March 21, 2008
Canoe spotted!
The surest sign of spring is when the canoes begin to emerge from the many feet of Northern Minnesota snow. The snow is melting at a steady pace but there is still at least another month until the ice is out on the lakes up here...

March 17, 2008
Copia Pics.
I finally got a chance to look at our photos from Canoecopia. We had an awesome show and our booth was filled with paddlers pretty much the entire time. Many of our models were completely sold out by noon on Saturday!

Spring Fever was definetely running rampant at the show. Being surrounded by so many canoes and paddling gear was getting us all extremely anxious for ice out. This year I actually got a chance to see some of the lectures, which I enjoyed tremendously. I saw one on BWCA fishing techniques (somebody always knows more...) and another on a paddling expedition on the Yukon River in Canada. Both were great. Barb was able to check out a presentation about paddling in Provence. She said it looked like a MUCH different way to paddle than our usual BWCA/Quetico trips...

As always, thanks to all of the amazing staff at Rutabaga!

Dan talking paddling with some new Whiskey customers.


Barb is the hostess with the mostess...

February 23, 2008
Winter Breck, umm Break...
Barb and I ducked out of the shop for some time on the slopes in Breckenridge, CO this week. Our busiest time of the year is just about to start so we wanted to get out and have a little fun before the hard work starts.

After weeks of mind-numbing, sub-zero weather here in Duluth, it felt great to step off the plane into balmy, 15 degree Denver. We stayed at an amazing lodge at the base of one of the main lifts. We skied each day until we could hardly move and soaked each night in the outdoor jacuzzi. Glorious.




Open your eyes Dan!


A Breckenridge Whiskeyjack begging for scraps of our lunch...

January 28, 2008
Beargrease.
The John Beargrease sled dog race (beargrease.com) is under way here in Northern Minnesota. The race commemorates the life of John Beargrease, the son of an Ojibway chief who delivered mail by dog sled along Lake Superior’s rugged North Shore in the late 19th century. Its a qualifying race for the Iditarod in Alaska so mushers from around the world come to Duluth to participate.

The race covers nearly 400 miles round trip and is the longest sled dog race outside of Alaska. The course begins near our home in Duluth and the turn around point is about a mile from our cabin up the Gunflint Trail near the Canadian Border.

Its amazing to watch these passionate mushers and even more passionate dogs compete. To race at this grueling level requires complete and total dedication to training and raising dogs. Its not something that can be done part-time and its awesome to watch people living their dreams.


Dogs pulling on the trail.


Hank DeBruin of Ontario, Canada preparing to start. Hank owns Winterdance
Dog sled tours at the edge of Algonquin National Park.


Barb in her arctic sheik Beargrease attire.


Two dogs anxious to start racing.

January 6, 2008
Ice House Time.
With the holiday rush over it is time to rest, relax -and more importantly, fish. With several feet of solid ice under us, we set up our ice house on the St. Louis River the other day. Our hope was to pull up some of the river's famous walleye. Instead we got a different treat altogether. While jigging in about seven feet of water I had a solid strike. I was reeling the fish in and noted that there was absolutely no fight to this fish -but it was heavy. It was kind of like reeling up a wet log. This is very common with walleye so that's what I assumed I had. As the fish came closer to the hole I turned on my head lamp and saw the odd, prehistoric face of a lake sturgeon emerging through the hole.





Sturgeon can grow to be several hundred pounds so the fish I caught was extremely small compared to what it will one day be. I released it back down the hole where it will hopefully grow for many years to come.

Sturgeon were more or less wiped out in this area until an effort to re-establish them began in the early 1980's. It was the first sturgeon I've ever caught and I was grateful for the efforts of the Minnesota DNR and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to bring back a self-sustaining population to Lake Superior and its tributaries. Below are a few links about these efforts.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fwt/back_issues/november00/article3.html

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/sturgeon/

December 28, 2007
What I did on my X-Mas Break.
Shovel. That's what I did. We've had an awesome amount of snow so far this year. The other day the snow accumulated so high that we couldn't even open our doors to get outside.


Old school. We don't need no stinkin' snow blower....

December 23, 2007
Tight *ssed Brit.
We received a nice email from a Mark E., a British paddler the other day. Whiskeyjack Paddles will be available in a variety of European Paddlesports stores in 2008. Needless to say we are really excited that our paddles are being enjoyed across the Big Pond!
---
Message for Danny -

Oh, Christmas Tree.
December 19, 2007
Today we took our annual trip into the woods in search of the perfect tree. Of course, the trees in the real forest don't look anything at all like the full, perfectly trimmed trees found on the corner lot. But we prefer our wonderful northwoods balsams taken fresh from the woods. We headed up into the heart of the Superior National Forest and this year told Joey that she could pick any tree she wanted (within reason...) It was a beautiful, sunny day but the waste high snow drifts limited Jo's ability to stray too far off of the path. All the same, she waded in in search of the perfect tree.

Sweet Sixteen.
December 7, 2007
Sixteen inches of snow hit northern Minnesota this week! Finally, we had a chance to hit the ski trails for the first time this winter. Even though we are super busy filling Christmas orders, Barb and I had no choice but to head to Korkki Nordic up the North Shore of Lake Superior.

Let it snow.
November, 10 2007
We awoke this morning to a gentle snow fall. As the morning progressed the snow became heavier and heavier. We had no choice but to blow off work and hit the hiking trail. Nothing beats a long hike during a heavy snowfall. Barb and I hiked along Chester Creek and enjoyed the beauty of the snow as it slowly accumulated on the limbs of the massive white pines that grow along the upper falls.


Dan on the bridge looking down on the fallls.


Barb on the trail.



October 22, 2007
Business as usual at the shop. This is supposed to be our slow time -a time when we can spend designing new models and improving the workshop. But we've been busy as heck filling canoe paddle orders (no complaints...) and its impeding the creative process as well as our time out in the woods. Never the less, I've still spent a good portion of the Fall hiking the woods in search of grouse. Spring drum counts indicated that grouse populations are on the rise -but we've seen very few in all of our hours outside. Oh well, its still a great excuse to get outside and tromp around in the bush.

In the shop, we've come up with some REALLY nice paddles for the 2008 paddling season and also improved the design of several of our existing models. I'm really happy with how beautiful everything is looking.