Love of Gear & Fishing in the Boundary Waters

Explore the joys and challenges of backcountry fishing, canoe camping, and hunting in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with Eric Glasson. Eric is an avid sportsman who is “obsessed with all things Boundary Waters, Quetico and backcountry fishing and canoe camping.” He loves to share what he has learned and teach others the glory of backcountry canoe travel, camping and fishing via his YouTube channel FarWater.  

Show notes: 

Boundary Waters Connect sponsors the Wilderness Edge Podcast.

Learn more about our guest Eric Glasson by checking out FarWater on YouTube, or following him on Instagram @eric_in_ely. 

Read more of what Eric has to say regarding awe, angling, and the boundary waters via Quetico Fishing Trip Becomes Something Much Deeper, published by Paddle & Portage. He also wrote The Challenges (and Joy) of Hunting Whitetail Deer in the BWCA Wilderness. 

Ely enthusiasts may recall hearing from Eric when he was in conversation with Lacey and Taylor Ham, talking about the joys of the fishing opener holiday in Ely  when they were guests on the What's Up Ely Podcast, a project that was produced by Visit Ely. You can find that here: What's Up Ely Podcast: Open Water Fishing. 

Chapters & Timestamps: 

2:36 | What does the word 'sportsman' mean?

4:50 | "I found myself returning to the world of selling things in the outdoors."

6:29 | "As your loving wife I remember those days. We were living in Saint Paul, and..."

8:37 | "It really simplified our life to move up north."

9:57 | "You kind of live vicariously through the gear that you buy."

13:10 | Bioengineered synthetics versus natural fibers

15:42 | What does it look like to prep for a BWCA trip?

17:55 | Factors are always changing (but some things remain constant)

20:10 | Novice, not advanced? Well that's alright!

24:28 | "To shorten the learning curve that was so difficult for me."

29:25 | To keep the memories forever

32:13 | Leveling up the magnitude of challenge in the Boundary Waters

35:30 | Fishing, Foraging, Hunting: You can't shut that off

37:12 | The common thread in my life? Wilderness

40:43 | Pay attention to when you feel alive

43:21 | To go from beginner to intermediate, from intermediate to advanced

44:48 | Ely brought me to Ely

46:38 | Into the woods on a whim

50:28 | What's tough

56:34 | Keeping in shape in the Wilderness

58:06 | Boundary Waters Grand Slam: Bass, Pike, Walleye, Trout

59:30 | Fun facts about Lake Trout (or Armchair biologist)

1:04:42 | Deep dive on Pike & Walleye

1:06:36 | Landing a fish from a canoe

1:09:56 | The radiant joy and pleasure of angling

Transcript

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Eric Glasson 0:08

The wilderness, I think, is what brings us all together, even if those people didn't literally move here because, like me, they wanted to be closer to the wilderness. But it's some aspect of living surrounded by a wilderness in a wilderness edge community that you know brought everybody here, which is inspiring.

Lacey Squier 0:34

Welcome to the Wilderness Edge, a podcast for people who are curious about the communities on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, brought to you by Boundary Waters Connect. Join me, Lacey, for juicy conversation with area residents and all who have a heart home up north. We offer dialogue about what gives northeastern Minnesota the edge, as well as some real talk about the sometimes sharp edges of living in remote and rural locations. In this episode, we'll explore the joys and challenges of backcountry fishing, canoe camping, and hunting in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with Eric Glossen. Eric is an avid sportsman who's obsessed with all things Boundary Waters Quettico and backcountry fishing and canoe camping. He loves to share what he's learned and teach others the glory of backcountry canoe travel, camping, and fishing via his YouTube channel, Farwater.

Eric Glasson 1:28

Hello.

Lacey Squier 1:29

Are you Farwater?

Eric Glasson 1:30

Thanks for having me. Yes, I'm Eric from Farwater.

Lacey Squier 1:34

I have just had the pleasure of walking around town and being in town with you and witnessing people walk up to you and say, Are you Farwater?

Eric Glasson 1:43

Yeah, which is kind of ironic because my name gets mentioned a lot on my YouTube channel because most of my videos are shot with my best of friends.

Lacey Squier 1:51

Yeah.

Eric Glasson 1:52

So my name gets said a lot, but people still refer to me as Farwater.

Lacey Squier 1:56

What an honor.

Eric Glasson 1:57

Yeah, I guess that's a good thing. Branding is working.

Lacey Squier 2:01

Um so nice to have you here, Eric.

Eric Glasson 2:05

Thank you. It's very nice to be here.

Lacey Squier 2:08

You have been a guest on the What's Up Ely podcast. We will link that episode in the show notes so people can go back and hear from you, but that was a few years ago.

Eric Glasson 2:18

Yeah, we got the opportunity to talk about uh fishing opener, specifically spring fishing opener, and why that was so uh exciting and uh important to me. So I'm very excited to uh be here and expand on that conversation.

Introducing Eric and what does the word 'sportsman' mean?

Lacey Squier 2:36

Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself, would you?

Eric Glasson 2:41

Yeah, certainly. Uh the best way, the best one word I can give you to introduce myself is that I feel like I'm a sportsman. And I know that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but for me specifically, um backcountry angling is probably my number one passion. But since I moved to Ely almost eight years ago, uh that passion has kind of exploded into a lot of other areas. Um next came wild edibles and foraging, specifically mushrooms. Um I started hunting more seriously about five or six years ago up here uh on public land, which we'll talk about later. Um honestly, there really is no limit to my interest in, you know, what the word sportsman means to me. So going outside and doing pretty much anything in the Ely area is something that I can be passionate about. Really interested in, you know, the scientific, scientific side of things and learning more about our flora and fauna just to more completely understand the world I've chosen to live in. So, yeah, in a nutshell, that's for me what it feels like to be a sportsman. Um, personally and professionally, backing up a little bit and kind of talking about my story and how I arrived in Ely. Um after college, I attended grad school. I've had a long academic career, but I always had my foot in the door of the outdoor industry, which is not something I went to study at school. Um through college and undergrad, I worked at two different outdoor retail shops. Uh, one of them was Duluth Pack down in Canal Park in Duluth, Minnesota. And the other one doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately, but it was called Hudson Trail Outfitters. Um, and those were just entry-level sales associate jobs. Um, but after going out into the real world for a couple of years and deciding that I did not want to pursue work um in, you know, didn't want, did not want to pursue a career, you know, based in what I had studied in college,

"I found myself returning to the world of selling things in the outdoors."

Eric Glasson 4:50

uh, I found myself returning to the world of selling things in the outdoors. So my first real professional job in the outdoor industry was to be an independent sales rep. So I worked for a bunch of different uh gear companies and I sold that gear to different gear shops around the Midwest, uh, which is really when I got my hooks in the Ely area, but more broadly the Arrowhead region. So I would travel to these gear shops and travel to visit these outfitters on the Iron Range and surrounding the boundary waters, and I just kind of fell in love with northeastern Minnesota. That job is one that has you on the road a lot. Uh it's prone to burnout and I burned out. Uh, and that's when you and I started discussing our next move. Um, fortunately, our timing was perfect. And when I started to look for jobs, one of the first job postings I found uh was for a job in Ely. Um, Paragas Northwoods Company, the outfitter bookstore, retail store here in town, um, was hiring a retail manager. And at that time, I didn't feel like it was the appropriate time to move my family, to uproot, you know, and disrupt the community we had built. Uh, that time we were living in St. Paul and had just bought a house a year and a half prior. Uh, but my loving wife encouraged me to chase my dreams and figure out a way to move to Ely. So I applied for that job, and I think three weeks later we accepted an offer on the sale of our house in St. Paul. Uh, and I moved up to Ely in October of 2018, and you joined me shortly after in January of 2019.

