Endless summer -Northwoods Style.
We were fortunate enough to again spend the majority of our summer out on the water. After taking a bunch of canoe paddling trips throughout the early summer, we closed up shop and headed up north at the end of July -where we stayed until September.

We took numerous BWCA canoe paddle trips and also lazed around the cabin enjoying the slow, warm, bug-free (mostly) days of August. The highlights included some amazing paddling trips that took us all through canoe country and the Canadian Border region. We took some time to explore the region around Ham Lake to see for ourselves the effects of the recent forest fires. We even stopped at the camp site where the fire was started by a careless camper.

Around the cabin we continue our restoration project. This August, I completely re-plumbed the cabin replacing all of the old pipes with new Pex tubing. Not a glamorous job but somebody's got to do it. Barb is in the second year of her stone patio and terrace project. Each stone in the patio is individually hunted down by us during our many hikes in the region. These stones are extremely heavy and we sometimes have to carry them great distances. Its super excercise and is lots of hard work. But its totally worth it in the end when the stone is finally set in place. Sweet satisifaction.

Jo continued on with her main passions -frog catching and riding her new bike. She just learned how to ride and the many miles of forest trails in the area were a great place to endlessly pedal. She and I also began harvesting wild flower seeds this summer that we intend to sow around our property this fall. She really enjoys hunting for seed pods and then cracking them open once we are at the cabin.


Jo harvesting wild lupin from the pods.


Barb and Jo paddling on the Cross River.


Dan and Whiskey Bender canoe paddle on Mountain Lake.

Morning on Karl Lake. Coffee on the camp stove.


Starting a Trip on the Cross River

Dan at the Ham Lake campsite. The start of the fire.

August 12, 2007
What I did on my summer vacation.
Just got the following trip report and pics from Matt G. (Whiskeyjack craftsman and pike fisherman...) He and his wife Sally headed up to his in-laws wilderness cabin in Canada. It sounds like an awesome cabin!

"Sal's dad built the cabin with some friends just out of medical school, using hand tools.

To get there, you take a wilderness train from Sault St. Marie, you tell the train conductor where you want to stop - get off in the middle of the woods, load up some canoes stashed under a tree, paddle a few miles up a big creek, and across the lake to the cabin.  In the winter you can throw your skis on the train and ski-in hauling your gear in pull sleds. To get back, you wait anywhere on the tracks on a day when it's scheduled to be going the direction you want, and then flag it down as it approaches.

On this trip, our work project was to stock up the winter firewood supply.  There are several pictures of that.  Mostly we relaxed, ate great food (i.e. cedar planked salmon), and caught tons of pike.  They seemed to be always biting and they were all over 30".  We were there 8 days.     There are two pictures from a previous winter trip because this last trip I neglected to take a full-frontal shot of the cabin or any of the train.  That should explain the ice and snow."

August 3, 2007
Too hot went to lake.
We had an amazing summer in the shop. We were absolutely blown away by the demand for our handcrafted canoe paddles. Its really great that there are still people who appreciate handcrafted products. Thanks so much to all of our customers! We really appreciate it and enjoyed getting to know you.

That being said, it was a lot of work and now its time for a break. We'll be up the trail for the remainder of the summer. We've got some awesome BWCA trips planned and have friends who will be coming up periodically to visit as well. It should be a great August.


Barb in the solo canoe on Hungry Jack Lake.

July 28 , 2007
Bumper crop.
The berries are just starting to peak. Both the raspberries and blueberries are looking (and tasting) pretty spectacular. I woke up extra early to head out with my bucket. I wanted to surprise Barb and Joey with blueberry pancakes this AM. I got to my double-top-secret blueberry patch and was thrilled to see perfectly ripe berries on every bush. Its a lot of work picking these little guys off one at a time but its totally worth it. Wild blueberries taste so much better than the store bought varieties. Each one is a party in your mouth!




