Too Cold to Camp? Bah Humbug!

Wintergreen's 3 New Year's dogsled camping groups include folks ranging in age from 8 to 68 and from Australia to Tennessee! They're planning a bonfire gathering on a wilderness lake for New Years and will be building cozy igloos and snow shelters tomorrow to prepare for a night out with temps slated to dip to near -30 on the first day of 2010.

Guests Find a 12-Pack on the Dogsled Trail!

Wintergreen guest Tom Everett and his 3 sons, who came here from Egypt for their dogsled vacation, enjoyed a rare wildlife sighting -- a pack of 12 timber wolves that sauntered out along the frozen river they were traveling along. Guide Steve Eisenmenger says it ranked among the largest packs he'd ever seen in his 30 years of guiding. "Absolutely awesome!" is what Tom's sons said.

Happy Holidays from Wintergreen!

We've got a great dogsledding season underway here. Here's some fun pics from our first few trips!

Our new sled dog puppies!

Meet the newest members of the Wintergreen kennel! Betty & Wilbur, born in August, will be ready for harness training in March. Pure-bred Canadian Inuit Dogs --the historic breed that evolved with the Eskimo people of the high Arctic-- they will grow to be 60-80 pounds with the power to pull twice their own weight in p...ayload. Best of all, they're friendly & loveable!

Wintergreen's "Sven & Ole" joke of the Week

The sheriff stops by Sven's farm and says he needs to inspect it for illegal drugs. Sven says, "Okay but don't go in that field over there.'The sheriff glares at Sven defiantly and says, 'Listen, Sven, I have the authority of the government.' Reaching into his rear pant pocket... and removing his badge, he thrusts it in front of Sven. 'See this badge? It means I am allowed to go wherever I wish..on any land. No questions asked or answers given. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?'Sven nods politely and goes about his chores.Later, the Sven hears loud screams and spies the sheriff running for his life. Close behind is Sven's bull. With every step the bull is gaining ground on the sheriff. The officer is clearly terrified. Sven immediately throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs..... "Your badge! Show him your *@#&* badge!"

Arctic Love Story: The Heart of the Eagle

In 1897, three Swedish explorers led by Salomon Andree took off from the Arctic in a hydrogen-filled balloon named the Eagle in an attempt to fly over the North Pole. Sadly, they were never seen alive again. But the tragic story gained a romantic twis...t because in the months before the launch, Nils Strindberg, the team's photographer, had become involved in a tender romance with a teacher, Anna Charlier. Their tentative courtship, whirlwind engagement and high hopes for a relationship that was never to be consummated lent a piquant edge to the tragedy. In the days before radio, the team's only means of communication were carrier pigeons. The team released 3 during the Eagle's short journey, but only one was ever found and it's attached message retrieved (which read "all's well on Day 2"). Upon it's death, the pigeon was mounted and presented to Nil's inconsolable fiancée Anna as her only memento from her lover's ill-fated trek.

Three decades later the crew of a Norwegian ship discovered the remains of the expedition on a remote Arctic island. The bones of the explorers were recovered and Andree's diaries were found preserved, along with Nil's rolls of film. The diaries and resulting photos revealed that the Eagle, outfitted for a month-long flight, had crash-landed after only 3 days. The crew had struggled across the ice for months, dragging salvaged food and supplies behind them. They finally made landfall on an uninhabited island in October and crafted a primitive rock shelter in hopes of surviving the Arctic winter. But they all died just days later, apparently of food poisoning.

In 1930 their remains were brought home to Sweden for a huge state funeral presided over by the king that was said to be "the most solemn episode of national mourning that has ever occurred in Sweden." But most touching of all was the gesture by Gilbert Hawtrey, an American school teacher. Nil's fiancée Anna had married Hawtrey years after the expedition when she realized all hope of Nil's return was gone. She had accompanied Hawtrey to the U.S. and taught music at his school. The stuffed pigeon from Andree's balloon resided on her piano as her sole connection with Nils. Sadly, she died before the discovery of the team's remains. But Hawtrey was still living then and, upon hearing the news, he responded to a solemn promise he'd made to Anna. Just before she died, he'd told her that should Nils' body ever be found, he'd have Anna's body exhumed and her heart removed so he could send it to Sweden to be buried with her first love.

