Piragis Northwoods Company

July 10, 2012 Email Newsletter   

Greetings! 

We are working hard here in Ely to make your summer canoe trips a success.  Drew and Adam, our guides Steve and Aaron and the entire outfitting crew are busy like northwoods beavers out back.  Packing, planning, routing and scrambling for permits.

Our retail manager, Michelle and her staff have the retail store looking fabulous.  With the help of all our different buyers, we've got selection, style and quality nailed.  From gear, to fashion clothing and interesting books and gifts, you'll find it and you'll want to make the trip to Ely more often once you've shopped here this summer!

We've recently posted some additions to our Used Canoe and Kayak sale page and we've got a wide variety of in-stock NEW canoes and kayaks to choose from.  Call Steve Schon to order your new boat today!

The question I've been asked more than any other since I began working at Piragis Northwoods Company in 1997 is: "Where can I go to see Moose?  Where was the last moose you saw?"  Indeed, for many people, the trek to Ely needs to have that icing on the cake, the sighting of our majestic denizen of the Boundary Waters, the MOOSE.  Luckily or fortuitously for some of our clients, wish becomes reality:



"Drew, Here is an early morning shot on Pocket Lake. We really wanted to see a moose on this trip and were rewarded with being able to watch this cow and calves for at least 1/2 hour.

Enjoy, Bob Bailey"

   

A look ahead at the next few days of Ely weather.  Since this is Minnesota it will likely change before you receive this newsletter :)

 

That's our experience anyway.

 

 

We hope to see you soon in beautiful Ely, Minnesota!

 

From the End of the Road,

 

Tim Stouffer, Marketing Director and Webmaster

Piragis Northwoods Company  

 

What's Going on in the Boundary Waters?   

  

Hey Drew-

"We had a great trip; very relaxing albeit slightly wet!  Loved those 42 lb. canoes in a big way. I'm saving my pennies to get one. You guys run a great shop with outstanding people. Once again, thanks for everything."  Tim Mayers

  

"Drew -  We had a great time on our recent trip. Extremely well planned. Ethan was great- would use him again if the opportunity arises. Would gladly recommend your organization to anyone making a trip to the Boundary Waters."   Tim Smith

 

 

"Everyone we dealt with at Piragis was totally professional and helpful.  I couldn't ask for better service.   Our Shuttle driver, Pat, was especially helpful and informative.   Hope to see you next year."  Joel Emerson

North end of a portage north of Nina Moose Lake
Client Photo by Bob Bailey

Oyster Lake campsite Client photo by Bob Bailey

From on top of the granite cliffs on Steep Lake




"Michelle - just wanted to thank everyone at Piragis (Steve & Tim have corresponded over the years) for your wonderful help with gear and trek tips! I have used your products in Baja, Lake Mead, Lake Powell and many spots across northern Minnesota. Hope 2012 is a success for you all!"  Sincerely, Scott Sutton
 
Send us your trip pictures and journal entries.  Let us know how your Boundary Waters adventures went!  We'll post to our email newsletters and facebook.  You can share with all your friends!  Just email to our webmaster.

Ely News:  Another 4th of July Storm takes Ely by Surprise

  

Reminiscent of 1999 and the infamous Blowdown, the Fourth of July skies open up, or rather rolled up yesterday with what threatened to be a vengeance.  Eerie, uncanny clouds rolled in as if they were waves just when the  Parade was ending.

Despite all the rain of late June, we were suffering from hot temperatures like the rest of the country (well admittedly we are spoiled, we're talking temps in the 90s when others are suffering with mercury over the century or even 110 degree mark).  Anyway, we were thankful for the promise of rain after a week or more of drying out.  We raised heads and eyes to the sky with doubt and not too little thoughts of deja vu.

Back in 1999, I watched the wind pick up a dumpster from in front of the community center and shove it all the way across the street to the Senior Center parking lot.  The wheels were locked.  No small display of strength.  When I got home the wind grabbed my crank out windows, yanked them wide open and then shoved them shut, blowing my screens off the inside and stuff across my living and dining rooms.  I was inside, there were plenty of folks in the wilderness when the flatline winds took out a path of trees 7 miles wide and 25 or more miles long.  Suffice it to say:  When it looks like this over Ely on the Fourth of July, we take notice around here.  It might not just be another summer thriller.     

