Piragis Northwoods Company
105 North Central Avenue
Ely, Minnesota 55731
1-800-223-6565
www.piragis.com
June 15, 2010
Your Friends in the Great Northwoods

News from Piragis Northwoods Company and the BoundaryWatersCatalog.com:

"Thanks. Also I want to express how much I appreciate doing business with Piragis. Every internet order I have placed with Piragis was shipped in a timely manner--unless on backorder. I haven't ever needed my purchases expedited in a hurry, yet I acknowledge that you folks process orders in a consistent, efficient fashion. I sure do like dealing with Piragis.
Best Regards, " Mike Melancon



Stories from the Great Northwoods

Hey Drew!

We had a blast on our trip! THANK YOU for all your help along the way! We’ll have to catch up via phone, so I can tell you in greater detail about the trip. I’ve attached some pics of Brent and my catches along with some scenic shots. You were right – Suzanette is gorgeous! We did make it to Sarah Lake on the first day – after 11 hours of traveling! Many portages!! Sheesh! The weather was fantastic, the water was low (Canadian border patrols said it was like August/September water levels), wildflowers were out, fishing was spotty as a result of warmer waters. The smallmouth were in their post spawn funk, so we only caught a couple 18 inchers – and the rest were about 14” or so. The laketrout were deep (caught 3) and walleye fishing on Suzanette was fantastic! Northern Pike fishing was great too - we both caught the grand slam again this trip, which was a goal, so that was fun.

It was a fabulous trip, good time in the wilderness, and I’m trying to adjust being back at work. Two totally different worlds - but you know that. Thanks again for all your help!

Have a great day,
Cheri

Email us your trip stories and pictures and we'll add them them to our newsletters and blog postings. Send to mac@piragis.com. Thank you and have great trips this summer!

Call Bert or Drew at 1-800-223-6565 with any outfitting needs you have. We look forward to seeing you in Ely this summer and sending you off on a great journey.

Adventurous regards,

The Outfitting Staff

e-mail Drew Brockett or Bert Heep with questions and to plan your Canoe Trip today.




Take an African Safari with Steve Piragis
LIONS, LEOPARDS, RHINO AND ELEPHANTS

Special Piragis Group Trip to Africa Nov. 2 – 15.

Trip Cost per person from Maun $7566. Estimated Cost of Airfare on Delta from Atlanta $1600 rt

Botswana, in the center of the south of the African Continent, is among the earth’s best preserved ecosystems. It’s a world away from North America, almost a different planet with its amazing variety of animals. In two weeks on our tour you’ll see all the major game animals, a dozen or more antelope species, perhaps 200 varieties of birds and live for a time in three distinct ecosystems. The camps of the our host company, Wilderness Safaris, are clean, comfortable, well stocked with food and drink and always located in the private parts of the national parks.

You fly to Johannesburg South Africa via Atlanta and on to Maun, Botswana. We’ll visit 3 remote camps in the Okavango Delta, the Chobe National Park and the Zambezi River. After a visit to spectacular Victoria Falls we fly down stream to Mana Pools National Park and 3 days of paddling and camping along the Zambezi River. Our adventure in Africa is specially designed for our group to experience the best of the best in southern Africa in 13 days. You may never want to leave and I’m sure you’ll want to come back.

Please call me personally to discuss this trip. The group is limited to 7 guests and me as liaison to be sure all your needs are met.

To adventure in Africa call me on my cell at 218 343-3294 or email to steve@piragis.com




Piragis Northwoods to receive 11.04KW Solar Electric System. Read more on our Blog!

Steve Piragis owner of Piragis Northwoods Co. has taken a step towards energy independence in the city that is the gateway to the boundary waters. A pristine wilderness area known for its simple lifestyle in a landscape almost untouched by civilization.

Piragis Northwoods Co. will be sporting a 11.04KW solar electric system that was designed and will be installed by Able Energy Corp. which recently acquired the installation company of M8 Electric Solutions, LLC. Able Energy is one of the few true turn key installation companies in the MN and WI area and employs (2) NABCEP certified staff members along with Professional Licensed Electricians.

Able Energy is also installing a display area in the store that will display the usage and production of the store so customers can see real time usage and it's off setting production from the PV system. The system is to help educate residences of Ely and it's visitors of the proactive role Piragis Northwoods along with Able Energy in minimizing there impact on our environment and the future financial benefits of the solar electric system in allowing Piragis Northwoods to lower there overhead and investing in there own power production that should last well over 30 years.

 Read the rest here at our BLOG:
http://piragisnorthwoodscompany.blogspot.com/



Send us pictures of your Piragis Pants, Camping Shirt and Windshirt in Action and you could get your photo on a poster in our Retail Store here in Ely!

We have heard from many of you about how much you enjoy our pants, camp shirts and windshirts. Thank you so much for your positive feedback and support of our products. We'd like to see your favorite shots of our Piragis Clothing in action. Please send us good quality images and we'll pick from the best to make some posters for our store display here in Ely. Send your comments and we'll post them in the newsletter with your pictures as well.

Our friend Karl Jakobs sent us this photo, "Monsta stripers are easy prey in your piragis pants!"

