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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 44 - The Ocean Comes To Town
Spring stirs something in Bootstuck, and apparently that something is an ocean under construction. What began as a single hole, diligently filled with Caleb’s 17 buckets of water, has now become a civic engineering project—one bucket per week until the town achieves “ocean status.” Skeptics suggest it’s more of a pond, but optimism prevails.
In equally practical fashion, the locals have invented short pants by cutting long ones in half, rotating them daily so that nobody has to fully commit to shorts or trousers. “Pants is pants is pants,” after all.
A sudden burst of applause interrupts, revealing the town-wide enthusiasm for Sacky Mac, a game involving chasing down a man named Mac and trying to stuff him into a sack. Cheers are mandatory, orchids are breathed upon, and Elvis—always Elvis—sings, fights, dances, and, inevitably, falls in love.
From there, the conversation drifts into top hats (“aren’t they all top hats, since you wear them on top?”), mistaken identity (a man endlessly confused with someone named Ted), and Bootstuck’s laissez-faire approach to airport management—whoever’s around that day is in charge. No flights today, but by Saturday two “whirlybirds” are expected to arrive as part of their spring migration. These aren’t helicopters, mind you, but flap-flapping, squiggly-tailed creatures that apparently choose Bootstuck as a seasonal stopover.
The episode closes with the promise of contact—though whether with machines, birds, or simply more buckets of water, remains uncertain.
www.bootstuck.com
Speaking of oceans, we've got one coming to town. You have an ocean coming to town? Well, what we had originally was a small hole. Caleb gone filled it up with 17 buckets of water, made it as pretty deep as it could be. And then since then, we've been expanding weekly. Every week, we're adding another bucket to the water hole, and then that's going to be okay. We'll have an ocean at some point, probably a lake first. Yep, think about it. I don't think that's how it works. Well, how do you think it works, mister I-know-how-to-build-an-ocean? Well, you don't build an ocean. You can build a pond. That's what we started with. Now we're going to keep filling it up till we get an ocean. We'll talk about something you can understand. How about short pants? Hang on, I'm speaking. Wonderful. I have a long pair of pants and I rolled them up to short pants, but halfway through the day they become long pants again. So we came up with a concept of cutting off half of people's pants. And now half the people here got short pants. And we'll just rotate pants on a daily basis. Make sense? Rotate pants. Do you wear short pants? Pants is pants is pants. No question about it. So they're not shorts. They're just short pants. Yeah, we cut the pants. Why buy shorts when you can make pants short that you already have? But what if you want long pants? Hey, everybody clap your hands. We got a big thing happening here. Sorry about that. Hang on a second.
UNKNOWN:We're all clapping hands. Everybody.
SPEAKER_01:What's going on? What is all that? What's going on over there? Yeah, just another minute of it. That sounds like there's a thousand people there. Close to. That's what happens when everybody claps their hands at the same time. You see, it's a wonderful thing that we do. And we get real excited for other people and individuals that are playing the game with us. What game? Oh, we're playing Sacky Mac. You know that game? Not at all. No, there's a guy named Mac who comes around once in a while and we try and get him in his sack. We all clap. Cheer if we get good. Take a shiny orchid
SPEAKER_00:breathe on it and you can see your own breath but you cannot see whether it's safe or breeding in your mind Elvis sings Elvis fights Elvis dances Elvis fights Elvis sings Elvis fights Elvis sings Elvis fights and Elvis falls in love gosh and something else very special oh what's that Ted Elvis fights and is wonderful too. What's up with the top hat?
SPEAKER_01:Anybody wear a top hat these days? Well, technically, aren't they all top hats? You wear them on top. But does that mean you gotta put it on top of a hat? Ooh, think about it. Confusing. That's alright. I have a middle name. You keep switching gears on me like that and my head's gonna get stripped. We had a stripper in town one time. You did? Yeah. It was good. Oh, dear. We got the Hanged off the wall in record time. And then we put up a coat of yellow. I'm sorry. I thought you meant something else. A lot of people confuse me with a guy named Ted. I ain't never met him, but that's what they say. So who runs the airport? Whoever's there that day. What's today? Wednesday? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. Yeah. Not sure who's there today. Wait a minute. I'll check the schedule. Caleb! Check the airport schedule for flying and landing and landing and flying. Nobody's there today. There's no air show and there's no travel. But on Saturday, we have two whirlybirds coming in. You do? So you do make contact with other people then? Contact! Yeah, we say that at the airport sometimes. Back from the south where they like to do the migration. Springs here, you know? Whirlybird migration. So, who's on the helicopters? Helicopter? What's that? No, no, no. Whirlybirds. You ever know them? They've got squiggly tails. They go flap, flap, flap. They come for the migrational patterns of the South. Oh my God. Yeah, coming in tomorrow. You should be nice.
