Piragis Northwoods Company in Ely, Minnesota
Piragis Northwoods Company Enews
May 9, 2011
Greetings!

This Saturday is the Walleye Opener up here in Ely, Minnesota and the Boundary Waters.  As I write this, our much-welcomed rain is rolling into town.

All reports from the border lakes have the fish hungry and why shouldn't they be after a long winter?  Walleye opener up here includes Northern Pike and Smallmouth Bass, so the fishing possibilities are wide open indeed.

The Chocolate Moose Restaurant next door opened last weekend with new owners and a newly expanded menu.  I had a cup of gourmet coffee and a caramel roll as big as my head just to make sure everything was as I remembered it last fall.  Mmmm Mmmm Good.



Come up and visit Ely and get an early Boundary Waters trip in when the fish are biting and the bugs are not!

From the end of the road,

Sincerely,
Tim Stouffer
Piragis Northwoods Company


News from the Outfitting Desk.


Greetings to all you women out there who have been wanting to take a canoe camping trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This blog is for you!



Our Outfitting Department has many Guided Group Trips every summer, but for this write-up, we'll focus on the Women's Trip that we do. It's a great opportunity to experience a paddling adventure in the best canoe area in the world; so whether you are arriving solo or with some friends, you are sure to leave with vivid memories of everything you have seen and done.



Read the rest here on our blog .

 

Check out our Outfitting Brochure Here.

 

 

Call or email Bert or Drew to plan a trip into the Boundary Waters or Quetico wilderness in 2011!!!

 
Send me your trip stories and pictures: piragis webmaster

NOTICE OF A ROAD DETOUR THAT HAS AN IMPACT ON BOUNDARY WATERS ENTRY POINT TRAVEL:

ISABELLA LAKE.  



The Tomahawk Rd (Forest Rd 377) has a very serious washout just west of FR 377V, the access road into the Bog Lake Entry Point.  Estimates for when it will be repaired run from two to four weeks depending on how long it takes to get the right sized culvert. To reach points east of Bog Lake coming from the Ely area:
Take Forest Road (FR) 377 (Tomahawk Rd.) about 12 miles to FR 373
Turn right (south) onto FR 373
Travel about 5 miles to FR 369
Turn left (east) onto FR 369
Travel about 3 miles to FR 379
Turn left (North) onto FR 379
Travel about 5 miles back to FR 377, the Tomahawk Rd.
On the Tomahawk Road, turn right to go to Island River, Isabella Lake and points east; or turn left to go to Bog Lake.



We'll keep you updated, but this looks to be a month long project for the time being.
  
A great deal on Lifevests
The lifevests that we've been carrying the last few years have gone through some color changes and pocket changes with a few tweeks here and there and as a result we've had to update our inventory with the new models you'll find in our Boundary Waters Catalog.

That, or course, means that the previous models are NOW ON SALE.  A PFD is a necessary piece of gear for anyone who gets in a canoe or kayak or on a paddle board :) [see picture above].  It is vital that you get yourself a lifejacket that is comfortable and allows you to move freely.

What can be even more vital is that there are times when you can save a little money on the essentials so you can have a little more to spend on the fun things in life.  We like to give you these opportunities as often as we can.  So, without further ado, MTI Cruiser Pro regularly $74.95, now $56.24.





Piragis and Guide featured in THE TIMES of LONDON

 

Seven lakes down, 9,993 left to paddle by Joanna Walters.


Thanks Joanna for getting the word out across the big water! 

 


My test was an infamous half-mile path connecting the first two lakes we crossed, bypassing treacherous rapids and twisting its way over steep, slippery rock that Aaron nicknamed the Ankle Buster. When I reached the end of that - muddy and gasping, but ankles and canoe intact - and Lisa arrived carrying not one but two of our four packs of gear in one go, Aaron declared us ready for what the locals simply call Canoe Country. We went back for the other packs and he followed with his single canoe.

It was raining stair rods, which made the first sheltered little lake poignantly beautiful with its spruce, pine, fir and birch trees all around. But the second, huge lake was windswept and choppy, and as Lisa and I paddled hard to make headway, the canoe felt unstable and it became clear that we hadn't packed our gear very evenly between the seats. Sure enough, we rounded a point and were struck broadside by a strong gust and capsized, dumped right into the water with barely time to yelp. Thank goodness for our lifejackets and gear packs designed to float.

There ensued much frantic swimming to the rocky point, pushing the upturned canoe, relaunching it with Aaron's help and demon-paddling through the tempest to the camping spot marked on our map, where we dragged ourselves ashore like sopping wet, shivering dogs.

Aaron was a hero, erecting tents in the squall with bionic speed and scouting enough dry wood and moss from thick undergrowth to get a fire and brew going.
 