 

Read the rest of the story (with an ominous picture) about the 2012 Storm of the Year (so far?)  HERE ON OUR BLOG 

Something New we Know you'll Like!
New Books Online!


Early this Spring we added more books than ever to our online catalog of fantastic titles.  For those of you who may not know we're one of Minnesota's best known independent bookstores.  Yes, Ely is one of the few places where you can walk into an actual bookstore (not a big box store) and browse to your heart's content.  While we can't get you in one of our overstuffed chairs online, we've made an effort to increase our number of books offered online every week.

We've taken note of some of your favorites and found some great new (and old favorite) titles to compliment them.  In short, great books are difficult to come by and we pride ourselves in looking for the best titles we can find.  We pay attention to our customers and many of the books that we stock come directly from customer's favorites.

If you have bought books from us in the past and enjoy our selection, you should find something worth adding to your library here.  If nothing trips your trigger, spend some time browsing our extensive selection online.

Piragis Northwoods Company Second Floor Bookstore:
Where Good Books Find You
These are some of the Titles we've added recently:

Jim Bridger Mountain Man
Click Here
Even among the mighty mountain men, Jim Bridger was a towering figure. He was one of the greatest explorers and pathfinders in American history. He couldn't write his name, but at eighteen he had braved the fury of the Missouri, ascending it in a keelboat flotilla commanded by that stalwart Mike Fink. by 1824, when he was only twenty, he had discovered the Great Salt Lake. Later he was to open the Overland Route, which was the path of the Overland Stage, the Pony Express, and the Union Pacific. One of the foremost trappers in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, he was a legend in his own time as well as ours. He remains one of the most important scouts and guides in the history of the West.

The Mountain Men Click Here
To know how the West was really won, start with the exploits of these unsung mountain men who, like the legendary Jeremiah Johnson, were real buckskin survivalists. Preceded only by Lewis and Clark, beaver fur trappers roamed the river valleys and mountain ranges of the West, living on fish and game, fighting or trading wih the Native Americans, and forever heading toward the untamed wilderness. In this story of rough, heroic men and their worlds, Laycock weaves historical facts and practical instruction with profiles of individual trappers, including harrowing escapes, feats of supreme courage and endurance, and sometimes violent encounters with grizzly bears and Native Americans.  

Why Fish Fart Click Here
Gould sifts through the world's most bizarre creatures, diseased, physical deformities, and culinary "delicacies" to answer questions you never thought to ask and perhaps will wish you'd never had answered - including: did Hitler really suffer from extreme flatulence, why is the toilet often referred to as the "john", why might you want to steer clear of some coffees?

Why you shouldn't eat your boogers
Click Here
This is a delightful, sometimes embarrassing, and always hilarious catalog of forbidden facts about our bodies. Organized by anatomical systems, it answers questions you may be too shy to ask or even think about, such as: do bugs live in your eyelashes, what does human flesh taste like, can you really catch a cold by standing in the rain, how do astronauts poo in space, what foods can cure a hangover, why is yawning contagious??


The Shetland Bus Click Here
A WWII Epic of Escape, Survival and Adventure. The occupation of Western Europe and Scandinavia in the spring of 1940 crippled Britain's ability to gather intelligence information. After the Germans invaded Norway, many Norwegians knew that small boats were constantly sailing from the Shetland Islands to land weapons, supplies, and agents and to rescue refugees. In The Shetland Bus David Howarth, who was second in command of the Shetland base, recounts the hundreds of trips made by fishing boats in the dark of Arctic winter to resist the Nazi onslaught.

The Forgotten 500
Click Here
The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked all for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War I.  During a bombing campaign over Romanian oil fields, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian farmers and peasants risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers while they waited for rescue, and in 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip large enough for C-47 cargo planes - without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers. And the cargo planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back without getting shot down themselves.


Touching the Void Click Here
Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000 foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of ice ledge, breaking his leg. After hours of trying to hang on, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal from both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave. How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.