Enjoy a great massage after dogsledding!

Want to put the polish on a great day of dogsledding? How 'bout a professional massage in the privacy and comfort of your own lodge bedroom! This year Wintergreen is delighted to have available on call the services of massage therapist Dave Hunsche, a graduate of CenterPoint School of Shiatsu and Massage Therapy and certified by the National Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. The therapy options offered by Dave through his "Two Rivers, One Heart Massage" include Swedish Massage, Deep Tissue, Myofacial Release, Sports Massage, Trigger Point Therapy, and Integrative Massage. You may be able to book Dave on short notice during your trip but if you'd like to reserve in advance, best times for a massage during your dogsledding vacation are 5-6pm or 8-9pm on the 2nd or 3rd day of lodge-based trips, 4-6pm on the final evening of camping trips, or anytime after 10am on the final day of any trips. Contact Dave at dhunsche@hotmail.com, 218-235-1665, 60 minutes: $60, 90 minutes: $75. The other half of "Two Rivers" is Dave's wife, Thea Sheldon, a certified professional life coach who "helps mid-lifers gain unstoppable momentum on what really matters… for the rest of their lives!” Thea works with clients over the phone, all over the world. She is also available by appointment for an in-person conversation with you during your dogsledding vacation. View her services and contact her through http://www.theasheldon.com/

Smile! You're on candid WebCam!

4 pm, Thurs, Dec 3: Here's the current view of our kennel area on a frozen, snow-covered bay near Timber Trail Lodge. Starting mid-December, you can watch us launch our dogteams from this bay on our new webcam: www.timbertrail.com/webcam.htm. Wintergreen dogsled vacation guests whose trips are based at Timber Trail Lodge can alert friends & family to watch this webcam at dog feeding time (7-8am), launch time (10am) and return time (4pm), so you can wave to them and show off your dogteam. You may even want to bring along a big "Hi Grandma!" placard to place on that dock! We don't have a web cam at the Wintergreen kennel (too far from our internet link) but guests whose trips are based at Wintergreen generally dogsled through Timber Trail Lodge at some point on their itinerary and can alert friends/family by cell phone to watch you dogsled by on the web cam at the appointed time. Enjoy!

Winter has Arrived!

We've got snow! After a luxuriously long fall, winter arrived with gusto and we've been getting a few inches of snow each day this week with temps slated to dip to single digits by this weekend. Our Wintergreen dogsled trails should be in great shape when we launch our first trip on December 13! Although we're fully booked this month, openings on some of our dogsledding vacation packages, dogsled camping trips & mushing day trip are still available January through March. Email us for details.

"Born to Pull" is back!

The best book ever about dogsledding is back in print! Written and illustrated by good friends of ours, "Born to Pull" not only includes several fun stories about Wintergreen dogs, but many of the book's beautiful illustrations depict Wintergreen scenes -- and the original watercolor paintings now adorn our lodge bedrooms. Email us to order your copy (100 pages, softcover, $15 plus postage) and Paul will autograph the book's Wintergreen stories. A great stocking-stuffer for dog lovers, but don't just take our word for it:

"There’s almost no way to describe the beauty with which this book about sled dogs was conceived, written, and illustrated. . . . Born to Pull has a dreamy quality to it, so effectively does it capture a world removed from everyday life and portray the mystical connection between humans and animals." —American Booksellers Association