Lacey Squier 6:28

Yes,

"As your loving wife I remember those days. We were living in Saint Paul, and..."

Lacey Squier 6:29

well, as your loving life. Um, I remember, I remember those days, and we were living in St. Paul, and and that opportunity to move to Ely felt like it came out of nowhere. Um, yeah, but I I know for sure. I mean, I I had my own relationship to the idea of moving up here, but when I think about it, that was a season of our life where you every single hour of PTO that you took that wasn't taken so that you could drive to Ely and go into the boundary waters was like deeply upsetting to you. Yes. And it was like this math equation of well, we could live our lives in St. Paul and orient almost entirely towards every opportunity getting up to Ely. Or we could live in Ely and actually have um maybe try to have have it all. I mean, I don't actually believe in the idea of having it all, but I remember, I remember those days.

Eric Glasson 7:31

Yeah, that's often how I frame the story when people ask me about it, like the irony of being a sales rep in the outdoor industry. Whenever you meet people, whenever you travel to gear shops and train staff, they look at you and they're like, oh my God, you have the best job in the world. You get to use all this gear, you get to go into the woods, you get to test products, you get to, you know, so on and so forth. And the irony is when you travel, A, you don't have room for extra gear in your car because you're traveling with a bunch of stuff. Um, but it's also exhausting. You're on the road, you're not always eating healthily, you've got a schedule, you got to maximize your miles or your hours. So what I tell people is I was always trying to find a way to get to Ely and even living four, only four hours away, because a lot of people travel much further to get to Ely, but only living four hours away. I only found myself coming here three, maybe four times a year if I was lucky. And usually one or two of those times was for work, and I didn't get to accomplish, you know, getting into the wilderness. So

"It really simplified our life to move up north, and to have that Wilderness Area on our back yard."

Eric Glasson 8:37

yeah, it really simplified our life to move up north and you know, to have that wilderness area in my backyard. It allowed me to focus on other things and expand my knowledge and love for the area.

Lacey Squier 8:49

I do think, like, I love that you say like the one word to introduce you now is sportsman, but I feel like there was that period of time where I would have lovingly used the uh hyphenate gearhead. Yeah. And that I'm curious, like you are genuinely so knowledgeable and passionate about the gear, right? It was a job. You had like there was your your role was being knowledgeable, but you you're so good at it because you really understand the engineering and the mechanics of good gear. How, like, I don't know, say more about that and and why that is like a topic that clicks so well in your brain.

Eric Glasson 9:32

Yeah. Um I don't know why it clicks so well in my brain, other than I've got a math brain, I've got an analytical brain, and like the literal design and implementation and function of gear is technical. They have engineers working, uh, teams of people working to develop the next best thing. But I think for many of us, and speaking for myself before I got to move up

"You kind of live vicariously through the gear that you buy."

Eric Glasson 9:57

here, you kind of live vicariously through the gear that you buy, if that makes sense. So as someone who is a weekend warrior and who is limited in the amount of trips that I could take, what you do in between those trips, as many people can probably, you know, understand and would agree with, you spend all your time researching your next trip. You spend all your time trying to upgrade that one piece of gear that wasn't appropriate for your last trip, or your buddy had a really cool stove and you want to do research on, you know, how you can improve your setup or how you can reduce your weight. So for me, a lot of the fun and a lot of the activity in between the activity was spent like trying to maximize that time when I actually did get in the woods, because you spend dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of hours planning for a trip that ultimately is, you know, three to seven days for most people. So a lot of the time is just spent on research. And for me, like to back up, like I was a chemical engineering major when I went to college. Like I knew I was really good at math. I knew that I was really good at science, uh, but I wasn't passionate about it. Like I didn't enjoy those engineering classes when I got to UMD. And I decided I didn't want that to be my career, was like sitting and staring at a computer screen, but like developing my knowledge and love for the outdoors and subsequently the gear that we bring in the outdoors is a way to like harness, you know, that passion or at least that skill that I have. So I just kind of had to transfer it, you know, to a wilderness setting, and it made more sense to me.

Lacey Squier 11:38

Yeah. I have such like I'm so endeared to my memories of our early days of dating. And I didn't know anything about this world. Not really. You know, of course, I my dad had really fond memories of when he was fishing more, and he would take us fishing when we were little, but he's not an angle, he's never been as into angling as you are. My brother, an avid angler and loves the boundary waters, but is more so going to like the lake of the woods and fishing out of a boat and not so much a gearhead. So I have like exposure to these things, but like meeting you, like your passion, like you explaining to me like how waffled fleece keeps you warmer, and your infinite obsession with wool products. And I don't know, like I just I'm really endeared to like learning about you through your enthusiasm for the gear and teaching me you were like such an educator, and it wasn't just like here's this cool thing I have. It's like here's this product and here's how it works and what makes it special and the technological advances that are new compared to the last time. And I just I yeah, I I that's like the early days of of me falling in love with you, is just being like, Do you know waffle fleece keeps you warmer?

Eric Glasson 13:07

That's very sweet of you. Yeah, like

Bioengineered synthetics versus natural fibers

Eric Glasson 13:10

I'm a person who's fascinated by like the evolution of bioengineering, you know, synthetics to make our life better. But I'm also the person who is equally as nerdy about the wool sweater that I'm wearing right now, and how you know natural fibers continue to surpass the performance of anything that's human built. So Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's I mean, I've seen the evolution of that real time. Like my first job that I mentioned at Duluth Pack was in I think 2006. I got hired, and I remember when we were carrying the newest, hottest brand. It was called Smart Wool. You may have heard of it. But yeah, I got to see the evolution um of synthetics and like now the subsequent rebound getting back to natural fibers. Like YouTube won't shut up with their ads about alpaca wool and traditional merino wool and so on and so forth. But you're using those. Yes. Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. The YouTube commercials that the algorithm hits me with is nothing but natural fibers, like getting back to you know what made outdoor gear awesome. So I also have that like holistic approach of what the industry has done in the last 25 to 30 years since I've been involved. And that's like really exciting that we're, you know, that's like a whole different conversation, but it's exciting that we're getting back to like natural rather than human-made fibers.

Lacey Squier 14:52

Yeah. Well, thanks for going down that little gearhead tangent. Um, I feel like I feel like that's part of it's a big part of the versions of you that I have gotten to know over time. It's like a passion for the wilderness, passion for outdoor recreation, and utter respect and regard for the things that you carry with you into those experiences, because they will make or break your experience to some extent. And I think it's I think it's really beautiful and poetic what you said about like, well, most people don't live in Ely or on the edge of the wilderness, and how they interact with their gear is sort of just a conduit through which they're interacting with their forthcoming experiences. And that makes me think about one

What does it look like to prep for a BWCA trip?

Lacey Squier 15:42

time we were gonna go into the woods together, and I decided to make like an ethnographic study of it. And so I was like observing you and taking notes about the process, and I was like, hmm, the process appears to be a matter of putting things into piles and then indefinitely moving what goes into what pile for like 48 hours preceding a trip.

Eric Glasson 16:10

Yeah, that sounds about right. Like, which the funny part is when I would pack for a business trip to go visit gear shops or whatever, it'd take me four minutes to throw something in a duffel, and I put absolutely no thought into like, you know, the street clothes I would be wearing. But yeah, planning for a 48-hour trip might take 72 hours or more. Just part of the process, it's part of the excitement, it's part of understanding, and that all changes depending on what you know the forecast says. So it's it's part of understanding that world I'll be in, understanding how different that is from our climate-controlled world that we live in 95% of the time.

Lacey Squier 16:50

Right. Like, how do you deal with the challenge? Like packing for a trip to go into the wilderness is like, okay, you need to be prepared for seven different weather patterns, but you want to bring as few items as possible, and it should be as light as possible, and it all needs to be conveniently accessible, but it also is gonna get all shoved into one bag that will weigh 100 pounds.

