A new podcast hosted by two Cook County residents is now available for online listening. WTIP’s Boundary Waters Podcast will be released monthly, featuring personal stories of wilderness experiences, discussions about camping gear, and more.
The first episode includes an interview with a German couple who have made 18 winter trips and 14 summer trips to the Gunflint Trail area over the past 20 years.
Hosts Joe Friederich and Matthew Baxley say they want to reach a wide audience with the program. Small portions will air on WTIP, but most of the hour-long episodes will only be available to listen to via the internet.
Friederichs is the news director at the public radio station, while Baxley is co-owner of Spirit Guiding Adventures. The show is sponsored by Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply in Grand Marais.
The hosts opened the program by urging all wilderness visitors to contact them with their stories, with the possibility of being featured on the podcast.
Germans Gaby and Werner Bahner-Wuerth, featured in the first episode, are physicians from the Black Forest region. They are passionate cross-country skiers, and come to the Boundary Waters for the solitude. They report that the short ski trails near their house often have 300-400 cars in the parking lot, while skiing along the Gunflint they experience solitude and have seen wolves and moose.
“They can’t get enough,” Friedrichs says. “They’re both physicians, they could go anywhere in the world, and they come here twice a year, two weeks.”
The second half of the show includes an interview with Darren Bush, owner of Rutabaga Paddlesports in Madison, Wis. and organizer of canoeing expo Canoecopia.
A portion of the first episode premiered on the WTIP airwaves last night.
Listen:
Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes at this link.