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The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck is a documentary-style audio descent into a place that shouldn't exist—but very much insists that it does.
Once a forgotten military outpost in the depths of Northern Ontario, Bootstuck has taken on a life of its own. Discovered only through a pile of mislabeled cassette tapes at a Sudbury garage sale, the story of Bootstuck slowly unravels through scattered interviews, cryptic clues, and increasingly bizarre residents. The deeper you listen, the more you realize — this isn't just a town. It's a puzzle. And somewhere in that puzzle?
A plane crash that changed everything.
Somewhere between folklore, found audio, and fever dream, Bootstuck blurs the line between documentary and delusion—offering listeners a place to get lost in, over and over again.
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
Tape 19 - House of Cards with a runway
This one kicks off like a 1940s social hygiene film before it collapses into a tale of unstable real estate, gravy-based adhesives, and existential architecture. Hat Guy shares a nursery rhyme, forgets how houses work, and constructs a two-bedroom, zero-bed home entirely out of playing cards. No one moves in. Fortunately.
Elsewhere, Hat Guy may be opening a business, launching a sport, or reinventing the economy—it’s hard to say, because halfway through his pitch, Steven interrupts to explode the dirty dishes. What begins as a plan to trade acorn tops for bottoms quickly mutates into a golf range proposal. A logical move for a town shaped like a ribbon and barely wider than a canoe.
There’s confusion. There’s paste. There’s “decoupage,” which immediately gets added to the official list of Bootstuck’s six Big Words. Also, we finally learn the town's exact dimensions: 6,000 feet long by 30 feet wide. Suitable as a runway—but what, exactly, is landing here?
www.bootstuck.com
Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Jeff's losing control of himself.
SPEAKER_02:I told you about
SPEAKER_00:that. His thinking is becoming muddled.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_00:he's careless in his actions. Some jerk. See what I mean? But how does it affect
SPEAKER_02:Jeff?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we've seen Jeff lose control of himself in rage. Let's see how the rest of the family is doing.
SPEAKER_02:Build the house. Build the house yesterday.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What did you build it out of?
SPEAKER_02:Well, Dave came over and he told me a nursery rhyme. Hadn't heard one since I was about 16 or so. That was kind of fun. Was it about houses? I would like to tell you another story about something different. Oh, yeah, the house. He also brought a deck of cards. We're missing the ace of spades. What we did was we built a house. Out of cards. Yep. Two bedrooms, no beds. Oh, my God. Yep. I wouldn't try the fireplace. You built a house of cards. Yep. And then it fell down. So it's a good thing that nobody moved in. Well, you know what we know now? Uh-huh. Is if we were to build a house of cards in real size, if they were eight feet high, then we could do it. Is that right? You would need ticky-tacky. I want ticky-tacky to make them stick together. Stick together card houses. Describe your house. What's it made out of? It's made out of organic materials, you see. What you want to do with the wood is you've got to fill in the cracks of the wood, you see. The mouse and the flashlight's going to come inside. Mice with flashlights? All flashlights. I ain't never seen a mouse with a flashlight. Could you imagine? So you've got to fill in the cracks. So we use a little bit of homemade paste. You see, paste. A homemade paste. Paste. What's that made out of? Oh, we make it at home. Typically, we use yesterday's newspapers and then gravy. Newspapers and gravy. Yeah, it's like a paper mache, like a decoupage. That's a big word for a small place. We've got six big words here up on the wall, and one of them is decoupage, and there's four more. And what are they? We'll get to them another time when somebody can read them to me. For now, I just wanted to let you know about one other thing that I have going on. Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01:Here is a job that has made more than one woman shudder. David! Stacks of dirty dishes to get
SPEAKER_02:through. David!
SPEAKER_01:But here is what gets rid of those dirty dishes fast and easy. What was that noise? Nope, nope, nope. It was the next best thing to a dishwashing machine. Just use it once. You'll see. And that is for dang sure. Who are you? I have just 25 seconds left here, so I will read you.
SPEAKER_02:Anyhoo, sorry about that. What's that all about? I'm opening a new business. You're opening a new business? Well, it's about trying to make some more acorns for the family. Open up a pop-and-top shop.
SPEAKER_00:A pop-and-tuck shop?
SPEAKER_02:Pop-and-top shop, yeah. So normally when you get an acorn, you can pop the top. If you pop the top off an acorn and you've got a perfect little pop top, what are you going to do with that? Not much. Give it to me. I'll sell it to somebody for you, and they'll give me an acorn bottom. And then we'll just go and match around the pop tops, and then we'll be okay. Okay, I need to be clear on this. So you're going to take the tops of acorns from people. I think I'm going to open a golf range instead. A lot of people like to hit a little white ball and smack it and curse. I think we can set up quite a nice little place. You know, bootstuck's more of like a galley. You know, it's quite long, 6,000 feet, but only 30 feet wide. So I think it might be nice for either axe throwing, or driving the golf ball time? Driving the golf ball time. Yeah, would you consider yourself an entrepreneur? You have a lot of ideas. I'll put that one up on the board there. Intro-poo-er. Entrepreneur. Yeah. So that's you then? Is that what you do? Uh-huh, yeah. Whoops. What's your name? Whoops. Confusing.
