five caribou lakes in the state of Minnesota, three of which are in Cook County, two of which are within 10 miles of each other.
[0:31:17 – 0:31:23] Erik: So still kind of surprising that there was not a distinction.
[0:31:23 – 0:31:26] Erik: Maybe think of one other name of an animal.
[0:31:26 – 0:31:28] Erik: You could have named one of those caribous wolf.
[0:31:29 – 0:31:29] Erik: Could have.
[0:31:30 – 0:31:32] Erik: They didn’t.
[0:31:32 – 0:31:42] Erik: Yeah, and going forward, you know, we’re probably not always going to recognize some of the maybe questionable things we say or maybe just blatant errors.
[0:31:42 – 0:31:43] Erik: So let us know.
[0:31:43 – 0:31:44] Erik: Call us out.
[0:31:44 – 0:31:51] Erik: Seriously, call us out on our errors because we are not… Nobody’s perfect, but we will strive to be.
[0:31:51 – 0:31:53] Erik: Yeah, we will strive to be with your help.
[0:31:54 – 0:31:56] Erik: And with that, we’re going to finish up with…
[0:31:58 – 0:32:01] Erik: The question of the week, which is how do you sleep in the boundary waters?
[0:32:02 – 0:32:08] Erik: Maybe a little bit of background on where we’ve come from in terms of our evolution.
[0:32:09 – 0:32:11] Erik: I know I always grew up.
[0:32:12 – 0:32:16] Erik: and started coming up here sleeping on the ground in a tent.
[0:32:16 – 0:32:20] Adam: Yes, just on the ground, possibly with like a blanket or something underneath.
[0:32:20 – 0:32:21] Erik: Yes.
[0:32:21 – 0:32:36] Adam: But basically just sleeping bag on the ground, and it’s probably a large sleeping bag that didn’t pack down very well and took up a lot of room in the pack and really wasn’t all that warm and probably had a flannel lining to it and a large zipper that would never work.
[0:32:36 – 0:32:40] Erik: The flannel lining is key with like cowboys and Indians on it maybe.
[0:32:41 – 0:32:41] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:41 – 0:32:43] Adam: Like it doesn’t even have its own bag.
[0:32:43 – 0:32:48] Adam: It just had some strings attached to the bottom and then you’d roll it up and kind of struggle to tie the string around it.
[0:32:48 – 0:32:49] Erik: It definitely didn’t have its own bag.
[0:32:50 – 0:32:53] Erik: It was like, yeah, shoelaces cinched it down.
[0:32:53 – 0:33:05] Erik: But I remember my first trip up here, I don’t remember exactly how it was described to me in terms of what I was getting myself into, but I was like, I’ll just bring a sleeping bag.
[0:33:05 – 0:33:05] Erik: I’ll be fine.
[0:33:06 – 0:33:08] Erik: And no sleeping pad.
[0:33:08 – 0:33:08] Erik: Right.
[0:33:09 – 0:33:10] Erik: The friend of mine who…
[0:33:12 – 0:33:39] Erik: convinced me that he was taking care of the tent showed up with a one of those tents that uh has like multiple rooms in it wow yes one of those like it basically like a like a state park tent when i was younger our family had one it was like made by winnebago rvs like a tent yeah no this was a winnebago tent yeah it was like a coleman brand multi room multi room two by fours for posts there was like a weight about 380 pounds and rolled up corner
[0:33:40 – 0:33:43] Adam: It was like it would fill the entire back of the station wagon.
[0:33:43 – 0:33:47] Erik: Yeah, no, it filled an entire Duluth pack, this tent that we had.
[0:33:47 – 0:33:49] Erik: And we got out there with it and of course it leaked.
[0:33:50 – 0:33:53] Adam: Yeah, it was probably missing a pole and half the stakes.
[0:33:53 – 0:33:57] Erik: Yeah, so we’re laying there without, nobody had a sleeping pad.