Eric Glasson 17:15

Yeah, it's it's a challenging way to pack, that's for sure. And it's yeah. And like me personally, the funny thing is as many times as I've done this, like somebody asked me the other day, is like well over 50 Boundary Waters trips, like just overnight, and probably a dozen or so Quetico trips. Like, I've never packed the same bag twice. Like I can count on one hand, I don't even need one hand to count the amount of things that have come on every single trip with me. It's almost always different. Factors are almost always changing, and then you throw in the fishing or the hunting aspect of it, and that changes a lot as well.

Factors are always changing (but some things remain constant)

Lacey Squier 17:55

Factors are always changing. Is that just like the most exciting sentence you ever heard?

Eric Glasson 18:01

Yeah, I think I think I'm the best, at least in a professional context, when I'm triaging, when I'm working through problems that hit me in the face unexpectedly. So yeah, that is strangely enough, one of the things that's like very exciting for me before a trip is like figuring out that puzzle of packing and the logistics of getting from your door to the trailhead or the entry point.

Lacey Squier 18:25

Well, it's cooler than Tetris will ever be. It's like real life Tetris with like high stakes.

Eric Glasson 18:31

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 18:32

Okay, but now you left something hanging that I have to pick up, which is what is one gear product that you brought with you on every trip. Essentially, virtually.

Eric Glasson 18:43

Yeah. And I've had to replace it because I broke the other one, but so it's not the exact same one, but it is my Leatherman wave multi-tool. And the second thing that I've brought on almost every trip that would be the next closest are my Fjall Raven trekking pants. But yeah, that leather leatherman multi-tool. It's got however many 35 different tools in it. I use the pliers for fish, there's a saw, uh, I use it for hunting, there's a blade, obviously, there's screwdriver set, there's tweezers, like that thing is on my hip on every single trip I take.

Lacey Squier 19:21

Epic.

Eric Glasson 19:22

Yeah, it's a great tool. Not a commercial for Leathermen, but I fully endorse her products.

Lacey Squier 19:27

Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I I'm like the level of naivety I bring, right? And it's worth saying that I I was like envisioning this Wilderness Edge podcast, and and we were chatting about like what I had kind of lined up for the for the first few episodes, and you were like, um, do you have do you have any plans to talk about the wilderness in your wilderness edge podcast? And I was like, oh my gosh, of course. But I I'm my level of of this conversation is like you educating me on how important it is to bring a tarp with you going when you go into the woods.

Novice, not advanced? Well that's alright!

Lacey Squier 20:10

I'm just such a novice, Eric, and you're operating at such an advanced level.

Eric Glasson 20:15

Well, that's all right. I mean, during my time being retail manager and buyer at Paragas, like you are the person I would interact with. Like Paregus wouldn't exist if there were if people knew everything. Like a vast majority of the people who do visit this wilderness area are working on steps A, B, and C. They're not, you know, at the level I am. So that was probably the most fun thing about the job. It was not sales. I felt like I was an educator more than anything, which ultimately, like if I had to boil my career passions down to one thing that doesn't have to do anything with topics, like being an educator is what I'm most passionate about. So like distilling the crazy amount of information that's out there and in my brain to something that's like digestible, usable, and will have an immediate impact on someone's experience in the wilderness is powerful.

Lacey Squier 21:09

Well, what a powerful segue into talking about Far Water.

Eric Glasson 21:13

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 21:14

Tell us about Far Water.

Eric Glasson 21:16

I probably should have done research and figure out how long ago I started Far Water, my YouTube channel, but it's gotta be at least six or seven years since I started. I think 2020. So yeah, five and a half to six and a half years, somewhere in there. One of the most in this, sorry, it might be a longer story or tangent, but it explains why I started Farwater. Yeah, please do. So one of the most frustrating things for me visiting Ely as someone who didn't live here and didn't have access to like the local information was traveling here and being hungry for that information and the reluctance of people to share that information. Like, I do understand there's like An economy built around the wilderness, and people won't guide you for free, people won't offer their services for free. That's like not what I'm concerned about. But the instance that I can think of is coming to town at least 12, 15 years ago and stopping in at a bait shop, buying a bunch of stuff, and then asking the person behind the counter, like, what are the fish biting on? Any suggestions for lakes I should go to? And the the woman's response was, I don't know. I don't know. Like, of course, she could tell I was a tourist, but to me, I don't think that should matter. Um, this company's not even around anymore. Don't worry. Anyone who owns a bait shop in Ely right now wasn't you. Um, but yeah, I just felt in that experience multiplied. I had that experience other places, just like an unwillingness to share information. And as I developed my YouTube channel, I got some of that pushback from people who didn't think I should be sharing that information. Like sometimes I'll go into the boundary order, sometimes I'll go into Quedeco, sometimes I'll be outside the wilderness. But it seemed regardless of where I was going, there was pushback on the information sharing. And I never drop GPS coordinates on fishing spots. I almost never go to the same place twice when I'm recording, because I like to give my fans a new experience and I like the challenge of like figuring out a new lake or a new area. So I'm not sharing any information that will like cause undue impact on the wilderness, from my perspective at least.

Lacey Squier 23:34

And especially maybe given the fact that there are like restrictions and limitations and laws and regulations.

Eric Glasson 23:41

Yeah, that's that's one reason why I chose the Boundary Waters in Quedeco for a majority of the content that I produce through Farwater is because it is strictly controlled and there is limited access. And I feel that that helps protect the area. I love it. So, like they say, you never should run for office or never start a company because you're angry about something, but it really frustrated me that that information wasn't out there or people weren't sharing it, and there was a literal aversion to sharing that information with outsiders. So I didn't know where Farwater was going to go. I didn't know anything about YouTubing, I didn't know anything about filming. Like I'm a relatively good writer and public speaker, so I knew I had some of the skills. Um, but yeah,

"I started Farwater to shorten the learning curve that was so difficult for me."

Eric Glasson 24:28

I really just started Farwater to help others shorten the learning curve. That was so difficult for me. I think my friends and I had a tradition, or have, it's morphed a little bit, but have a tradition of going into the boundary waters every single year for fishing opener. Um, and I think it was four years before we even caught a walleye. And that was that was our goal, where most of us are from southern or central Minnesota. Like we grew up fishing walleye and crappie and bass and northern pike and a lot of the same species you'll see up here. But it was just like we didn't, we couldn't figure it out. Like it was really frustrating. We had a great time, and that like really instilled that passion even that much more. Like that adversity, I think, is one of the reasons why I enjoy fishing so much because it's so damn difficult.

Lacey Squier 25:18

Um classic Eric.

Eric Glasson 25:20

Yeah. But um, the the takeaway was or the goal was to like share this information with people who had that same level of passion as me, but didn't have the resources physically, monetarily, you know, travel restrictions, whatever, to get up to the boundary waters and do the stuff I was doing. So when people thank me for the work I'm doing, it's like, you're welcome. I want to shorten the learning curve for you, and I wish this resource would have been available to me, and it wasn't. So what took me seven years to figure out how to catch a walleye, you know, pretty consistently, or how to catch a lake drought consistently. I'm hoping you can figure that out in your first couple of trips to the boundary waters, and it'll take you a year before you're achieving the like level of angling and level of adventure and level of canoe tripping that I enjoy as someone who's like advanced.

Lacey Squier 26:14

That's awesome.

Eric Glasson 26:16

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 26:16

You're doing it.

