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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 39 - Even Steven Marbles
The tape opens with a heated accusation of lying, quickly derailed into a plan for a New Month’s Resolution: stop working out and start smoking (though the order is negotiable). A discussion of pizza geometry (round box, square pie, triangle slice) swerves into the concept of “topic drift,” which apparently includes drifting cars in Tokyo via mysterious wind power.
Attention shifts to Stephen “Marbles” — a Bootstuck local with mismatched legs and shoes that somehow even out. His nickname sparks a brief shouting match of “Marbles!” before a strange “ding, ding, ding” interrupts. The host rushes outside, tangled in an extra-long phone cord, only to be hit in the eye with an orange while it’s snowing heavily.
This prompts the revelation of 16 feet of snow (measured as 768 buckets), with Caleb on “bucket duty” and a warning against alternative uses for the bucket. Barry, a newcomer “from somewhere else” (population: sign, flag, post, and a soon-to-arrive office), is expected to help dig out tomorrow — assuming the uphill, no-tire traffic doesn’t stop him.
www.bootstuck.com
Well, now you're just lying to me. Well, no, you got the warning. You heard it, so now it's happening.
Speaker 02:You're going to give somebody up for chocolate? Say it again.
Speaker 00:Usually at the beginning of the month, people change their habits. They do something different. They start working out or they stop eating a certain kind of food. Something like that.
Speaker 02:Why? Have you chosen one?
Speaker 00:I've decided that I will...
Speaker 02:Stop working out and start smoking. You can do two, right?
Speaker 00:Sure, but I think I might flip those around.
Speaker 02:Flip them around like a square triangle. Pizza, that's crazy. Imagine you mentioned something that I didn't know about. I know all about the round box, the square pie, and the triangle pizza. I'm all familiar with it. You don't give that up. It's just somebody else's business.
Speaker 00:So have you ever heard of topic drift?
Speaker 02:Yep. There's all sorts of different drifting. Sometimes outside, even kind of a bit of a drifter. If you go to Tokyo, you can drift a car, apparently. Imagine that kind of wind to drift a car. That's a lot.
Speaker 00:We had discussed some of the other people living there, and you had mentioned... It's hot in
Speaker 02:here. We're going to either turn down the heat, grab that... Dave, grab the log and throw it out the window. It's too hot in here. Turn it down. Sorry. What's that?
Speaker 00:Well, it was Dave that I was talking to, and he had mentioned some of the other names of people living there in Pootsduck with you, and he had mentioned Stephen.
Speaker 02:He's a nice guy. Doesn't stick around much. Always driving by, walking by, running by. Yep, yep, yep, yep. We call Stephen by his middle name most of the time. Marbles. Yep.
Speaker 00:Stephen Marbles.
Speaker 02:Yep. Sometimes we don't call him that. Even Stephen is what Dave calls him. Dave calls him that all the time because his left leg is longer than his right leg. But his right shoe is taller than his left. So it all evens out. I don't like all the marbles. Marbles! Woo! Marbles. What was that?
Speaker 00:What was that?
Speaker 02:I don't know. I think something's happening. Oh, no. I don't. What is that sound? Did you hear it? It went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, like I won a prize. I wonder what I want. I don't know. Well, I have to go outside and see if there's something at the door. Let's go. Come with me now. I got a long cord. I told you about that. Hold on, though. I'm wrapped up in it. Oh, circulation.
Speaker 01:Okay.
Speaker 02:Come outside and let's see if we can see what that noise was all about. I'll open the door here.
Speaker 01:Oh, there it is. Yes,
Speaker 02:please. Oh! Eyeball. Okay. It's an orange. That's a little bit of orange juice in your eyeball. I'd rather have it in the morning, but I'll take it in the eye.
Speaker 00:Well, that's curious. And it's snowing outside. So yeah, where would have, did you get a supply drop today?
Speaker 02:Could have been. I didn't go outside today. There was 16 feet of snow that came falling down.
Speaker 00:16 feet. How many buckets is that?
Speaker 02:It's like 768 buckets. We put Caleb outside on bucket control. He's on bucket duty. You ever do a duty in a bucket? Caleb, don't even think about it. He's got big ears.
Speaker 00:Well, if there's 16 feet of snow out there, he'd be buried.
Speaker 02:No, Barry is coming tomorrow to help Caleb dig it out. Yep, new guy coming to town.
Speaker 00:So, Barry, a new guy, is he from Bootstuck or from one of the other
Speaker 02:territories? No, he's coming to Bootstuck. He's from somewhere else. You ever been there? They got a sign. They got a flag. They got a post office. Well, they got a post. Apparently, they're getting an office to go with it real soon. That'll be nice. That'd be real nice. Worth the trip to somewhere else.
Speaker 00:It always is.
Speaker 02:Yep. Not always. Sometimes you can run into some difficult traffic, like going uphill with no tires.