SAS Survival Handbook
Click Here
Survival Handbook for Any Climate in Any Situation. Newly updated to reflect the latest in survival knowledge and technology, the internationally bestselling SAS Survival Handbook is the definitive resource for all campers, hikers, and outdoor adventurers. From basic campcraft and navigation to fear management and strategies for coping with any type of disaster, this complete course includes: being prepared, making camp, food, first aid and disaster survival.


Preppers Pocket Guide Click Here
101 Easy Things You Can Do To Ready Your Home for a Disaster.
From California earthquakes and Rocky Mountain wildfires to Midwest floods and Atlantic hurricanes, you can't escape that inevitable day when catastrophe strikes your home town - but you can be prepared! Offering a simple DIY approach, this book breaks down the vital steps you should take into 101 quick, smart and inexpensive projects

Survivor Kid Click Here

A Practical Guide to Wilderness Survival.  Ever wonder what you would do if you encountered a mountain lion or bear on a camping trip, lost your trail on a day hike, or got hurt far from home? This handy guide will teach you how to survive if you ever find yourself lost or facing a dangerous situation in the wild. Written by a search and rescue volunteer and lifelong camper, this book is filled with basic wilderness know-how on building shelters and fires, signaling for help, finding water and food, dealing with dangerous animals, learning how to navigate, and avoiding injuries in the wild.


Go Wild! 101 things to do Outdoors before you grow up.
Click Here
Just what families need to escape from virtual worlds and rediscover the wonders of the real one. It's about tempting teenagers outdoors to enjoy the natural world. The authors provide clear, practical instructions for such activities as building a shelter, foraging for wild food, creating fire without matches and cooking on the hot coals, learning to make tools and weapons from natural materials, and much more.

Make it Wild
Click Here
children can enjoy the endless opportunities offered by wild places. Looking at what nature has to offer, they explore the potential of raw materials such as snow, leaves and sticks and demonstrate how children can use them to make anything from a cricket bat or a clay monster to ice lanterns or flaming balloons. As they play the kids are learning how to solve practical problems, how to work together, how to see a process through from start to finish, how to use potential dangerous tools safely - all skills they need to cope with the world and develop an understanding of the way it works. Make It Wild makes it fun.

The Piragis Northwoods Company Boundary Waters Blog - Simple is sometimes Best.

What do you do when you want to stay in one spot and fish?  Perhaps your paddling partner "treads water" for you :)  You could throw down a float buoy and keep trolling by.  Where's an anchor when you need it?  Where's rope when you need it?  Remember Sam in the Lord of the Rings knows he'll need rope because that was the one thing he forgot to bring -- sure enough.  He needed it and was gifted rope by the Elvish Queen.  Magic rope.  We're not going that far, but hear me out.

Some people just take rope and --


To continue  reading click HERE  
Product Review:  Deerfly Patches, Stuff that Works!
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
 
If you doubt that these patches work, doubt no more.  As Josh our Customer Service Manager discovered 20 minute walk, 46 flies.



You can buy Deerfly Patches for only $6.99 a 12 pack here! 




DETOUR THIS SUMMER ON HIGHWAY ONE To Ely

Click Here for Map

 

 

Your Friends in the
 Great Northwoods
105 North Central Avenue
Ely, MN 55731
1-800-223-6565
 

Quick Links
 







Click HERE For USED CANOES &
Kayaks on SALE

or email Steve Schon for info on all our used canoes
 
      Fire Ecology Canoe  
Camping Trip (NEW!)

Sept. 1-7

 

Lazy on the Lake Canoe Base Camping (NEW!)

July 21 - 27

 

Quetico Canoe Trip

Aug. 4 - 10

 

Quetico Kayaking Trip

Aug. 11 - 17

 

Canoe Camping w/ Cliff Jacobson and Steve Johnson

 Aug. 18 - 24 

 

Howling with the Wolves Canoe Trip

Aug. 25 - 31

 

Autumn Colors & Wilderness Wildlife

Sept. 22 - 28

 

Women Exploring the Wilderness

July 7 - 13

 

Click HERE for more info

 

Thanks to our Sponsors:

Wenonah Canoes sponsors Piragis Northwoods Company ENEWS

Ely Echo Sponsors the Piragis ENEWS