Eric Glasson 26:17

It's been really fulfilling. The the community, like the irony is when you get started, there's way more people who are critical of you uh than people who support you. And then as you develop your loyal following, if you get one of those trolls, I don't even have to say anything. My people just like jump in and like this guy knows what he's talking about, he's an environmentalist, he protects the species, you don't know what you're talking about, you're wrong about the rule, whatever. So having people step up, support me, and beg for more content, and you know, in some public settings, defend me against people who are critical is like really special. And for the last three years or so at Paragas, like dozens and dozens of people have come in just to say hello, just to say, I got a moose-like entry point because that video you did of Knife Lake or whatever. And when I get comments from people about watching my channel, learning something, and then implementing that in the wilderness, that's like the most heartwarming thing that someone could do and the best feedback that someone could give. I don't want to hear, like, wow, you're a great angler, you catch lots of big fish. I want people to say, you're a great teacher, you taught me this, and it helped me get over the hump. Like there's one guy who commented a couple of years ago, right when I was getting started, and when things were difficult, my videos weren't gaining any traction, and he left this big long comment about how he's always wanted to catch a lake trout and he never has on any of his trips. And he's getting up there in age, he's in his upper 60s, and he went on a trip and he watched my how to catch a lake trout video, and he caught a lake trout, and he was just ecstatic, and he's like, I can die happy now because Farwater helped me catch a lake trout. So that's that's why I did it. That's why I started Far Water, and that's why, you know, it's it's exhausting, it costs a lot of money, like not getting rich off it, not making any money off it. And this all makes it worth it when somebody comments something like that. It's like, okay, that helps me refocus, and this is the reason why I'm here. It's not to get 10,000 million subscribers or a billion views or whatever. It's like to change people's lives and make the wilderness more accessible for them.

Lacey Squier 28:38

Well, you have there's layers to it too, right? Like there's another layer of what far water is for you. And it's like attempting to the degree that anyone can capture something special, right? Like it's like water cupped in your hands, but like having this footage and putting it out there, doing the work. I mean, it's a ton of work to manage the files, share the files, collaborate with your collaborators to get the product that is the final product out there. And you do that too, so that you can keep these experiences for yourself.

Eric Glasson 29:21

Yeah. That's if I were to provide one or the

To keep the memories forever

Eric Glasson 29:25

most selfish reason I do this, it's to keep the memories forever. Like I get a lot of comments on YouTube about people who cannot physically do it anymore. And they live vicariously through me. Thank you so much for bringing me into the wilderness. I didn't think I'd have these experiences again. Like I just discovered your YouTube channel and I went to that lake and caught that species of fish 30 years ago with my dad on my first Boundary Waters trip or whatever it may be. So yeah, preserving preserving memories is a really important aspect of it too, because I know as many of these trips as I do and as hard as I work to like keep my body in shape so I can continue to do these trips. At some point, physically I won't be able to do them anymore. And at that point, I'm hoping I'll have hundreds of videos to occupy my time that I can just watch over and over and over again. Not that I don't already do that.

Lacey Squier 30:22

Well, I'm curious. I I want to ask, like, what you see when you watch your videos. But I will say for myself, like I am always forever loving that noise, that sound of the paddle going into the water. Like I'm like, your videos are just like wilderness ASMR. Yeah. And then, you know, it's fun to watch you kind of make observations about what you're seeing. I'm always, I'm always drawn to just this kind of like a a not a still shot because it's video, but like just a stagnant moment watching the sunset or the what's it called when the like water is like misting and fogging in the morning? Like that's what I'm saying.

Eric Glasson 31:04

I don't know if there's a word for that, but there should be a thing, right?

Lacey Squier 31:07

It's not like fog because it's not really like weather, it's not climate fog, it's just like water-related mist. Brett, do you know that? I don't.

Eric Glasson 31:18

Just chemistry happening at the molecular level, turning liquid into a gas.

Lacey Squier 31:23

Yeah.

Eric Glasson 31:23

What do they call that? Is that sublimation?

Lacey Squier 31:25

Oh, honey, I don't know. It's probably not.

Eric Glasson 31:29

I remember that word from physics in chemistry class, though. I thought I'd throw it in there.

Lacey Squier 31:33

Sublimation. We'll we'll we'll look it up. But you have your like, there's like, I mean, it's a fishing channel.

Eric Glasson 31:41

Evaporation. Anyway. Sorry, that's gonna bug me. Yes, it is a fishing channel. I wish I had the bandwidth to make it a foraging channel and a hunting channel and a wild edibles channel and whatever, because I am also equally passionate about those things. But I've chose to focus on fishing because that's like the commonality, the shared connection amongst so many people who go to the boundary waters. And I don't I don't know why, but like our

Leveling up the magnitude of challenge in the Boundary Waters

Eric Glasson 32:13

community just shares an awe of the lakes and rivers we travel, the terrain we travel in the boundary waters, because it's so different than anywhere else. Like I I am absolutely a canoe country snob, and we have so many good lakes in Minnesota to fish, but unless they're like foot or canoe access only, I'm not really interested in them. And that's something that like I've come to learn about myself. I've done motorized trips since I moved to Ely, and they are fun, and you can bring more stuff because you got a motorboat and you don't work as hard. But like all of the stuff that's wonderful about the boundary waters, I love because it's boundary waters specific. It's the lakes that don't get motorboat fishing pressure. It's the fact that, you know, if you can't physically carry your stuff for your trip, you can't access this area for better or worse. But everything that like defines the boundary waters is everything that like defines my experience with it, if that makes sense.

Lacey Squier 33:17

Yeah. Well, and I just think that's that's a part of like your talents and your strengths. Like, I'm a truly like a strengths-oriented person in a literal sense. I love the Clifton Strength Finder assessment and that tool developed by Gallup, and you like bring to the table like competition and maximizer, like your desire to like level up is part of you, and that and your your interest in engaging with the environment like physically and from a sensory standpoint, and just the sheer magnitude of challenge that is added, it all makes sense to me.

Eric Glasson 34:03

Yeah. It's I it must be the competition strength in me, too, that just loves all the variables, all the factors that come with backcountry angling. Like it we always joke because I'll come back from a trip and you'll ask how it went with my friends, and oh, it was great. We only caught like 60 walleye over five days, and like 120 baths, or whatever the ridiculous number is, and you're like, wait a minute, the fishing could have been better? Like, yeah, of course. The fishing can always be better. Yeah, we can always cover more miles, we could have always seen one more sunset, whatever. So, like that competition to like maximize my experience will like never be fulfilled. So for me, this is just like awesomeness forever. It'll never end.

Lacey Squier 34:51

Oh, like forever in my mind, just think about going into the wilderness with you. And there's like, you know, the trips where you like bring your fishing rods and the trips where you don't, you know. Like if you have a fishing rod with you, there is just like there's something that turns on that cannot be turned off. And it's like, let's just go over this honey hole like one more time. Let's just, let's just troll around this lake one more time. Just one more cast. Oh, and then we'll just we'll just do one more lake, and then we'll just do one more cast, and it just like you can't stop it.

Eric Glasson 35:28

The one interesting

Fishing, Foraging, Hunting: You can't shut that off

Eric Glasson 35:30

comparison in my other hobbies would be foraging and hunting. Like you can't shut that off. Like, I remember joking with a friend who actually like went to grad school and got his doctorate in mycology or something similar. And he's like, I can't go on a walk without scanning for mushrooms. Like, that's just who I am now. Like, I can be in the middle of a city and I'm still looking for mushrooms. Like, that's the same with me. I can't shut it off. The same goes for hunting. Like, oh, is that a rub on that tree over there? Like, is this good deer habitat? It could be the middle of summer, of course, when you can't hunt deer, and I'll still be thinking about like the factors that influence deer hunting in the area I'm in. And that's true for fishing, that's true for foraging, that's true for hunting. So for me, like to tie it all together, maybe like you and I were talking before the microphones were on about how I feel the wilderness has been my North Star. I've been, you know, resisting that for as long as possible, like pursuing academic careers, pursuing what I thought was a monetary career, but I always kept coming back to the wilderness. And that's what brought me to Ely. That is what's going to keep me in Ely. And that also is what I find so special about immersing myself via the hobbies I like. Like it is one step closer at me, quote, understanding my surroundings. Like, I pride myself in being able to tell the difference between a red pine and a white pine. I could not when I moved here eight years ago, and now I can do it with my eyes closed, literally by feel. So

The common thread in my life? Wilderness

Eric Glasson 37:12

my North Star has always been wilderness. I've always pursued it. And starting eight years ago with my move to Ely is when I like fully embraced that North Star. And another phrase we use was like the arc of our lives. Like, what has been the common thread in my life? And it's wilderness. Like, there's nothing else I can point to that's been the same when I was five years old as it is now as a 39-year-old. Like my love and reverence for the wilderness and nature and all the things that come with it. So for me, it is like an emotional or religious journey learning more and being closer to nature because I ultimately feel that's where my place is.