[0:33:57 – 0:34:08] Erik: We all had sleeping bags and we’re laying on the ground of this like wet, leaky, massive tent, but we’re all cold and it’s the middle of August and we’re like borderline hypothermic.
[0:34:08 – 0:34:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:34:09 – 0:34:14] Erik: And so it’s like, okay, we’re seemingly doing this all wrong.
[0:34:14 – 0:34:15] Erik: There’s got to be a better way.
[0:34:15 – 0:34:16] Erik: Very wrong, yeah.
[0:34:16 – 0:34:23] Erik: Yeah, so I’ve evolved since then to better sleeping pads, Therm-a-Rus air pads.
[0:34:23 – 0:34:25] Adam: Yeah, they’ve really come a long way.
[0:34:25 – 0:34:28] Adam: I’ve had a few that are really nice, like 2-inch.
[0:34:29 – 0:34:32] Adam: They’re nice and thick, and they’re very comfortable.
[0:34:33 – 0:34:36] Adam: They fold down and roll into almost nothing and weigh almost nothing.
[0:34:37 – 0:34:38] Adam: Some of them inflate themselves.
[0:34:39 – 0:34:45] Adam: I’ve had problems with them developing leaks over time, especially if you, for some reason, lay them down just outside.
[0:34:46 – 0:34:50] Adam: and want to sleep beneath the stars, they do puncture easily.
[0:34:51 – 0:35:04] Adam: So that’s not a totally great thing to do, but especially when it’s going to be colder, it is nice to be still in a tent, although a much smaller tent, on a nice sleeping pad with hopefully a more modern sleeping bag setup.
[0:35:05 – 0:35:16] Adam: But I think what we really want to get to, and I’m interested to hear what the people have to say on this, but before we get to that, where we’ve ended up is in the realm of the hammock.
[0:35:16 – 0:35:19] Erik: Yes, I live in the realm of the hammock at this point.
[0:35:19 – 0:35:21] Adam: Yes, absolutely.
[0:35:21 – 0:35:25] Adam: And I think this will be a theme throughout the episodes as the show goes on.
[0:35:25 – 0:35:30] Adam: We will always be recommending the hammocks until something better comes along.
[0:35:31 – 0:35:42] Erik: I think it was born of longer trips that we took because there are only so many nights that I can spend on the ground because it kills my shoulders and my hips constantly.
[0:35:43 – 0:35:47] Adam: Yeah, my butt cannot handle more than my side butt.
[0:35:47 – 0:35:49] Adam: I guess that’s a fancy way of saying hips.
[0:35:49 – 0:35:51] Adam: But yeah, two nights, fine.
[0:35:51 – 0:35:52] Adam: I can tough it out on anything.
[0:35:52 – 0:35:54] Adam: I can sleep on the rocks if I have to.
[0:35:54 – 0:36:00] Adam: But if you want to try and go for a longer trip, you’ve got to really make sure you’re comfortable and your shoulders aren’t getting wrecked every night.
[0:36:01 – 0:36:01] Adam: Right.
[0:36:02 – 0:36:04] Adam: And that’s where the hammock comes in.
[0:36:04 – 0:36:06] Adam: And it takes up so much less space.
[0:36:06 – 0:36:08] Adam: That’s the other edge of this.
[0:36:09 – 0:36:17] Erik: Yeah, no, like if you’re going out with, you know, a bunch of people and you can all fit into one tent, it might be negligible.
[0:36:18 – 0:36:24] Erik: But, you know, two to four people and everybody has their own hammock, sleeping bag, which everybody’s going to have anyway.
[0:36:25 – 0:36:34] Erik: I mean, you can easily get much less packed in if you’re just going with a hammock and most likely rain fly.
[0:36:34 – 0:36:36] Erik: Yeah, you’ll probably want to have one.