Chris & Lisa launch their Arctic Dogsled Trip

They're off! Wintergreen guides Chris Maher & Lisa Strom of Sweden (shown here with our pups Betty & Boop and their komatik sled loaded on their truck top) departed Wintergreen today on a 2,000-mile drive to reach the Arctic Ocean at Inuvik, NWT. From there, they embark on a 4-month dogsled expedition across Canada's mythical Northwest Passage to reach Hudson Bay. With a little luck, our Wintergreen dogsledding group may rendezvous with them in Churchill in April. What a party that will be! We'll post updates on their trek throughout the winter. Join us on our Wintergreen dogsled trip along Hudson Bay's Polar Bear National Park: http://www.dogsledding.com/images/stories/documents/hudson%20bay%202010.pdf

Wild West Wintergreen training trip

The Schurke family (from right: Peter, Sue, Berit, Paul & Bria) enjoyed a Thanksgiving week ski trip in Yellowstone Park. Shown here at the Bozeman, MT, dinosaur museum, they visited with Paul's nephew & former Wintergreen guide Mark Schurke, his wife Samantha and 8-month-old Otto. Mark & Sam have started a B&B/dogsled trips business in Big Fork, MT, (www.basecampbigfork.com). Mark arranged for Schurke's to bring back from MT to MN the 3 newest members of Wintergreen's 4-legged staff, shown here from right: Prada, Gucci & Kirsch.

November 2009
Our dogs are howling -- and so are we! -- it's been snowing here off & on all week with temps dipping well below freezing. Our favorite season is just ahead and our trips are shaping up nicely. For our registered guests, please note that our “Trip Kits” are being sent this week so watch for them in your mailbox soon. For those of you thinking of sledding with us this season, please note that (as always) returning guests are welcome to our “alumni” discount and (new this year!) so is anyone accompanying you. Plus, with 4 or more you can plan your own private trip on dates of your choice at group discount. And if you're hoping to go but don't have the 'dough,' remember that if your dates are flexible we're happy to alert you to trip options available at substantial discounts. Happy trails! Paul & Sue Schurke & the Wintergreen team, toll free 1-877-753-3386

New Twists for the New Season
Our Parent-Daughter trips (Jan 14-18) have been such a hit that, by popular request, this year we've added a Parent-Son trip as well (Feb 11-15 Pres. Holiday). Our advanced trips include our new Director's Choice Tutorials during which campfires will include discussion presentations by Paul Schurke on various wilderness skills and environmental issues. Contract programs include a camping trip for aspiring Eagle Scouts, a dogsled expedition with a cross-cultural visit to an Ojibwa village for Canada's Lakehead University, a CME seminar for doctors, a CLE trip for attorneys and a divinity retreat for St. Johns University. You'll find some fun changes on the Wintergreen website as well. Web wizard Dave Freeman has added great slide shows to our trip pages. He's also building a new recommended reading page where you'll find our favorite adventure books plus this new Wintergreen blog. It will feature Paul's weekly updates on kennel & lodge happenings, a rotating series of his 3-minute adventure stories and the best of northwoods humor.

Storytelling has long been a fond Wintergreen tradition -- our guides and guests spend many evenings swapping tales around the fireplace or campfire. This season we're bumping that up to a whole new level. We've been invited to link up with a storytelling phenomena that is sweeping the country -- The Moth. Launched by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, these story-swapping get-togethers have attracted the likes of Garrison Keillor, Rosie O'Donnell, Malcolm Gladwell, Suzanne Vega and Ethan Hawke to the Moth Ball, the Moth Radio Hour, Moth Story Slams -- and folks like us hosting MothUps in our homes. On Wintergreen trips we've always invited our guests to bring a "secret snack" to share with their group (to add a bit of their personal "flavor" to the trip). Now we'll be inviting you to bring a story to share as well. MothUp ground rules are simple: stories that are about yourself, are basically true, and are no more than 5 minutes long. We look forward to sharing & hearing lots of great stories this winter. We've pitched one of our favorite stories (the dog named Sam) to the Moth Radio Hour. We'll let you know if/when it airs on public radio.