July 9, 2007
Long, Hot days.
The mid-summer heat has rolled in. Emergency dips into the lake are needed every 10 minutes. Its worth getting so hot just for the awesome feeling of plunging into the crisp, cool lake. Fishing slow, very slow. A few decent walleyes but not much else. Just enough for dinner.


Walleye and Beer.

July 3, 2007
New bow paddler.
Jo has been asking all summer to sit alone on the bow of the canoe. Last year I made her a custom kids canoe paddle and she's been really anxious to use it. Barb was demoted to the middle of the canoe and Jo and I paddled us all around the south shore of Hungry Jack Lake. A mother loon had just hatched a chick in the small bay by our neighbors cabin so we drifted by at a distance to have a look. Its neat to watch how the chicks actually float on their mother's back.


Jo in the bow

July 1, 2007
I finally got a chance to take the Whiskey Nanook (our new Greenland style kayak paddle) out for a spin. I loaded up the solo canoe with my fishing gear to do some trolling. The kayak paddle was a blast to use. I'm a bit of a purist and never thought I would enjoy using a kayak paddle in a canoe -but I have to admit that I'm hooked.

The paddle performed great and was super light. I was stopped by several other paddlers who noticed my unusual paddle and wanted a closer look. This was a huge compliment and I was extremely proud to hand it over for everyone to see.

The Walleyes were also in a hungry mood so that made the evening even more awesome.


Dan and the Whiskey Nanook Kayak Paddle

Jo nervously holding a Gunflint Keeper Walleye.

June 22, 2007
Still up at the cabin for the next few weeks. As soon as we arrived Barb, Jo and I headed out fishing in search of a trout dinner. The evening weather was perfect and we could see the Rainbows sipping mayflies on the surface as we were putting out canoe in the water. When the trout are active like this, its virtually guaranteed that we'll catch fish. We caught our limit in less than 45 minutes.

Barb and Jo in Grand Marais at the start of the Gunflint Trail.


Barb and Jo and trout

June 14, 2007
Summer has finally arrived here in the Northwoods. After an extremely dry Spring, the skies opened up and the rain started coming down. And coming down. And coming down. Several straight weeks of rain have soaked the woods and the fires have all been extinguished.

We headed up north to the cabin for some rest after a crazy Spring in the paddle shop. Of course, instead of resting we jumped in the canoe for a paddle around Hungry Jack Lake and some fishing. The fishing was slow but the lake was as beautiful as ever. Joey landed an18 inch smallmouth using her Scooby Doo rod. Pound for pound no fish fights quite like a Smallmouth so it was a ton of fun watching Joey laugh and scream as she reeled the fish in.

We paddled the length of the lake and beached the canoe to hike to the top of Honeymoon Bluff. The views from Bluff are absolutely spectacular and give a humbling perspective to just how vast and wild the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is.




Dan paddling a fully loaded canoe

June 3, 2007
Year 4 of our cabin rehab project is under way. Our property was hit very hard by the massive 1999 wind storm. As a result, we had lot of stumps and fallen timber that needed to be cleared and re-planted with pines. We are going to spend more time working the land this year rather than restoring the buildings. The sooner we get things cleared and planted, the sooner the saplings will begin to grow. We won't live long enough to fully enjoy the pines but the next generation will.

New white pines planted 2007

May 16, 2007
Ham Lake Fire update.
We've had lots of calls and emails about the status of the fire and our beloved cabin. As of this posting, the fire is mostly contained on the U.S. side of the border. The fire pushed over the border into Canada and that section is still moving rapidly. For the moment our cabin is safe and more importantly, no lives have been lost.

Below are some pics of the fire that were emailed to me.

May 13, 2007
Closed for opener.
Our annual Hungry Jack fishing opener was altered dramatically by the massive forest fires that have been pushing ever closer to our cabin on Hungry Jack Lake. Due to the evacuations, we ended up fishing the Baptism and Cascade Rivers on Friday (the day before opener) and then headed further inland to Trestle Pine Lake for some Rainbow Trout action on opening day.