[0:36:36 – 0:36:57] Adam: how many times have i been burned by i have my hammock you have my sleeping bag and i’ve got the rain fly and i look up and yeah yeah no i think it’s gonna stay clear tonight and there’s zero percent chance of rain according to everything we looked at before the trip and also the weather radio if we have one nothing it’s not gonna rain and then you wake up at three in the morning and it’s raining on you
[0:36:57 – 0:37:18] Adam: yeah oh why didn’t i set up that rainfly at least get to a point where all you have to do is like pull one cord and it’ll pull it over you right right like set it up at least halfway because i mean part of the nice thing with sleeping on a hammock is you can lay there and look up at the milky way and see a shooting star perhaps or the northern lights if you’re really lucky there is that i think uh
[0:37:18 – 0:37:29] Erik: Yeah, the being able to look up and see the stars and wake up with the sunrise, those are extras on top of just how comfortable it is.
[0:37:29 – 0:37:43] Erik: I used to wake up after sleeping on the ground, even if it was on a nice, big, thick Therm-a-Rest pad or whatever, I would still wake up with just tight shoulders and hips and it would take me like half hour to kind of get re-limbered and…
[0:37:44 – 0:37:50] Erik: I mean, we’ve done month-long trips where I couldn’t imagine doing that every night for a month.
[0:37:50 – 0:37:50] Erik: It would kill me.
[0:37:50 – 0:37:56] Erik: There was no way I would be able to get up and paddle and portage the way that we do.
[0:37:56 – 0:37:58] Adam: So what’s the key to a really good hammock set?
[0:37:58 – 0:38:08] Adam: Because sometimes you see these bozo pictures of people in hammocks, and it’s set like a big old banana set, and you would literally die if you tried to sleep like that.
[0:38:08 – 0:38:08] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[0:38:08 – 0:38:11] Erik: No, I think sometimes when you see those, they’re basically…
[0:38:11 – 0:38:14] Adam: I think that’s like a leisure, like I’m going to read some Edward Abbey.
[0:38:14 – 0:38:19] Erik: Those are for afternoon lounging sessions down on the beach drinking coconut juice out of a straw.
[0:38:19 – 0:38:28] Erik: You know, you’re not actually like sleeping in that because the key to setting up hammocks, I think, is getting them to a perfect like…
[0:38:29 – 0:38:32] Erik: Not so tight that you’re… You don’t want to crunch your shoulders.
[0:38:32 – 0:38:36] Erik: Crunching your shoulders in, but not so loose that you’re like…
[0:38:36 – 0:38:37] Adam: Your spine is crying out.
[0:38:38 – 0:38:39] Erik: Yeah, you’re not… You don’t want to…
[0:38:39 – 0:38:41] Erik: The banana setup is not good.
[0:38:41 – 0:38:44] Erik: And then the taut like clothesline is also not a good setup.
[0:38:44 – 0:38:46] Erik: It’s a nice healthy balance.
[0:38:46 – 0:38:56] Erik: And I don’t think there’s any easy way that we could describe exactly how to set it up, but use your, you know, don’t set it up.
[0:38:56 – 0:38:57] Erik: Yeah, so that you kind of adjust it.
[0:38:58 – 0:39:03] Erik: The nice part about the hammocks we use, which are Eagle’s Nests.
[0:39:03 – 0:39:04] Erik: Double wide.
[0:39:04 – 0:39:04] Erik: Double wide.
[0:39:05 – 0:39:08] Erik: Make sure you get the double wide, even though you’re obviously not going to have two people in there.
[0:39:09 – 0:39:15] Erik: They have straps at this point where you can adjust it almost like inch by inch back and forth.
[0:39:15 – 0:39:15] Erik: Yeah.
[0:39:16 – 0:39:19] Adam: So yeah, I kind of set it up and then like jump in there and writhe a bit.
[0:39:20 – 0:39:20] Erik: That’s the key.
[0:39:21 – 0:39:31] Adam: Yeah, make sure it’s feeling right and then get out and make a slight adjustment to just get it how you want it before it’s time for bed and while you hopefully have some daylight.