Announcing: Our 2010 Arctic Trips
(well, sub-arctic actually…email us for full details!)
Last year's dogsled trip up Hudson Bay along Polar Bear National Park was such a hit that we're doing it again: 10 days, Mar 31-Apr 9. Canada's famous "Tundra Train" will take us, our dogs & gear to the launch point near a native encampment. From there, we'll sled and tent our way through the wildlife refuge and reach Hudson Bay. Then we'll head across the Arctic Ocean pack ice for a visit to one of the far north's most unusual communities, Churchill. Along the way, we'll enjoy an evening at the Northern Studies Center for an update on arctic research.

In late April, we're pioneering a new and very special far north trip itinerary: 12 days, Apr 11-23 We're heading to the Northwest Territories to visit the wilderness homestead of Dave & Kirsten Olesen and their two young daughters. We'll join them for a dogsled journey in their "backyard," the most expansive wilderness remaining in North America --the Barrenlands-- homeland of caribou, musk ox, wolves and wolverine. We'll meet in Yellowknife, the NWT's capitol, and fly by ski plane to Dave & Kristen's "Hoarfrost River Homestead" on Great Slave Lake. They'll share with us the wilderness home & lifestyle they've created, which has been the subject of Dave's two great books (including "Cold Nights, Fast Trails" shown at right). Then with their dogteams (Dave & Kristen are Iditarod mushers), we'll embark on a 7-day trip from the boreal forest to the barrenlands to experience some of the wildest country on the continent with the family that knows it best. This trip represents a wonderful reunion for Wintergreen because Dave led trips with us before pursuing his dream in the far north 22 years ago.

The Wintergreen Team
The stellar crew we've had for the past several years will all be back once again. As you might expect, they've all enjoyed an adventurous summer: Bria Schurke has been working on a CSA farm (Community Supported Agriculture) in upstate New York. Fishing, canoe trips and travels out west filled Chef Bernard Herrmann's summer. Lynn Anne Vesper was a wilderness ranger in the BWCAW. Steve Eisenmenger guided fishing trips in Alaska. Kate Ford directed the Girl Scout High Adventure Base. Jason Zabokrtsky's Boundary Waters Guide Service has been taking off nicely. Dave "Goose" Gossage managed canoe outfitting for our friends down the road at Timber Trail Lodge with help from our guides Chris Maher & Ellen Root. Chris and our Swedish guide Lisa Stroem are departing in January for a dogsled expedition across the mythical Northwest Passage and may finish up in Churchill on Hudson Bay about the same time our Wintergreen trip will be there in April. Dave Freeman and Amy Voytilla have been guiding canoe and kayak trips along Lake Superior's North Shore and -- drum roll please!-- planning for their wedding ceremony in the Wintergreen woods next March! Then on Earth Day (April 22) they launch their 3-year,11,700 mile journey across North America by kayak, canoe, and dogsled as part of their Wilderness Classroom to bring adventure learning into schools.

Our Beloved Doggers
Betty and Boop are newest additions to the Wintergreen team. Born in August to Gracy and Jens, they'll be ready for harness training in March. And Covey's pups from last March, Domino & Jupiter, will be rarin' to go this December. Our kennel enjoyed its coolest, most bug-free summer ever -- happy, healthy dogs! Meanwhile, Peter Schurke has been putting his high school shop class skills to work by building our new sauna. And guide Kate Ford is creating a very special stained-glass window to add a colorful glow to the steam room.
Doggy treats are great but we'll be introducing our guests to an even better way to reward our sled dogs for pulling you around the woods all day -- doggie "rolfing." Briah Anson, an expert in the Rolfing process of soft tissue manipulation has pioneered this technique's application for animals. She's Rolfed cats, horses, llamas, owls, eagles, moose & cougars and will be applying her skills to our dogs. Our staff may have a chance to learn the technique and we'll be happy to pass along what we learn to our guests so you'll have another way to spend quality time with our dogs after sledding besides scooping poop!

