HOLIDAYS

At Williams and Hall we hope that you are all having a great holiday season and are enjoying time with your family and friends. We were able to have a lot of family join us here, and of course that involved some winter activities. Skiing, sledding, and snowshoeing were some of the favorites. Matt took this picture one morning on a hike around Moose Lake on his snow shoes.

WINTER ON MOOSE LAKE

Many of you have asked what it is like here in the winter. This past week the lake has frozen. We'll give it a little while before any of us get brave enough to venture out on it. We do have a good amount of snow on the ground and the trees making it a true winter wonderland here. We have set up a pretty extensive bird feeding station just outside the office and we enjoy the many birds that come to visit us each day. Dave was able to get this video of a pine marten visiting the suet feeder.

FALL ADVENTURES

International Travels

We have recently returned from our International Travels to Crete and Austria.

We had a very nice group of people that were able to share in this adventure. Williams and Hall customers that joined us were Ron & Ali Bortz and Dan & Stephanie Harrison. We had fantastic weather conditions for a Kayak trip around the Island of Crete. We had 80 degree temperatures every day and only a few hours of rough seas. Just enough for "character building".

The sunsets and the views were spectacular.

After a week on Crete we spent a couple of days viewing the many ruins in Athens.

Then on to Austria and the many views of the Alps. We were joined on this leg of the trip by Reuben & Melanie Collins. We stayed in Zell, a fun little village surrounded by mountains and many different activities. We hiked, biked, rode gondolas, and toured by automobile. There was not enough time to do it all. We were able to enjoy a day in Salzburg where we ate dinner and attended a Mozart concert inside the Castle. These Fall trips were amazing, we hope that you will start planning to join us next fall as we head out.


It is now time to shift gears. We are anxious to help you start planning for your canoe trips into the BWCA next summer. The U.S. Forest will start taking applications for permits beginning on Dec. 1st. From past experience we know that those that apply early have a much greater chance of getting the permits that they would like. Now is also the time to start booking your space in our lodge as some summer dates will start filling up. Hope to hear from you soon.

AWESOME PIKE

We received this photo from Paul Dumont form Cincinnati, Oh. It is his 42" Pike caught on 5/25. What a great catch!

GREAT NEW PHOTOS

One of our guests, Tim Abraham, recently returned from his first trip into Quetico Park with his buddy Randy Olson. Tim wrote " While Randy was on the trip to fish and relax, I chose the camera as my fishing pole. I took far too many pictures but it's kind of like casting...you need to do it a lot to catch those few really good ones. He has set up a link with his fantastic picture for us all to enjoy. So when you need a Boundary Waters fix here is a good link to check out. http://abrahamt.jalbum.net/Quetico-Canoe-Trip-2010/

AMERICA'S COOLEST SMALL TOWN

Budget Travel Magazine named Ely it's 2010 "Coolest Small Town in America." In an online balloting, Ely was chosen nearly 119,000 times among almost 440,000 votes cast for cities with fewer than 10,000 people. They started with a list of 147 nominations and whittled it down to 21 for the ballot and released the results Monday. The magazine defined "coolest" not by temperature -though Ely could certainly make a strong case there - but rather a place on the upswing, a place that's beginning to draw attention--and new residents--because of the quality of life and proximity to nature. "And cool doesn't mean quaint. We want towns with an edge, so think avant-garde galleries, not country stores." If you haven't been to Ely come on up and see the "Coolest Small Town in America"

Ready to Start

Today was a big day at our post. It was the long anticipated day of turning on the summer water system. Sometimes this goes very smoothly and some years it takes a few days. Some of you may be familiar with how the system works. In the fall we take a system that is working perfectly fine, drain the water out of all of the pipes and put anti freeze in a few crucial places. Then we are ready for the cold winter to hit. When spring arrives we slowly fill the tanks full of water and let the water start flowing back through all of the pipes that have been sittting all winter. In a perfect world, which rarely happens here, the water flows back in just as it was in the fall. But usually we find a few leaks in pipes along the way that have to be fixed. This year seemed to go pretty smoothly, only a few minor fixes were needed, so now we have water in the buildings. This is great because now you can all come and visit us, join us for meals in the dining room and have a hot shower before or after a good nights rest. So I guess what we are saying is we're open come on in!!

OPEN WATER

Reuben and Melanie Collins couldn't resist the calm water and warm temperature. They paddled around Moose Lake on Sunday afternoon April 4th. This could be the earliest paddling ever.

Spring has reached Moose Lake early this year. The ice went out on April 2nd , making it the earliest that we could find on any records. While much of the country was experiencing cooler than normal temperatures we have been having warmer that normal temperatures. Most of the lakes around the area are open. This has been very exciting for fisherman, because the walleye season doesn't close for another week, so they are able to put their boats in the water and still catch walleye. Those of you that might be looking for an early Spring trip give us a call. Let's start paddling!!