[0:39:31 – 0:39:42] Erik: The worst thing you can do is just get into camp, cut a bunch of wood, sit next to the campfire, have a few drinks, and then all of a sudden it’s like 10 o’clock at night and you don’t have your hammock set up and you’re just like, oh no.
[0:39:43 – 0:40:08] Adam: and then your headlamp doesn’t work for some reason scrambling looking for random trees that happen to be in the area i’ve had it where you get the hammock set up and then it’s still dark and you’re like where did my sleeping bag go oh no it’s gone yeah we have had that happen before it was down in the lake and then you just have to curl up like a dog next to the campfire not good so a lot of ways to make a mistake when it comes to sleeping but when you finally get it right it’s very rewarding
[0:40:08 – 0:40:14] Erik: Yep, and I have not slept on the ground except for winter camping in years.
[0:40:14 – 0:40:15] Adam: Yeah, that’s the main thing.
[0:40:15 – 0:40:21] Adam: Like when it’s cold and you get a little breeze under your hammock, then it can be a little chilly on the backside.
[0:40:22 – 0:40:28] Adam: And they make like quilts and such that you can like drape beneath it to make it a little more accommodating for cold weather.
[0:40:28 – 0:40:29] Adam: There’s certainly ways around that.
[0:40:29 – 0:40:34] Adam: I know you’ve put like a sleeping pad in the hammock to give you a little barrier there.
[0:40:34 – 0:40:34] Erik: Yep.
[0:40:35 – 0:40:35] Adam: And that certainly works.
[0:40:35 – 0:40:38] Adam: I’ve had trouble with those like kind of squirting out on you in the middle of the night.
[0:40:39 – 0:40:41] Adam: It’s like waking up and all the blankets are on the ground.
[0:40:41 – 0:40:42] Adam: You’re like, how did that happen?
[0:40:43 – 0:40:43] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:40:43 – 0:40:45] Adam: Maybe you should quit thrashing in your sleep.
[0:40:45 – 0:40:47] Adam: You’re writhing too much.
[0:40:47 – 0:40:47] Adam: Yeah.
[0:40:47 – 0:40:53] Adam: See, it’s a balance on the proper amount of writhing to be comfortable and secure in your hammock.
[0:40:54 – 0:40:56] Erik: Yeah, but there is no going back for me.
[0:40:56 – 0:41:01] Erik: I’m a hammock man through and through at this point.
[0:41:01 – 0:41:01] Erik: I’m not here.
[0:41:02 – 0:41:07] Erik: I don’t think you’re here to necessarily say that sleeping in a tent is the end of the world.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:08] Erik: No, I still do it.
[0:41:09 – 0:41:13] Erik: I think that if anybody hasn’t tried it, you should definitely try it.
[0:41:14 – 0:41:15] Erik: Spend the night in the hammock.
[0:41:15 – 0:41:21] Erik: I feel almost as refreshed as a night in an actual bed.
[0:41:21 – 0:41:23] Adam: I was very apprehensive to get into it.
[0:41:23 – 0:41:23] Erik: Yes.
[0:41:23 – 0:41:25] Erik: I remember the first night that we tried to convince you.
[0:41:25 – 0:41:26] Adam: I was like, no way.
[0:41:26 – 0:41:31] Adam: I like tried to get in and I felt like I was going to fall out and I wasn’t comfortable.
[0:41:31 – 0:41:39] Adam: So I ended up just sleeping on the rocks underneath it next to a whole pan full of crawdads we were going to cook up for breakfast next morning.
[0:41:39 – 0:41:41] Adam: Just listening to those crawdads click around in there.
[0:41:42 – 0:42:03] Adam: little maniacs yeah and then the next night on that trip you guys kept working on me all day and i was like okay i’ll actually really make a go of it and then once you you’re like you just have to writhe properly yeah you gotta kind of i got it like once i got it set right and really got in there and then you feel secure it’s a very nice feeling and
[0:42:04 – 0:42:09] Adam: Yeah, you wake up the next morning and you kind of jump up and you’re like, hey, my hips aren’t all sore.