Lacey Squier 37:54

Yeah, and that was in part a fun conversation we had after listening to the first episode of the Wilderness Edge podcast. And we were talking, like, you know, that idea of like genius and genius being like something inside of us and something place-based, and we like kind of have this challenge to sort of see the North Star above us that is guiding us, and and you're like, Yeah, the wilderness is mine.

Eric Glasson 38:23

Yeah. And I for a long time, I don't know why it took me so long to identify that, but for the longest time, you know, as growing up as a millennial, I think I can speak for a lot of millennials when I talk about the emphasis that was placed in achieving, doing what you want to do, and like being successful generally through careers. And I have a very nurturing family, and it was always you can do whatever you want, you can be whatever you want, which is phenomenal. And that was a wonderful way to grow up, but I always viewed that in the context of like my career. And like I had to find a career that was fulfilling to me. And it just took me until eight years ago when I was 32 or 31 to realize that that could be the place where I live, not necessarily my career. Like I don't expect to be in the world of outdoor sales, outdoor retail for my entire life. Like, I'm sure I'll go a different direction with my career. But the yeah, like fully embracing that like nature is my North Star and I can I can have it all. I can do all things. I can have this YouTube channel, I can have a job, you know, I can spend my leisure time in the wilderness, and like to me it feels like I can have it all. And that's really powerful. And I don't know why it took me so long to get here, but for you listeners, like figure out what that North Star is and chase it, because that is the only area of my life in which I would describe myself as a genius when you and I were talking about, you know, what is genius? Where does it come from? Is it inherent? Is it learned? Like, I feel that most of my successes in life have come from the triumphs I've experienced in the wilderness and like the secondary benefits of. So I wish I'd just figured that out sooner, but here we are, no regrets.

Lacey Squier 40:20

Well, how do you figure it out sooner? Like, you you had grandparents who taught you about like mushroom foraging and had an intimate relationship with the land they lived on in a very small plot, relatively speaking, in southern Iowa. And you went like your family wasn't a family that went camping. You know, it's this is not an inheritance. Like you had to,

Be astute and pay attention to when you feel alive

Lacey Squier 40:43

you had to just be astute and pay attention to when you felt alive, and you had to go pretty far out of your way to A, even know what that was, and B like create opportunities to experience that anew. Like this is not, you know, like your family didn't again, like this is not a cultural inheritance that came from one generation back. Like you just followed your heart and it just kept leading you up here.

Eric Glasson 41:13

Yeah. I sorry, listeners, I don't have an articulate answer for you. I would just say that for most of our adolescent lives into adulthood, we are told by people who know, air quotes there, that you should be doing this or you should be doing this or you shouldn't be doing this. And at some point along the way, I never viewed the outdoor industry as an option that was viable. Like, oh, that's fun. Like, oh, isn't that cute? Like you can have your hobbies and you know, but you're not going to make a career of that. And while no one literally said those words to me, like that, all those career development courses you take, all the strengths courses you take to like teach you who you are, like somehow it just never hit home to me that you really can like pick your place and then pick your career.

Lacey Squier 42:08

Yeah, I remember when we were leaving St. Paul and some like neighbor we'd never talked to saw the for sale sign on our house, and we were outside. So they're like, what are you guys doing?

Eric Glasson 42:20

Yeah. They wanted to know what we were doing. And I don't even remember my response, but I know you do.

Lacey Squier 42:25

Well, you said we're gonna we're moving up north and we want to live a left a less career-oriented life. Yeah, we want to like live in a place-based way.

Eric Glasson 42:38

Yeah, which is certainly easier said than done because we all get caught up in our careers if you're competitive.

Lacey Squier 42:45

I might have done a little bit, but that's one cool thing about you and me, though. It's like now we live up here and I like sleep in the comfort of our like actual bed, you know, pretty much every night of the year. And on a regular basis, you're out there doing wilderness stuff like at an advanced level. And I'm really excited. We're gonna go into the wilderness this summer for a 10-day trip. You're gonna bring it down a you're gonna notch it down a scoach, and I'm gonna notch it up a scooch.

Eric Glasson 43:17

Meet in the middle.

Lacey Squier 43:20

But it's

Proximity helps you to go from beginner to intermediate, from intermediate to advanced

Lacey Squier 43:21

it's really cool that like your proximity has made it possible for you to go from you know, from beginner to intermediate and intermediate to advance.

Eric Glasson 43:30

Yeah, I think I talk to a lot of people who are on the edge that like reaching the cusp of moving up here. And I think my words of encouragement are just find your place and make it happen. Like we live in a world where politically, economically, world affairs wise, nothing makes sense. Nothing we're doing makes any sense. Like ignore the noise and follow your North Star. I don't Know how to tell you how to identify that North Star, but like figure out first what makes you happy and get a career because you have to pay the bills. Like that's okay.

Lacey Squier 44:13

Yeah. So it is the Wilderness Edge podcast. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts about what gives our place here on the edge of the wilderness an edge in a positive sense or what the sharp edges are in a in a tender way?

Eric Glasson 44:32

Yeah. Um, and I have a story to support it, and you'll remember this. So when I started working at Pragus, I got to parade you around and introduce you to my coworkers. And one of my coworkers, Laurel, I'll give her a shout out. Um, Lacey, you asked her, like,

Ely brought me to Ely

Eric Glasson 44:48

what brings you to Ely or what brought you to Ely? And without skipping a beat, she's like, Are you kidding me? Ely brought me to Ely. What do you mean? Why are we all here? We're all here for Ely. Um, and I feel that's true. I feel like Ely is an awesome community because it attracts awesome people. There aren't trying to think of a way to more poetically put this, but like when you and I were talking in the car, I said something along the lines of we don't have a vibrant arts community in wait. Yeah, we might have to edit this part out. How did I say it? Help me out here.

Lacey Squier 45:28

Ely's not cool because it has a vibrant arts community. Ely has a vibrant arts community because Ely's cool.

Eric Glasson 45:34

Yes. Nailed it.

Lacey Squier 45:36

Yeah.

Eric Glasson 45:38

Um, yeah, so I think that's the case. Like, and probably 90% of the people I've talked to, like the common denominator is the wilderness. Like, of course, we have rural living, and that's like a whole nother, you know, awesome thing to pursue is living in a rural community. And I'd recommend that to everyone. But the wilderness, I think, is what brings us all together, even if those people didn't literally move here because, like me, they wanted to be closer to the wilderness. But it's some aspect of living surrounded by a wilderness in a wilderness edge community that you know brought everybody here, which is inspiring.

Lacey Squier 46:15

Yeah, there's there's that like that thing that we share is undoubtedly an advantage.