Wintergreen in the News
Wilderness News, the quarterly publication of the Quetico Superior Foundation will feature a profile on Wintergreen in its winter issue. Minnesota Trails Magazine features a piece on dogsledding involving Wintergreen in its winter issue as well. If you're a supporter of the Nature Conservancy and wondered why the canoeist on the cover of their current magazine looked vaguely familiar, here's why: That's Paul Schurke reflected in the waters of White Iron Lake. He was involved in the successful "Vote Yes for Clean Water" referendum in Minnesota last fall which is featured in the Nature Conservancy Magazine.
This fall has been a 'book bonanza' for Wintergreen -- we're featured in 3 new books: North Pole Tenderfoot is Doug Hall's delightful and inspiring account of our 1999 dogsled trek to the North Pole. Lots of great Wintergreen stories resulted from this trip and Doug recounts them with heaps of heart and humor. You Want To Go Where? by public relations expert Jeff Blumenfeld lets you in on the secret about how we and other adventures get corporate sponsors to pay for the trips of our dreams. Jeff represented major sponsors on both our North Pole and our Bering Bridge expeditions and his "behind the scenes" recounting of those expeditions is loaded with laughs. Richard Weise, former president of the Explorers Club and host of the Exploration TV series, joined us for our 2005 dogsled and ski trek to the North Pole. His new book Born to Explore is a tool box for backyard adventurers with illustrated how-to tips including a chapter on a how to build an igloo and parachute shelter by recounting the ones Paul and son Peter Schurke built with him at the North Pole. And visit Ely on the map at http://www.350.org/ to see the event at Wintergreen in October as we participated in the global day of action on climate change.

Ole the Norwegian trapper

Ole the Norwegian trapper took a trip to Fargo. While in a pub, an old Finlander on the next stool spoke to Ole in a friendly manner. "Look," he says, "let's have a little game. I'll ask you a riddle. If you can answer it, I'll buy YOU a beer. If you can't, then you buy ME one. Okay?" "Ja, dat sounds purty good," says Ole. So the Finlander says, "My father and mother had one child. It wasn't my brother. It wasn't my sister. Who was it?" Ole scratched his head and finally says, "I give up. Who vas it?" "It was ME," chortled the Finlander. So Ole paid for the beer.

Back home in Ely, Ole went to the pub and spotted one of his cronies, "Sven," he says, "I got a game. If you can answer a qvestion, I buy you a beer. If you can't, YOU have to buy ME vun. Fair enough?" "Fair enough," says Sven. "Okay . . my fadder and mudder had vun child. It vasn't my brudder. It vasn't my sister. Who vas it?" "Search me," says Sven. "Who vas it?" Says Ole with a burst of laughter, "It vas some old Finlander in Fargo!"

The Story of the "Lynda Bird Johnson Campsite"

Lynda Bird Johnson campsite, in the BWCA’s Tiger Bay of Lac La Croix, is "postcard perfect" -- sweeping rock point facing the historic Painted Cliffs & Warrior Hill, sandy swimming beach, bluff-top tent sites in an old growth pine stand, a fire circle with log benches -- all on a lovely island with scenic trails. It's our family's favorite canoe country hangout. (Photo: Schurkes at the site)

And it's so named because in August 1965, President LBJ's 21-year-old daughter announced that she wanted to be 'alone.' So she canoed to that site -- with an entourage of 11 canoes, a dozen secret service agents, various support staff & portable biffys! The Forest Service spent the week prior widening the portages and spraying insecticide along the route and had a float plane standing by on Tiger Bay to resupply the group daily with fresh steaks & bottled water.

Lynda Bird banned the press & any booze. Nonetheless, four reporters followed along in their own canoe and camped nearby, but were rebuffed in their efforts to get a quote from Lynda Bird. They'd heard her entourage was a bit put out by the booze ban so they took a bourbon bottle from their own supply, stuck a note in the top pleading for an interview and set it afloat near her camp. The ploy worked. "It was so ingenious," Lynda Bird said, "I just had to visit them" and she indulged them with an hour's chatter. They were so smitten that the story they later filed dubbed her "the Greta Garbo of the North." (Photo: Lynda Bird packing for her trip)