by Nikki Rajala | Nov 22, 2017 | Featured
During my first Girl Scout canoe trip back in 1963, flipping our canoes and making the fewest number of passes across a portage (with only one girl carrying the canoe) was a source of great pride. We squashed loaves of white bread—that was before freeze-dried food—and...
by Nikki Rajala | Nov 20, 2017 | Featured
I’m an official voyageur and I can prove it. Here’s my certificate, awarded in the summer of 1963 while on my first Girl Scout canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Quetico Provincial Park. I recall the trip fondly (tho’ I’ve forgotten the actual...
by Nikki Rajala | Oct 31, 2017 | Featured
Because my family event required 14 servings, I needed a second tourtière. After reading recipes, I chose one with other ingredients and a different thickening. This one called for onions, spiced with allspice. And potatoes, which really pumped up the filling! The...
by Nikki Rajala | Oct 29, 2017 | Featured
Tourtière is a French-Canadian meat pie made with ground pork and fragrant spices and often served at holiday times. This is important because tourtière is André’s favorite food (André being the main character of “Waters Like the Sky.”) Each family has...
by Nikki Rajala | Oct 21, 2017 | Featured
The statue in Pine City, Minnesota, shows Ojibwe heritage, with straight hair and no beard, deep-set eyes, strong jaw and lack of beard. He’s wearing a knitted cap with a tassel, a simple voyageur shirt, sashed, and his trousers are tied with double cords at the...
by Nikki Rajala | Oct 20, 2017 | Featured
Big Louis, the name of the statue in Barnum, is one of the biggest (seems about 40 feet tall) and most elaborate, like his possible brother Big Vic of Ranier. Made of fiberglass, he is also colorful, with a curly black beard and hair and a red-banded tuque hat. He’s...