Eric Glasson 46:24

Yeah. Yeah. Um, for me, like emotionally speaking, mental health speaking, the like probably the most prominent like positive of living in a wilderness edge community. Like

Into the woods on a whim

Eric Glasson 46:38

I mentioned earlier, nothing in this world makes sense. Everything is ass backwards right now. But being able to just shut that off, silence my phone, and go for a short walk in the woods or a week-long trip on a canoe trip is invaluable to me. I know for a lot of my life, you know, going to undergrad, going to grad school, moving and living in big cities, like a lot of that life is surrounded by noise and craziness and stress and time and friends and so on and so forth. And it just didn't feel rejuvenating to drive four and a half hours to Ely, to spend three days in the wilderness, to drive four and a half hours back, to be exhausted for that Monday that I had to show up at work just to like think about planning it all over again. So that's one difference that I feel between like being a weekend warrior when I lived in the cities and like actually living it up here is just that proximity to the wilderness is so important to me. And to be able to on a whim go not have to drive nine hours round trip or more. Um, but to be able to be surrounded by it is just like my safety blanket.

Lacey Squier 47:50

Yeah. Well, and to know, like, oh, it just rained, so I'm gonna go forage now for chanterelles. Oh, these conditions are happening, like to be able to make decisions based on the lived experience of the actual factors. You talked earlier about triageing and your very strategy-oriented brain. And like I observe about you that's what's great about fishing, right? Here's the angle of the sun, here's the barometric pressure, here's the temperature of the water, here's the depth of the lake. But also in any given day, it's like, what are wind temperatures? What's the humidity? What's the moisture like? What's the time of year? Like you can do that. Like, is there any season where there's nothing going on? Because you've got like many different kinds of hunting, many different kinds of angling, and then plus the wild edible foraging.

Eric Glasson 48:40

Um, so short answer, no, there's no season where there's nothing going on but the month we're in right now, April. Yeah, but now you're the ice always the most difficult.

Lacey Squier 48:50

You're the like you could say there's no blueberries, there's no mushrooms, there's no wild ramps or whatever, but like you're the ice out guy.

Eric Glasson 49:01

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 49:01

So you've always got something to do.

Eric Glasson 49:03

Yeah, I've always got something to do, certainly. Like, and that's that's something I feel fortunate. Like we us folks who live locally brag quite often. Like, I don't go to the wilderness when I can, I go to the wilderness when it makes sense. So when we see negative 25 coming up, like we can postpone our winter camping trip. Or if we see rain three out of four.

Lacey Squier 49:28

Well, yeah.

Eric Glasson 49:29

I mean, generally speaking, like it's nice to have that ability. Right, right. Um, but yeah, you you're able to make those choices on when you can go to the wilderness that other people can't. Like they have to take time off work, they have to drive up here, they need accommodations, they need to rent gear, so on and so forth. Like, you make it happen when you can. And that might be the worst black fly hatch this town has ever seen in ten years. This could be the polar vortex hits, you know, right before your winter camping trip. Like any number of factors can, you know, negatively impact a trip. So to be able to pick and choose when we go into the wilderness and in what context is like huge.

Lacey Squier 50:11

The greatest pleasure of life.

Eric Glasson 50:13

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 50:16

In addition to having a wonderful family and an adorable dog.

Eric Glasson 50:19

Mm-hmm. Of course. Second only to those.

Lacey Squier 50:22

Um, do you have any thoughts on what's tough about living up here?

What's tough

Eric Glasson 50:28

I think I'm insulated from what's tough about living up here because I can just ignore the world and, you know, get into the wilderness. But of course I see it. Um, I've been fortunate enough to be gainfully employed in Ely, but I know that's not the case for most people. Um, the job market, the economy is tough up here. Our access to goods makes things more expensive, or the difficulty in access of our goods were at the end of the line, quite literally. Uh, so it's the most expensive for trucks to come up here and drop off goods. Um our politics can be divisive. Like there are many people who've chose to live in this community, but there are also many people who've been here potentially for generations and know a different Ely than what I know as someone who's come here in the last eight years. So I would say probably the economy and politics, but that seems to be tough pretty much anywhere you go.

Lacey Squier 51:25

Yeah. It's a it's a different, it's very acute and it's very intimately so difficult up here. Um But one of my like driving motivations behind even having this podcast at all is to is to sort of acknowledge that and acknowledge me, acknowledge it in a way that gives it more nuance than it gets when it's just like reported on by major news organizations or when people think about life up here. Like I guess it's my turn to apologize for not having a super articulate thought, but it's like Yeah, those things are those things are tough. I guess I just have to give it space to let it be tough.

Eric Glasson 52:16

Yeah. Well like anything, like being a keyboard warrior or speaking to someone on the social media digital space is difficult. You misunderstand what they say, and before you know it, you're in an argument. Like that that doesn't happen in Ely on a daily basis. I don't like if we're talking about the politics. I know my politics can be different from a lot of people in town. And I've never once been in a fight. I've never once had someone say anything mean to me. Like the most mean comments I've got are like people who think I'm giving up fishing spots.

Lacey Squier 52:48

So like we the angling community is so hard, man.

Eric Glasson 52:54

Yes, we're just like any passion, like we're toughest on the insiders, yeah, eat our own kind of thing. Um yeah, I just think you can hear about divisive politics, but that's not the lived experience I have in Ely. Like, and behind it all are people who are passionate about issues. So like I support passion when it comes to dialogue. Uh sometimes it gets messy, and I think that's okay. I think for me personally, and this is kind of ironic that like my YouTube channel maybe has alienated me a little bit, but like I do a lot of these trips by myself. I mentioned that like I bring friends around along a lot, um, and those are my high school and college friends, but that group is getting smaller and smaller every year.

Lacey Squier 53:51

It's just people who are able to make the level of commitment that you're doing.

Eric Glasson 53:55

Yes, yeah. We haven't kicked people out any negative reason. They've just, you know.

Lacey Squier 54:00

Sounded like people were just dying.

Eric Glasson 54:01

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, they have families, they have mortgages, they have a job they just started and they can't take time off, whatever it may be. It's hard, you know, it's ironic and it's hard that it's sometimes difficult to find people to go on these trips with you. Um, and I have the benefit of having it in my backyard. So I'm like, okay, I'll just I'll go up to the North Arm Trails and do a hike today and look for blueberries or whatever it may be. Um, so while my wilderness experience often is the most rewarding when I'm solo or just me and the dog, um, it also is hard to like develop a community of people who can do those things that you're doing, which is ironic because if I like announced to my Farwater following tomorrow that I'm gonna like pick five people to go on a canoe trip with me, I'd probably get hundreds of responses and people would willingly do it. But um yeah, it's it's harder and harder to take time away from your life or keep in the shape that you need to keep in to do a five plus day trip and do portages and carry heavy packs.

Lacey Squier 55:10

So yeah, I can't believe that didn't get brought up on you know, like it's grueling to do what you do.

Eric Glasson 55:15

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 55:16

You've sacrificed a lot for it.

Eric Glasson 55:19

Yeah, I mean, it's also what keeps me healthy. All I hate gyms. I don't want to go to a gym. Like, we have a wonderful gym in this town. We should definitely visit at the hub.

Lacey Squier 55:29

Don't worry, Eric is not a member of the gym, but I'm in Lindsay Deere's head, shoulders, knees, and toes class right now. So we we complete each other.

Eric Glasson 55:37

Yeah. Um anyway, it's like I don't I don't view it as a sacrifice, and that's coming from someone who like literally threw their back out and had back surgery in 2023.

Lacey Squier 55:48

The sacrifice I was talking about.

Eric Glasson 55:49

Yeah. Well, it was a sacrifice I couldn't go on canoe trips for a little while and I couldn't lift heavy things.

Lacey Squier 55:54

Well, I guess I was thinking of it as like maybe to some degree you sacrificed the health of your back for your love of the boundary waters. But you have rehabilitated, right? Like you that back surgery has come and gone and you're doing very well.

Eric Glasson 56:08

Yeah.

Lacey Squier 56:08

Shout out to the good folks at wherever we were.

