Welcome to the BWCAW blog of Ely Outfitting Company and Boundary Waters Guide Service!

See our websites at ElyOutfittingCompany.com and BoundaryWatersGuideService.com.

We are a Boundary Waters canoe trip outfitter, Quetico outfitter, and guide service in Ely, Minnesota. This Boundary Waters blog shares photos, stories, humor, skills, and naturalist insights from guiding in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).

Most entries are from our founder and head guide, Jason Zabokrtsky. He is the Boundary Waters Blogger.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Pond Curling

So, how do we pass our time when not guiding dogsledding trips?

Pond curling, of course! Well, that's how we spent this afternoon after the dogsledding trips ended. The guides and everybody got together on our own home-made curling ice on the lake behind the lodge. Thanks to all the folks who took the time to shovel and flood the competition surface.

Part of the fun was creating team names. My team name: Special Brown Wax. It's a bit of an inside joke about skiing through dog poop.

Our competition equipment probably is not up to Intl. Curling Assoc. standards. Our "curling stones" are dog bowls filled with water and frozen with a homemade handle inserted. The brooms are, uh, shop brooms.

Ah, the fun.

Sue Schurke snapped this picture of me sliding the "stone" and Guide Amy Voytilla using the broom.

5 comments:

Jorge Farias said...

You guys are just having too much fun!

Jason Zabokrtsky said...

Jorge, we're having about as much fun as you can have on the ice... at least when you're not dogsledding. However, you should have seen us doing some impressive human curling after the competition ended. Imagine a guide on his belly on the ice with a person on each leg sliding him down the ice in a mad dash to the finish line!

Rachel Cotterill said...

I loved watching the curling at the last winter olympics - what fun to make your own! :)

Betsy F said...

"Human curling" sounds like a wheelbarrow race on ice.

Jason Zabokrtsky said...

Rachel, you may have seen a local curler from northeast Minnesota in the Olympics. This area is a relative hotbed of curling activity!

Betsy F, exactly, a wheelbarrow race without the wheel!