Friday was great. I haven't spent much time fishing these rivers so Mike S., John R. and myself got the waders on and tried our luck. Action was slow but John got a beauty Steelhead Friday morning and took "First Fish" honors. With the evacuation still in effect we decided to camp at Cascade River State Park with the hopes of finally reaching Hungry Jack on Saturday morning.


Mike doing some fly fishing on the Baptism River.


John with a nice steelhead (that was immediately released...)

We awoke to glorious weather Saturday morning but also to the news that the fire was still blocking access to most of the Gunflint Trail. Instead of worrying about the fire and possibly losing our cabin, I just wanted to keep busy and get on the water to fish and paddle. Worrying wasn't going to exstinguish the fire.

Tim T. joined us at our camp and knew of some lakes just south of the BWCA border that hold Rainbows and Splake. With Tim, you never really know if he's full of crap but our options were limited so we took his advice. We weren't sure if this area was under evacutaion orders and we hoped that the rough, winding, logger's road wasn't blocked.

We reached the the lakes with no problems and anxiously started to get our canoes on the water. As we unloaded, we heard a radio bulletin that the fire fighters had made decent progress on the fire and that the evacuation had been lifted. We had all of our gear in the boats and were anxious to fish, so we decided to fish Trestle Pine for a few hours and then high tail it up the Trail to Hungry Jack.

Mike Pulling up a trout on Trestle Pine (nice Whiskey Bender canoe paddle shot!)

The action was great on Trestle Pine! Rainbows were smacking anything we tossed out. It was a glorious few hours followed by sandwiches and a beer at the boat launch. With our fishing and food appetites satisfied, we booked up the Trail to Hungry Jack Lake.

It felt great to get waived on at the Border Patrol check point and even better to pull up at the cabin. Smoke was in the air but the radio said East winds were blowing the fire back onto itself. It was only 2pm so we didn't even bother to unpack and hit the water to get some Lake Trout. We fished two double-top-secret lakes and had decent success. Tim and I both landed hog lake trout while Johnny and Mike watched with jealousy. It was definetely tough not worrying about the fire with the constant helicopters and planes flying over head dropping water on the fire. The ever present plume of smoke on nearby Loon Lake also reminded us that with a shift of the wind the fire could be headed our way quickly. On Thursday it moved 15 miles in little over an hour.

Fires be damned. We still had a great opener.

April 29 , 2007
Long time no blog.
Crazy busy at WJ lately. We are at the peak of our season so lots of our time has been spent in the shop. In between filling orders, Steve and I have been working on some new designs. We've got a really sweet Greenland Style kayak paddle that will be photographed and on the site soon. Also, we have a new spooned blade canoe paddle that looks amazing but hasn't been put in the water yet.

April 10, 2007
Spring is here!
Matt and Sally win the prize for first canoe paddle session of the season. They are the proud owners of a "new" Old Town Penobscot (new to them at least...) They couldn't wait to get on the water to test it out so they headed out on the Big Lake for a paddle on Saturday.

Sally will be spending much of the summer in Kawishiwi River region of the Boundary Waters doing field research so they needed a new ride.

Sally posing with her new toy.


Matt waiting for the Lift Bridge to go up so their massive canoe can pass under...

March 13
Canoecopia.
We are back from our trip down to Madison, Wisconsin for the 2007 Canoecopia show. We had all of our new models on display and had a great time showing them off. The place was packed with excited paddlers -all suffering from major cases of Spring Fever. Barb and I met lots of people from all over the country and really enjoyed the awesome stories and feedback.

Rutabaga hosts this event and, like everything they do, it was first class all of the way. This season Rutabaga is carrying a full supply of Whiskey Benders, Whiskey Jills, Whiskey Rivers, Whiskey Rebellions, Double Whiskeys and Whiskey Fizz. These paddles are in stock, so if you need a canoe paddle give them a call.

Dan chatting it up in the booth.


Classy new canoe paddle signs.