Hi this is Dylan here you've reached the Atlas Obscura podcast line I'm not here right now

but please leave me a message about your favorite memory of traveling with your parents.

Maybe it was good, maybe things went wrong.

Either way, I want to hear it after the beep. This is Luke calling from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and I wanted to tell you about an experience I had traveling with my parents.

We grew up about an hour from the U.S. border in southeastern Manitoba and we didn't have a lot of money growing up so our vacations were usually

fell into one of two categories either borrowing or renting a cabin from someone near a lake,

or if the Canadian dollar was strong enough taking a road trip to the northern United States somewhere.

We decided to take a family road trip down to Wisconsin Dells, which we did eventually

get to and had a wonderful time, but the thing I want to tell you about happened on the way there.

My dad likes to take scenic routes, we'll say, through most of our road trips.

And of course this is before Google Maps so we had printed maps.

We found ourselves in the town of Hayward, Wisconsin and not knowing anything about this place just as a stop on the way to

Wisconsin Dells, we discovered when we got there that it was the weekend of

their largest event of the year,

what I believe is called the Lumberjack Olympics.

Now that might sound exciting to just about anybody,

but for us, this was kind of extra special because my grandpa, my dad's dad,

was a lumberjack and at that time still was doing that. And so for those who don't know I believe they now broadcast this on

television but it's things like you know mostly men some women running across the river on floating logs that have

been filled or climbing up a wooden pole with nothing but our leather belt and

spiked shoes carving things with chainsaws, these kind of things.

And of course for me this was exciting just because it was quite the spectacle.

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