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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 58 - The Day Jonathan Frakes Wandered In
This tape begins as an attempt to discuss traffic conditions in Bootstuck and immediately collapses into a strange meditation on Dave’s “back 40,” which turns out not to be land at all, but a graveyard of empty bottles and 14 immobile cars. Before the conversation can gain any structure, Jonathan Frakes drunkenly bursts into the recording, mutters something unintelligible, and disappears—an event the Bootstuck resident barely acknowledges before resuming his ramble. From there, the narrator is dragged through a baffling tour of Bootstuck infrastructure: snow-rubbing for warmth, a DIY sewage system powered by four milkshake straws, and a workforce consisting almost entirely of one overburdened and exploding Caleb. The transcript ends on a chillingly casual promise that another plane crash would really help boost local commerce.
www.bootstuck.com
I guess traffic isn't much of a problem up where you are.
Hat Guy:Not so much of moving traffic, it's more about the stationary. If you went into Dave's backyard, he calls it the back 40. And that's because that's where he puts all his empty bottles.
Jonathan Frakes:If you go back there, you'll ever walked out of a mall into a huge parking area and realized you'd forgotten where you parked your car.
Hat Guy:No.
Jonathan Frakes:Ever gone mountain biking? Anywho, uh call the plumber to your home like this.
Hat Guy:What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, the traffic jam. Yep. Dave's got 14 cars that are not mobile. But his home is. What he'll do then is go outside and beef all the horn. We do like we do it like that. Woo! We just get in an argument with each other. Dave rolls down the window and puts his hand out. Fingers spread wide open. Yep. But we don't do it a lot anymore with all the snow that we done got. I think we're gonna get Caleb to go heat it up out there a little bit. Yeah. He either put snow in your I'll just tell. Caleb. Better to just tell him than tell you and then tell him, right? Caleb, I want you to put the snow in your hands. Rub it, rub it, rub it, rub it, rub it. Yeah. Faster.
Interviewer:Uh.
Hat Guy:That'd be all right, Caleb. Okay, he's busy. Do you have anything to talk to me about sewer systems?
Interviewer:What? Uh would you like to talk about sewer systems?
Hat Guy:Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up. We have one coming to town.
Interviewer:Have a sewage system coming to town.
Hat Guy:We got ourselves a sucker machine. And the sucker machine's gonna go and put it into the sewer and go and suck it all out. Yeah, what we did is we got a big milkshake straw. Four of them. Caleb put them together. I don't know how. And then what he's gonna do is suck it all out and spit it into the woods back there, and we'll have ourselves a nice clean sewer for the rest of the afternoon.
Interviewer:There's so much to unpack there.
Hat Guy:No, it's gonna be done by Caleb.
Interviewer:Does anybody else in Bootstrack do any work?
Hat Guy:Yeah. We have a guy for taxes and auto mechanics. We have a guy for doing other things like screwing light bulbs, also binding books. He comes and goes. Don't know where he goes to, but sometimes I don't see him for like a month or like six Wednesdays, something of the sort. Two moons.
Interviewer:Two moons.
Hat Guy:Yes, your calendar system is a I like the hum Brittany spears. I got a question for you. How'd you get my number?
Interviewer:Your number? Well, it's actually a shortwave signal that goes to an old military phone.
Hat Guy:Uh which is having numbers is not short. It's pretty long. So having numbers to my to my to my radio phone. We've got a cool thing, because we got a long skinny cord, told you about that. And we got a long black curly curly cord. And that's different cords, thicker.
Interviewer:What are you on about?
Hat Guy:Yeah. But that doesn't understand me my question to you.
Interviewer:Uh okay.
Hat Guy:We can talk about ladles. Those are good. You ever have one of those? Ladle? Ladle. Ladle. Ladle. Ladle. Yes. Ladle.
Jonathan Frakes:Yep. How many dramas have taken place in these tight little boxes? What's that? Who knows why certain people say certain things? Um how soup how superficious are you?
Hat Guy:Um, anywho, uh, I would like to tell you another story about something different. We finally got enough advertising for the billboard. Yep. We're gonna advertise life in boots done. Yep. It's a good place to be if you're here. If we can get more people to come in living town and not just walk by like Steven once in a while, well, we'll have there's a good shot at getting ourselves a big old store. Groceries and clothing and electronics and stuff like that. We're hoping for another plane crash soon. That'll do it. Oh my god.
