Other Owatonnanians at the end of the Gunflint Trail

I think I made that word up but doesn’t it look cool? Last week I introduced Matt Ritter, one of our Voyageur Crew members from Owatonna and today I’ll introduce two others. Paul Swenson is a friend of Matt’s and Ryan Ritter is Matt’s brother. Paul has been working at Voyageur all summer but Ryan recently arrived after his short 900 mile canoe trip to Hudson Bay.

I haven’t had a ton of time to talk to Ryan about his epic paddling adventure but you can read a little bit about it on Facebook.  I know they saw Musk Ox, Polar Bears, Whales and Caribou and they saw very few people.  I haven’t had him fill out his Questionnaire about paddling in the BWCA so I might have to save that information for another post. He plans to stay at Voyageur through the fall and I couldn’t be happier. He’s done some great work in the short amount of time he has been here including clearing with a chain saw and painting a cabin. Keep up the great work Ryan.

Paul Swenson arrived early in the spring and has been with us ever since. He knows how to do everything there is to do at Voyageur but he prefers some tasks over others. He likes to build stuff and work on projects while he’s working and when he’s not working he likes to fish. His favorite Boundary Waters lake is Saganaga and his favorite route is the Granite River.  When he’s not at Voyageur he enjoys playing hockey, snowboarding and fishing.

Maybe that’s why Paul tolerates our 13 year-old son Josh and his friends so well? Josh likes to fish and loves to play hockey too. Paul is great with the kids and our guests.

Paul is a Sophomore Marketing major at UMD in Duluth, Minnesota. When he grows up he wants to be Mike Prom. I’m not sure how concerned I should be about that since he didn’t say he wants to be “like” Mike but actually wants to be him.

In any case Paul has been a great asset to Voyageur and we’re super lucky to have him as part of our crew.