[0:42:09 – 0:42:10] Adam: My butt feels good.
[0:42:11 – 0:42:12] Adam: My shoulders feel good.
[0:42:12 – 0:42:12] Erik: I used to…
[0:42:12 – 0:42:14] Adam: Most importantly, my mind feels good.
[0:42:14 – 0:42:20] Erik: Yeah, I used to lay in the tent and wait for the first sign of light to just be like, all right, get me out of here.
[0:42:20 – 0:42:21] Erik: I’m uncomfortable.
[0:42:21 – 0:42:25] Erik: And now like sleeping in the hammock, it’s like I oversleep way more than I used to.
[0:42:25 – 0:42:27] Adam: Yeah, it makes it way too easy to sleep in.
[0:42:27 – 0:42:27] Erik: Yeah.
[0:42:28 – 0:42:28] Erik: So…
[0:42:29 – 0:42:36] Erik: We’ll take a look at maybe some of the other things or ways that people sleep in the woods.
[0:42:36 – 0:42:42] Erik: But that’s the way we like to do it and not necessarily the way it has to be done.
[0:42:42 – 0:42:45] Erik: But if you haven’t slept in a hammock, highly recommend it.
[0:42:46 – 0:42:54] Erik: And with that, we’ve given our thoughts, and we opened it up to the community in a variety of ways.
[0:42:54 – 0:42:58] Erik: One of those ways was on Reddit, if you’re not familiar.
[0:42:58 – 0:43:00] Erik: RBWCA.
[0:43:00 – 0:43:01] Erik: RBWCA.
[0:43:01 – 0:43:02] Erik: Let’s get that community rolling.
[0:43:02 – 0:43:05] Adam: It’s a small community, but we’ve got some people on there that are contributing.
[0:43:05 – 0:43:06] Erik: Thank you.
[0:43:06 – 0:43:07] Erik: Yeah, definitely.
[0:43:07 – 0:43:08] Erik: Thank you.
[0:43:08 – 0:43:12] Erik: It should be way bigger considering the popularity of the Boundary Waters.
[0:43:12 – 0:43:15] Erik: But we did get a couple of responses.
[0:43:15 – 0:43:17] Erik: How do you sleep in the Boundary Waters?
[0:43:18 – 0:43:20] Erik: We got a response from Brewfish.
[0:43:20 – 0:43:21] Erik: Thanks, Brewfish.
[0:43:22 – 0:43:30] Erik: He’s a side sleeper and he uses a big Agnes sleeping pad and didn’t really specify the kind of tent that he used.
[0:43:31 – 0:43:34] Erik: But we heard that from a lot of people.
[0:43:34 – 0:43:39] Erik: They’re still mostly sleeping pad tent folks.
[0:43:39 – 0:43:44] Erik: A couple of other responses was from Printing Printing.
[0:43:44 – 0:43:45] Adam: Printing Printing.
[0:43:46 – 0:43:51] Erik: He uses an REI two-person tent and a Big Agnes sleeping pad with a down quilt.
[0:43:51 – 0:43:55] Erik: That seems to be the popular go-to, Big Agnes.
[0:43:55 – 0:43:57] Erik: And he sleeps hot.
[0:43:58 – 0:43:59] Erik: I sleep really cold.
[0:44:00 – 0:44:04] Erik: I actually sleep year-round in a 20 below North Face synthetic sleeping bag.
[0:44:04 – 0:44:05] Erik: You’re not messing around.
[0:44:06 – 0:44:06] Erik: No.
[0:44:06 – 0:44:11] Erik: Even if it means that I have to zip it halfway down in the middle of the summer, I don’t want to mess around.
[0:44:11 – 0:44:14] Adam: You also throw hay in the bottom of your hammock too.
[0:44:14 – 0:44:17] Erik: Yeah, we bring out bales of hay so I can really bed down.
[0:44:17 – 0:44:20] Adam: You really want to get nice and steamy.
