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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 38 - Landfish and Nuts Between Your Legs
The tape begins with a triumphant ode to soup — thick enough to hold a flag and hotter than rice — before veering into an odd declaration that “science is a fact.” This somehow segues into a taxonomy lesson where chickens are “land fish” and tuna is “the chicken of the sea.”
A grim food memory surfaces: polishing off a case of tuna, only to realize the tins bore a picture of a cat. From there, dinner talk becomes a roulette of chickpeas, mashed pumpkin, and the occasional mystery can — sometimes opened “between your legs” to check for “different nuts.”
It all ends with an inexplicable cigarette commercial and the cryptic farewell: “Always down, never up.”
www.bootstuck.com
I'm
SPEAKER_01:recording a message about a bowl of soup. You ever have a bowl of soup? Nice bowl of soup. So thick that you can put your spoon standing up straight inside, put a little flag top on top. Woo, let it go. Yep. I had a bowl of soup once that was hotter than a bowl of rice, but fluffier than a mashed potato. That's a different type of soup. Holy flour. Soup's on. All right, got to go. Okay, so you'll have to forgive me. It's been a while since you and I spoke, and a lot of things have been happening here. Yeah, different things happen to different people at different times at different dates. That's true. That's true. That's proven by science. Yeah, science is a fact. Space, gas, small molecular balls. Yeah, science. Beep-bop-boop is how my phone works. But I was thinking about something really interesting the other day. Land chickens. Land fish. Land fish. Chickens. Fish. Land fish? Yep. Chickens. Land fish. Land chickens. Land fish. Chickens. Yep. Think about that. You ever hear of chicken of the sea? That one is a tuna fish. Much bigger than a chicken. Hold on now. Land fish. I'm going to count outside in the back how many land fish are chickens around. One, two, three, seven, seven, nine, ten. Yep. We've got about five. Land fish. Land fish for dinner. You want one? I don't think I do. Okay, then we've got four after me. Anybody else? Land... Okay, so a land fish... is a chicken, but fish is chicken of the sea. One would assume that the tuna has no purpose. Have you ever had fresh tuna where you're at, or canned tuna? Have you ever had it? We had a whole case of it one time. Yeah, we all ate it for a week and a half. It was a different type of tuna. Pink and flakes... Didn't say tune on the can at all. No. It didn't. I'm curious. Was there a picture of fish on it? Yeah, it was a big pink fish. His name was Simon. Simon Fish. Land Fish. Land Fish. Fish. Simon Fish is nice. It's pink. It's big. Is it possible that there was a photograph or maybe a picture of a cat on the can? Yeah. Cute one. Great. Long whiskers. Licks his paw probably. I see. So you've been eating from these tins with a cat on the label. Land fish. Land fish. Land fish. Whoops. I feel no need to pursue this conversation any further without embarrassing you or even myself. That's quite all right. It's almost supper time. Ring the bell. What's the dinner tonight? I'm curious. Perhaps some alpo. What's that now? I don't know. What we got here in this crate last week, they come drop off a big old crate. Got a whole bunch of cans with no labels on it. So it's like mystery dinner. Mystery dinner. Yesterday was chickpeas, can of peas, can of corn. Not sure. That's okay. Bring it upstairs and we'll open it up and discover. Sometimes it's just a can of mashed pumpkin. Sometimes. Or sometimes it's strained tomatoes for breakfast. It all depends on what time of day you open the can. You could have had it for lunch if you waited. We
SPEAKER_02:need to come up with a system where we can figure out what's inside the cans before we open them.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you could just roll them down the hallway and then guess. That's what I do.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's just that a variety is necessary for the kind of living we're doing. And I've had chestnuts for dinner. Three nights in a row. Got to be awake.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Open the can between your legs and see if there ain't no different nuts inside.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, what'd you do that for? Somebody finally put this. True taste. In a filter cigarette. Try them. How about it? True taste, huh? Oh, that's not right, not quite right. It's middle thing, middle thing. Down, down, always down, never up. Try them.