Eric Glasson 56:12

I think it was St. Luke's in Duluth.

Lacey Squier 56:15

It's such a distant memory. I don't have to know that stuff anymore.

Eric Glasson 56:18

Yeah, you're you're absolutely right. Like that was a sacrifice, and now I have to go slower and ask for help. And we may not cover as many miles on the trips, and we may not be able to bring as many of those creature comforts. Um, but yeah, for me, physically,

Keeping in shape in the Wilderness

Eric Glasson 56:34

I don't I don't know how I would keep in shape if it weren't for the boundary waters or outdoor activities, generally speaking, in and around Ely. I just don't have a desire to run on a track or a treadmill or be indoors. Like for me, I would rather have those 14-hour days where we paddle 20 miles and we catch 50 fish and you know you're asleep the second your head hits the pillow when you lay down in your tent at night. I'd much rather do that than spend 45 minutes in a gym three days a week or whatever.

Lacey Squier 57:05

Eric, we're coming up on time, and we didn't even talk about hunting really. Like fishing opener. So this episode is gonna come out right before fishing opener, and you are the foremost angler in my life for sure.

Eric Glasson 57:19

Yeah, you're my number one fan, that's for sure.

Lacey Squier 57:23

So I guess we'll just have to have you back to talk about hunting more specifically.

Eric Glasson 57:27

Yeah. I mean, like I said, my YouTube channel can't possibly cover all the things that I'm passionate about when it comes to like wilderness exploration and getting closer to wilderness and spending time in it. Um, fishing is enough to like take that time up. And we didn't even really, literally speaking, talk about fishing that much.

Lacey Squier 57:47

No, we didn't. I I have so many questions still. I still okay. Let's let's spend the last moment we have sort of you tell me a little bit of what listeners can find on Far Water. Like what's unique about you, I can say right off the bat, is that you target trout.

Eric Glasson 58:04

Yeah. Well, so to

Boundary Waters Grand Slam: Bass, Pike, Walleye, Trout

Eric Glasson 58:06

back up a little bit and give you context, most people who pursue like hardcore angling in the wilderness are going for the grand slam, as they call it. And that definition can mean a number of things. But most commonly it means on one trip catching a bass, a northern pike, a lake trout, and a walleye. So for me, I consider myself a grand slam angler, like equal opportunity angler. But of course, I do have my favorites and seasonal.

Lacey Squier 58:34

Yeah.

Eric Glasson 58:35

What seasonality affects it. For example, like I never bass fish except for when the topwater bite is hot, and I can talk all day long about, you know, topwater smallmouth bass when they're entering that spawning period uh in late spring, right around June 1st. So seasonality affects it. But yeah, like the the takeaway is that of all the fish I've caught in the wilderness, the one that's like most symbolic for me of my wilderness experience is the lake trout. And I think, like, of course, it's in my opinion, one of the best fighting fish. Like they live in super cold water, which means they're usually deeper than other fish. They're harder to target. It's just like that much bigger of a challenge for me. Not only finding them, but getting them to eat and then landing the suckers because they're so powerful. Um, but for me, I think it's something deeper than that. Here's a

Fun facts about Lake Trout (or Armchair biologist)

Eric Glasson 59:30

fun fact lake trout are not in the trout family, they are not not actually trout.

Lacey Squier 59:35

I don't get it.

Eric Glasson 59:36

They're in the char family. Have you heard of char?

Lacey Squier 59:39

Yes, I have.

Eric Glasson 59:40

Yeah, so Arctic Char is probably what's most popular. If you, you know, go to YouTube and search char, you're gonna come up with a bunch of videos of people like flying up to the Arctic Circle and like fishing on a stream that never gets warmer than 38 degrees Fahrenheit and catching these beautiful fish. So Arctic char, and I don't know the biology of them as well as I do lake trout, but they travel in and out of streams, they spawn up in the streams, and then they're also deep water fish, so they kind of move back and forth. The whole point of saying that is lake trout are in the char family because they were landlocked by the last glacial recession. So, what was once a seafaring fish, once the glaciers came through, scraped everything up, and then receded and left all these lakes, the ocean at that point, presumably connected to Hudson Bay, was connected to these lakes that are now disconnected. And when those lake levels ultimately declined, those fish got trapped in these lakes. And not all lakes in the boundary waters in Quedeco can sustain lake trout populations. They need to be in low fertility, high-oxygenated lakes. So lakes that are very clear water. Like for those of you who've been on Burnside Lake, you can see to the bottom in like 25 feet of water. Lakes like that. They're called oligotrophic lakes, but I digress.

Lacey Squier 1:01:00

Whoa. I've never heard that word come out of your mouth.

Eric Glasson 1:01:03

Really? No. Then you haven't been listening. Anyway, for me, like symbolically, metaphorically, like what better representation of like why this area is so special geographically in the world and like why it's so special to me. Like those ancient fish were trapped here by natural geologic processes. And this is where like it gets negative and kind of sad. But as our planet warms, it's less and less likely that you will see those fish that they will survive. They're one of the bellwether species of fish that are really sensitive to their environments, have to have that deep, clear water that's super oxygenated. So they're some of the first that will become extinct as this planet gets warmer and warmer. So for me, like I kind of view myself as a what do you call it? Like a armchair biologist, like documenting lake trout, how to catch them, where they live, their habitats, like the massive amount of differentiation in the way they look. Like they're one of the most, if not the most, diverse species in the animal kingdom in terms of what color they are, and that has to do with their diet. So you may catch one that's really pale and silverly, silvery, and then you may catch one that's like jet black with orange fins and anywhere in between, and there's multiple subspecies in the lake trout family. So for me, a species of fish that literally took me six to eight years to catch my first one because of the difficulty of finding them, catching them, and like the specificity of where they exist. Like for me, it's like all of this fishing, spending time in the wilderness is kind of like treasure hunting or opening presents on Christmas morning. Yeah. Like it's truly a mystery what lives down there, how big these fish get, like their fight, their survival instinct, so on and so forth. So I don't know if I'm wrapping up this metaphor in a way that's like painting a good picture or not.

Lacey Squier 1:03:10

But oh, it's working. I don't want it to end. Like, so you've said so many interesting things, and I'm forever in awe of the fact that there used to be an ocean here. And it is adding so many layers of poetic meaning to the idea that you target lake trout, that they were that how they ever even got here was because of the ocean that used to be here, that receded with the glaciation that took place, you know, 10,000 years ago, that we understand created, you know, the greenstone and the lake and river water system that is interconnected as we have it now, like, whoa, the layer of adding lake trout to that is fascinating.

Eric Glasson 1:03:52

Yeah. The the more, and I've heard you say this on many of your podcasts before, but like the circle of ignorance, the more you learn about something, the more you understand how you don't know anything about it. So for me, when I like think I'm cool and think I'm interesting and think I've learned everything about the boundary waters, I'll meet someone who's been guiding for 50 years and knows, you know, like the Latin names for all the plants. And I realize I know nothing about wild plants. And that just makes me want to dig in even more.

Lacey Squier 1:04:25

Yeah. Okay, so we started, it's we got we went back to fishing a little bit. Grand Slam. I don't like, yeah, you do bass fishing in a more seasonal way. It's not really what's driving you. You're very motivated to target lake trout for the reasons you

Talk about Pike & Walleye

Lacey Squier 1:04:42

said. Talk a little bit about Northern Pike and walleye. And I like walleye is what people think is like the deal up here, right?

Eric Glasson 1:04:50

Yeah, and and it is. I I think I just have realized that I'm a much better lake trout angler than I am a walleye angler. So I've kind of moved on and turned that page. Uh me and my friends talk all the time, like, oh, I wish we had discovered lake trout earlier. We wouldn't have wasted all this time on walleyes.