[0:44:20 – 0:44:20] Adam: Yeah.
[0:44:21 – 0:44:23] Adam: Let those muscles fully loosen up.
[0:44:23 – 0:44:25] Erik: Yeah, you don’t want to get tight overnight, not at all.
[0:44:26 – 0:44:37] Erik: He also, I’m assuming he, but it could very well be a she, but Printing Printing says that they would like to hammock, but their significant other likes them to be in the tent.
[0:44:37 – 0:44:38] Erik: That sounds very familiar.
[0:44:38 – 0:44:40] Adam: Yeah, I can chime in on this one.
[0:44:40 – 0:44:46] Adam: So I’m primarily, if I’m going out with Eric or on a solo trip, I’m going to take the hammock for sure.
[0:44:47 – 0:44:54] Adam: I prefer to sleep in a hammock, but yeah, when me and, uh, Bay are out on a trip, I will definitely consider going in the tent.
[0:44:54 – 0:44:55] Adam: We usually do.
[0:44:55 – 0:44:59] Adam: And actually what we’ve got now is this, uh, it’s a big Agnes product.
[0:45:00 – 0:45:05] Adam: It’s the dream Island and it’s a two person sleeping bag and it is magnificent.
[0:45:05 – 0:45:06] Adam: It’s quite lovely.
[0:45:07 – 0:45:11] Adam: We have the accompanying double wide sleeping pad in there.
[0:45:11 – 0:45:12] Adam: I believe it’s the double Hinman.
[0:45:13 – 0:45:17] Adam: It’s like a two inch tall sleeping pad that fits in the sleeve in the back of that.
[0:45:19 – 0:45:23] Adam: And, you know, we have a nice little Marmot two person tent that it perfectly fits in there.
[0:45:24 – 0:45:26] Adam: It’s super comfortable, I got to say.
[0:45:26 – 0:45:30] Adam: The top of it is this crazy thick synthetic down quilt.
[0:45:31 – 0:45:39] Adam: And for you who sleep hot or cold, actually both the sides on that thing have a zip that goes almost all the way down on each side.
[0:45:39 – 0:45:42] Adam: So if you need to, unzip your side and stick a leg out.
[0:45:43 – 0:45:46] Adam: Or if you have to get up in the middle of the night to go look at the stars.
[0:45:47 – 0:45:51] Adam: you can get out and like on our tent, at least there’s a door on each side.
[0:45:51 – 0:45:57] Adam: So you can kind of get out and outside without jostling your, uh, significant other too much.
[0:45:57 – 0:45:58] Adam: So that’s a nice option.
[0:45:59 – 0:45:59] Adam: I enjoy it.
[0:46:00 – 0:46:07] Adam: Um, you know, so that if I’m going to be in a, if I’m going to be in a tent in a sleeping bag, that’s the way I’m going.
[0:46:07 – 0:46:10] Adam: At least it’s definitely the coziest way to, it’s really nice.
[0:46:10 – 0:46:15] Adam: We’re going to do a trip this May and I’m definitely, we’re definitely bringing that.
[0:46:15 – 0:46:17] Adam: Like we’ll probably throw the hammocks in.
[0:46:18 – 0:46:23] Adam: But I’m pretty certain we’ll be in the tent with the double couple sleeping bag.
[0:46:23 – 0:46:24] Adam: It’s pretty great.
[0:46:25 – 0:46:25] Adam: I recommend it.
[0:46:26 – 0:46:32] Erik: Also, if we haven’t mentioned, these are our go-to spring, summer, and fall sleeping methods.
[0:46:32 – 0:46:34] Erik: Yeah, we’ll get to winter sleeping later.
[0:46:34 – 0:46:35] Erik: That’s a whole other thing.
[0:46:35 – 0:46:36] Erik: A little bit different.
[0:46:37 – 0:46:42] Erik: I didn’t necessarily notice this right away, but we might have to try to follow up with printing.