Read the rest of this exciting story here:  http://www.piragis.com/elyoutfitters.html


 

Our first Canoe Trip Clients of the Year had a fantastic time - Can you say fresh ice every day in the wilderness!?
After sharing some pictures our first tent renter of the year took last week, we thought you'd like to see some wilderness shots from our first canoe renters of the year.  What a thrill to hit the open (and not so open) water before anyone else!

We're pretty sure swimming was not part of the trip - and who could blame them?







Group members from Minneapolis:
Erik Grams
Adam Fromm
Reis Grams
 
Friday April 29th - Ice out on Iron
It was sunny and over 60 degrees when we put our canoes in Friday morning. Portaging was a surreal experiance in a t-shirt with snow piles all around on the portages.  We witnessed the last of the ice go out when we reached Iron.  The ice was mostly a slushy mix and we paddled through it to get to a campsite on Three Island.

Saturday was spent traveling to Lac La Croix.
It was a cold and rainy day so it was good to keep moving.  We went down some rapids that can be a little more interesting when the water temperature is so cold.

Sunday was very cold and windy.
The wind never stopped, our lines were icing up, and there was ice forming in our canoe.  To keep warm we decided to take the portage to Curtain Falls and see Crooked Lake.  The falls were beautiful and the sun came out for a brief time just as we got to Crooked.

Monday was our best day fishing.
Adam managed to pull in a 38 inch Northern Pike on a jig and minnow.  We measured the fish and released it.  While we were fishing a moose walked by on shore!  Later that night we heard wolves howling as we went to bed!

Tuesday was a beautiful day for the trip out.
Wolf prints were all over the portages.

  
New Piragis Windshirts now in stock.
Our new windshirts are here.  And that's a good thing because our days have been windy to say the least this week.  If you've got one on or two on backorder, they should arrive at your home by the end of next week.  If you've been waiting for us to get our newest jacket in, now we've got plenty of them on hand.
 
Get yours here:
http://www.boundarywaterscatalog.com/browse.cfm/4,8614.html


DRY ICE/WET ICE EXPERIMENT FOR COOLER PACKS in the BWCAW
We like it when our readers and clients come up with great ideas for informative articles for our email newsletter.  It awesome to share these insights, pictures, journal entries and gear reviews with everyone!

Thanks Michael and Brian and we hope the rest of you enjoy the read!
 
Submitted by Michael Termini and Brian Codd
With the great assistance from Piragis Northwoods Outfitters


While we have a bit of experience as canoeists, hunters and campers, this is our first trip to the Boundary Waters.  Over the last year, we have read all of the books and studied the maps, selected our route and then selected our outfitter, Piragis Northwoods Outfitters for our partial outfitting and their advice.

When we have time, after a hard day in the wild, we enjoy a gourmet meal on a par with a fine restaurant, complete with all of the complexity of a great meal.  We have found that we are going to consume 2500 - 3500 calories a day no matter what we eat in order to replenish the body stores expended in the day of travel.  We are willing to carry a little more weight in packs for another pot or two to make those great calories!  So for us, the excitement of the Boundary Waters is only enhanced by the gourmet meals we hope to be enjoying at the end of each day.  But, with the lack of refrigeration for a 5 day trip on the BW, the new challenge was how to do it.

In addition to the general question of how to create refrigeration for 5 days, there was also the issue of the bears and whether a bear cooler was the way to go or whether it was better to hang a pack.

To help answer these questions and figure out what was best for us, our friends at Piragis Northwoods Company and Drew Brockett graciously agreed to let us borrow their big Cooke Cooler Pack and a 30L bear barrel for a couple of weeks during the off season to conduct our experiments and try and figure this out.

READ THE REST here:
 Ice and Food Pack Experiment


Join us on FACEBOOK.  Help us grow our Facebook followers.  Share Piragis with your friends and click the old "LIKE" button.
If you were a facebook fan of ours, you'd know that the loons were back in Ely last week and just what the Kawishiwi Falls looked like right before the ice on Fall Lake went out.





We use Facebook to post quick news about Ely, special sales, fire-ban status in the wilderness, current events and fun stuff.


Thanks for your social media help and thanks for sharing us with your friends as we continue to promote Piragis Northwoods Company and the Boundary Waters Catalog and utilize all means necessary to keep you, our valued customers and trip clients, in the loop.

 

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Great Northwoods
105 North Central Avenue
Ely, MN  55731
1-800-223-6565
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Outfitting News
PFD SPECIAL SALE
Piragis in the News
First Canoe Trippers of the Year
Windshirts in Stock
Frozen Meat Longer in the BWCAW?
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