If you haven't tried our new line of wilderness trip clothing yet, or would like to order more, we're offering free shipping to everyone who purchases a pair of pants, a camp shirt and a windshirt. Just have one of each in your shopping card and use promo code PANT3.

Send pictures to mac@piragis.com. Thanx!




Two New Websites to help you with Paddles and Maps

We're proud to announce that we've developed and launched piragispaddles.com and boundarywatersmaps.com to help you purchase the maps and paddles you need for your Boundary Waters adventures. Sizing a paddle correctly and getting the right maps for your trips are big deals. We want to give you all the tools necessary to do this on your own, but please realize if for any reason, you ever want to call us and talk to a real live person who paddles the Boundary Waters, we're here for you. That is the heart of our business. We hope this avenue of customer assistance and service helps you and provides a valuable online source of information. Check them out when you get time!



Each site has valuable information in easy to find places. We will add to this content as time goes on, making sure to include FAQs and helpful hints when choosing the equipment you need most to make your canoeing experiences the best they can be.



Piragis lends a hand with "Paddle for the Planet" Project!

Hello Steve and the Piragis gang,

Thanks so much for lending us the canoe's for the educational trip down the Mississippi River. Lise Abazs (my wife) and Bill Mittlefehldt, NE CERTs Coordinator, will be coming mid-morning tomorrow, to pick up the 3 canoes and 7 paddles and lifejackets. They will then continue on to Lake Itasca to start the trip. Let us know if you need something else. Again, I want to thank you for your contribution to this project. David Abazs

From the story.

"To prepare for the the trip, Jamiah had done a Dead Zone Report to explore how what folks do in Minnesota affects the health of the river and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. To find out for themselves, they took nitrate samples each day from the river.

To their surprise, they found very few nitrates - almost none - in the river water!"

Check out David's Blog to read more about the project. Perhaps it will inspire you to organize similar events like Paddle for the Planet in your neighborhood or on your favorite lake or river system. Follow this link to read more. http://presbyterian.typepad.com/foodandfaith/2010/05/paddle.html



ELY, MINN. NAMED “COOLEST SMALL TOWN IN AMERICA”
BY BUDGET TRAVEL MAGAZINE

Thank you for your votes!

ELY, Minn. — May 25, 2010 — National travel magazine Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel has named Ely, Minn. as its 2010 “Coolest Small Town in America.” The magazine received 147 nominations, then selected 21 American towns that stood out from the crowd to open up to public online voting. In online voting, 439, 411 votes were received, and Ely captured 118,899 of those—27 percent of all votes.

The magazine defined what they sought for 'Coolest Small Town' as a town with a population under 10,000. According to the original solicitation for nominations, the magazine wrote, “we're talking small towns, not big cities. It's also got to be on the upswing, a place that's beginning to draw attention—and new residents—because of the quality of life, arts and restaurant scene, or proximity to nature. And cool doesn't mean quaint. We want towns with an edge, so think avant-garde galleries, not country stores.” The runner-up cities were Cloverdale, Calif. and Brevard, N.C.

“People have long recognized that Ely’s a town full of eccentric people and interesting cultural offerings, but also a land of beautiful wilderness,” says Linda Fryer, director, Ely Chamber of Commerce. “We may be at the end of the road, but once you get here, there’s a lot to see and do.”

The magazine summarized Ely in an introductory article in January: “Also called the End of the Road, Ely sits in Minnesota's scenic extreme north, where it once served as an iron-mining hub. But Ely has come a long way since her unglamorous mining days, now playing host to a number of renowned wilderness facilities like the International Wolf Center and the North American Bear Center. The city is a perfect base for camping, canoeing, and fishing, as the nearby Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness offers an untouched expanse of lakes and bogs straddling the U.S.-Canadian border. Ely has become notorious for the annual April Fools’ jokes that city leaders play on the eager-to-be-fooled citizens. In 2008, a press release announced that Ely was being sold to Canada to boost tourism. The mayor commented on the subject in a local newspaper, and cheeky ‘Say No to Canada’ signs were displayed along the highway. The following year, Ely began a mock-campaign to secure the right to host the 2016 Olympic Games.”

In 2010, Ely once again engaged in April Foolery with an announcement on April First that it, in conjunction with the Forest Service, had signed a multi-year deal with a nationally known corporation  for naming rights to the legendary Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine is published monthly except for combined issues in December/January and July/August by Intellitravel Media, Inc. BudgetTravel.com is the website for Budget Travel magazine, which receives approximately 1.8 million unique page views per month.



CRUISING RULES FOR TRIPPING CANOES by Cliff Jacobson

If I could teach just one skill to those who paddle cruising canoes on rivers, it would be the backferry. In this technique, the canoe is angled about 30 degrees to the current--tail pointing in the direction you want to go. Paddle backwards and the canoe moves sideways across the river without slipping downstream. You'll find the rules for this vector game in every basic canoeing text.

Sport paddlers don’t backferry. Instead, they spin their lightweight slalom canoes upstream and dash from eddy to eddy. This can be dangerous in a tripping canoe that turns reluctantly.

Read the Rest of Cliff's article here:
http://www.piragis.com/cliffjacobson/cliffjacobsonnotesv52.html


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