[0:46:42 – 0:46:47] Erik: Printing on this one said that they made their own hammock last year.
[0:46:47 – 0:46:49] Erik: That should be interesting to maybe follow up on.
[0:46:50 – 0:46:52] Adam: Yeah, I’d love to see a picture of this.
[0:46:52 – 0:46:53] Adam: Yeah.
[0:46:53 – 0:46:54] Adam: Homemade hammocks.
[0:46:54 – 0:46:55] Erik: Homemade hammocks.
[0:46:55 – 0:47:01] Adam: Yeah, because a lot of them we’ve talked about before, they say they’re double wide and like there’s no way you’re getting two people in them.
[0:47:01 – 0:47:08] Erik: Well, they’re double wide and it’s like maybe if you’re both kind of resting in it in the morning, having a cup of coffee or watching the sunset, but like.
[0:47:09 – 0:47:32] Adam: i don’t think i’ve really ever seen a hammock that would be very comfortable for two people to sleep in overnight and he says they have the dog too and that’s another thing to consider like i’ve been out with a dog and they just sleep on the ground or you put a little blanket down underneath the hammock that’s fine yeah but dogs some dogs will go in the tent not our tent our tent would be too small for a dog you maybe stay in the rainfly section
[0:47:33 – 0:47:39] Erik: Yeah, so I think we got a pretty good start on hearing from some people.
[0:47:39 – 0:47:42] Erik: Love to hear from more of you guys going forward.
[0:47:42 – 0:47:49] Erik: We’ll get to what we’re talking about next week, but we do have to quick address one of the issues from last week with our fact checker.
[0:47:49 – 0:47:50] Erik: Fact checker.
[0:47:50 – 0:47:51] Adam: Do, do, do, do.
[0:47:52 – 0:47:54] Adam: We have some facts to update.
[0:47:54 – 0:48:04] Erik: Yes, we were talking about Caribou Lake last week, and I think we were pretty close to kind of the progression of the fishing in there over the years.
[0:48:05 – 0:48:07] Erik: And, again, we’ve kind of teased this.
[0:48:07 – 0:48:11] Erik: We definitely would like to have this person on, our source.
[0:48:13 – 0:48:19] Erik: Over the years, he has worked as a DNR guy and grew up at Clearwater when his parents owned the lodge.
[0:48:19 – 0:48:30] Erik: But the quick little rundown that I got was that before 1955 in Caribou Lake, there were pike, suckers, whitefish, and perch.
[0:48:31 – 0:48:37] Erik: And then after 1955, there was some largemouth bass that got stocked specifically in Caribou.
[0:48:37 – 0:48:38] Adam: Interesting.
[0:48:38 – 0:48:39] Adam: Interesting.
[0:48:39 – 0:48:46] Erik: Yeah, and then starting in the 60s and 70s, the smallmouth moved in from flower and then into moon and into deer.
[0:48:46 – 0:48:48] Erik: That’s pretty common over the years, those smallmouth.
[0:48:48 – 0:48:50] Erik: They tend to range.
[0:48:50 – 0:48:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:48:53 – 0:49:00] Erik: Some people will tell you that they’re an invasive species, which they technically are because they were introduced.
[0:49:00 – 0:49:02] Erik: They were never really historically native to the area.
[0:49:02 – 0:49:03] Erik: Yeah.
[0:49:03 – 0:49:08] Erik: And it wasn’t until the late 80s and early 90s that walleyes were stocked in Caribou Lake.
[0:49:11 – 0:49:22] Erik: And one of the other things that we heard from them was that, like we kind of mentioned that back in the 30s, there was that lumber mill on the north side of that lake.
[0:49:22 – 0:49:25] Erik: And they put a lot of the bark and sawdust into the lake.
[0:49:26 – 0:49:32] Erik: And that caused the lake clarity to become much darker.
[0:49:33 – 0:49:50] Erik: And that might not necessarily be easily correlated to any changes in the lake, but what we heard from him was that a lot of that clarity that disappeared caused a lot of the weed beds to disappear.