Lacey Squier 1:05:05

But that was just because we're them like fighting words in the angling community.

Eric Glasson 1:05:10

Um maybe. Maybe we'll find out. Like everyone has their preference. Like, you think I'm opinionated, talk to a musky angler. Like, anyway. That's who I was specifically.

Lacey Squier 1:05:21

Is your mic on? That was hilarious.

Eric Glasson 1:05:23

Sorry. When when I say lake trout are the best fighting species, the musky anglers are the ones I'm worried about, you know, shouting at me that I'm wrong.

Lacey Squier 1:05:31

Yeah.

Eric Glasson 1:05:32

Um so I've caught a lot of world-class fish of all species, and one of my favorite fish to catch is a 40 inch or larger northern pike. They fight so incredibly well. A 40 inch pike is going to weigh somewhere between 18 and 30 pounds, depending on when it's at in its life cycle, like right before it gives birth, because that's a female fish. The males don't get that big, or if it's like at the end of the season and You know, it needs to feed and it's skinny, but um, that's a monster fish. That fish fights as good as almost any of the lake trout that I've caught. So I don't wanna you're not talking smack. No, I'm not talking smack.

Lacey Squier 1:06:12

But also, like, let's remind listeners, you're in a canoe, like sitting probably like cross-legged inside of like a one and a half square foot patch for like hours at a time. You say it's uh what do you say, an 18 to 30 pound fish, but it's going against the water and it's like fighting you. Like, can

Landing a fish from a canoe

Lacey Squier 1:06:36

can you give some like frame of reference to the actual, like I was gonna say like the muscles you have to use, like the process of actually like landing a fish from a canoe when it's that big and it's fighting you?

Eric Glasson 1:06:51

Yeah. I mean, it's something I feel like I've got really good at. And I also biologically have an advantage because I got short legs and I'm a short person, only about five foot nine, and so I fit in a canoe really well. It's not as easy for others to land these big fish out of canoe than it is for me. So I feel fortunate that I'm sized right for it. Um, but yeah, it's it's all core strength because while you're, you know, you fight the fish, and then at some point you got to get it out of the water to unhook it and hopefully take a picture before you send it back, which is kind of the goal of trophy fish. You send them back and you don't keep them so that they can reproduce. But once you land that fish, once you get control of it, once you get your picture, like, yeah, it's all core strength. It's, I mean, for people who are familiar with kayaking, that's how I try to canoe, where you like lock your legs in so it's part of the boat, which is why I cross my legs underneath me and put my knees under the gunnels, which are the strips of wood or aluminum on a canoe, the trim essentially. Um, so you have to like lock yourself in, and that's under the best of circumstances. So, one reason I feel that like lake trout fishing is different and more difficult is because you're not fishing in six feet of water like you are for bass and for pike and for walleye in the spring. Like there's fewer factors, fewer variables, you're closer to shore, like the danger aspect is not as high. But when you're fishing for lake trout, most of the year you're fishing in 40 to 100 feet of water. So you're out in the middle of the lake, you're trying to find structure, hopefully a reef or a sunken island or something that attracts the fish, but you're exposed to the elements more. Um, and especially in a solo canoe, wind is a problem. It's an adversary. So you add a whole different level of danger, I guess, to it. Which you know is exciting. We're all adrenaline junkies. But yeah, it's it's difficult work. Yeah. And just like portaging, that's why I love it. Yeah. If anyone could do it, then I wouldn't be interested in it.

Lacey Squier 1:09:00

Oh man. Well, we've only just begun this grand conversation. We'll have to have you back because there's obviously like a million more things that you know. Like, I wish I wish I had had more time to ask you about like what is your process through which you actually learn this stuff, right? You've clearly demonstrated you have a grand depth of knowledge, but you you've been going about it in a in a literal way, an amateur sense, right? You're just on your own learning journey. Of course, you've had mentors and you access resources, but so we'll have to have you back so we can talk more about that. Yeah, we'll have to have you back to talk about hunting. But I want to just say my favorite thing about watching Far Water videos. Um, first of all, like the lingo of anglers, right?

Eric Glasson 1:09:48

Fishing lingo is ridiculous.

Lacey Squier 1:09:49

Fishing lingo is ridiculous, yeah. Um, but like the joy, the

The radiant joy and pleasure of angling

Lacey Squier 1:09:56

radiant joy and pleasure that you exhibit when you do have like the success of the battle. You land a trophy fish, you're holding on to it, and in that moment after you let it go, and like the sheer joy of that is it's like really fun to behold.

Eric Glasson 1:10:20

Yeah. I I mean there's a million fishing YouTube channels out there, and like what I learned early on, if you want to have success in your YouTube channel, like treat it like you're courting your audience. Like they have to think you're charming, they have to think you have a depth of knowledge, they have to, they have to buy in. And there are plenty of YouTube channels out there with guys and gals who know way more about fishing than I do. But I feel my passion and that like genuine excitement I feel when I land a wilderness fish of any species is what sets my channel apart. Like you said, it's it's like infectious, like watching someone giggle like a little school child, like when they've caught a fish they've caught a hundred and you know, hundreds of times before, is just infectious, and you gotta, you know, fall in love with your audience or let them fall in love with you.

Lacey Squier 1:11:15

Well, and I have like that's probably not gonna be me, right? I'm not going to go down that journey to try to become a talented enough, uh hardworking enough angler to successfully land that fish. But like, damn, I'm gonna try to figure out what I do, what I can do, and what I access in life that brings me as much joy as that brings you.

Eric Glasson 1:11:39

Yeah, exactly. And maybe to tie it all together, that's how you figure out what your North Star is. When you're at a cocktail party, what do you want to talk about? Like, what is in your brain? Like when someone talks politics or when someone's talking about their dogs or their kids or whatever, what are you thinking about in that moment? And for me, it's always being in the wilderness. Like, when's my next trip? What's my next technique I can try to catch more and bigger lake trout? Like find that thing that's like constantly nagging you and listen to it because I didn't listen to mine for the longest time. And also find that thing that turns your brain into a sponge. Like, we all had classes in middle school and high school we don't remember a second of, but like I remember everything from my biology classes and learning about fish. So, like, find that thing that sticks with you that's like an obsession, or I don't want to use the word addiction because that's like faux pas, but like no, you're addicted to angling, that's fine. Yeah, you can say that not like a traditional physical addiction, but like emotional, spiritual, intellectual addiction, absolutely.

Lacey Squier 1:12:53

Yeah, what kind of like well, you know, I love to use this word. Like, what makes you indefatigable? Like, what do you just simply not tire of? Like you can you would truly never tire of talking about, thinking about, and actively pursuing angling or foraging or you know, being in the wilderness and like achieving some like quote unquote productive end. Yeah, and I'm an indefatigable conversationalist, but we will actually wrap this up now.

Eric Glasson 1:13:27

All good things must come to an end.

Lacey Squier 1:13:30

The Wilderness Edge podcast is produced by Brett Ross of Boreal Roots Media and brought to you by Boundary Waters Connect. Boundary Waters Connect is the economic and community development project of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, and you can learn more about it by visiting BoundaryWatersConnect.org. And Eric Glossen and his YouTube channel, Farwater, can be accessed online. We'll put the link in the show notes. Uh put your Instagram in there so people can uh DM you if they have any uh questions, or of course watch the videos.

Eric Glasson 1:14:04

Please do.

Lacey Squier 1:14:05

Eric, it's been really lovely to have this conversation with you.

Eric Glasson 1:14:08

Thanks for having me on, and thanks for letting me share my passion.

Lacey Squier 1:14:12

Thank you for sharing it.

Eric Glasson 1:14:14

Anytime. Lacey Square.

Lacey Squier 1:14:16

All right, that's all for this episode. Thank you, listeners, and yes again, thank you, Eric Lawson. Thank you, Barboss.