[0:49:50 – 0:49:51] Erik: Yeah.
[0:49:52 – 0:49:57] Erik: It’s still kind of a weedy lake, especially in the back, but I don’t know exactly… Yeah, for sure.
[0:49:57 – 0:50:02] Adam: You can run into some decent green weeds back there, but not like in the old days.
[0:50:02 – 0:50:13] Erik: Yeah, but it has been clearing out slowly since then, and I think every year that we’ve kind of looked at some of the reports from back there, it seems like it is getting clearer and clearer, so…
[0:50:14 – 0:50:33] Erik: uh with that that’ll wrap up the the one thing that we uh we’re talking about last week that really uh we could bring a little bit more clarity to and uh with that we’ll probably uh be ready to finish up with uh just talking about what is on the docket for next week and uh what is that
[0:50:35 – 0:51:01] Adam: food food yeah we’re yeah so we’re keeping it simple to begin with how do you sleep in the boundary waters and uh next week we’re going to be asking you and telling you about how we eat in the boundary waters important stuff you know yeah um we can talk about a lot of lakes later on once we get past these basics but yeah we’ve learned a lot over the years and hopefully we can pass on some of this uh wisdom help you out maybe you can help us
[0:51:02 – 0:51:02] Erik: Yeah.
[0:51:02 – 0:51:13] Erik: You know, it’s obviously with everything, we know it’s highly subjective, but where we’re at now has been a long progression.
[0:51:13 – 0:51:21] Erik: And we’d love to hear, you know, maybe some tips and tricks that you might have to ending the day with a fine meal around the campfire.
[0:51:22 – 0:51:23] Erik: You know, and we’ll…
[0:51:23 – 0:51:26] Adam: Or beginning the day with a hearty breakfast.
[0:51:26 – 0:51:29] Erik: Beginning the day, depending on the kind of trip you’re on.
[0:51:30 – 0:51:31] Erik: Those are some of my favorite mornings.
[0:51:31 – 0:51:40] Erik: The slow, lazy morning in camp around a smoky fire and five or six cups of coffee.
[0:51:41 – 0:51:42] Erik: Yeah, definitely.
[0:51:42 – 0:51:45] Erik: So we’ll get into that next week and we’d love to hear from you.
[0:51:45 – 0:51:47] Erik: How do you eat in the Boundary Waters?
[0:51:48 – 0:51:54] Erik: And yeah, with that, if you would like to answer those questions, where can you get in touch with us?
[0:51:55 – 0:51:57] Adam: Well, we are now on Instagram.
[0:51:58 – 0:51:58] Adam: Join us.
[0:51:59 – 0:52:01] Adam: Our username there is TumbleHomeCast.
[0:52:02 – 0:52:06] Adam: We’ll be posting some visuals, maps, what have you, that relate to the current episode.
[0:52:06 – 0:52:07] Adam: Check us out there.
[0:52:07 – 0:52:12] Adam: Also on Facebook, TumbleHome, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:52:12 – 0:52:14] Adam: That’s kind of our hub, and you can also find us online.
[0:52:15 – 0:52:20] Adam: just emailing the old school way, tumblehomecast at gmail.com.
[0:52:20 – 0:52:23] Adam: We are always checking that and appreciate your responses.
[0:52:24 – 0:52:28] Adam: Finally, a shout out to the folks over at Reddit, RBWCA.
[0:52:29 – 0:52:30] Adam: Thank you.
[0:52:30 – 0:52:31] Adam: We appreciate the comments.
[0:52:31 – 0:52:32] Adam: Keep them coming.
[0:52:32 – 0:52:32] Erik: Yeah, for sure.
[0:52:33 – 0:52:35] Erik: And with that, I think we’re going to wrap it up.
[0:52:36 – 0:52:37] Erik: And until next time.
[0:52:37 – 0:52:38] Adam: Happy paddling.
[0:52:39 – 0:52:39] Erik: Bye.
