These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
December 28, 2025
A story written by Agnes Stoe Heppner as part of the Roseau Area Writer’s Workshop was
published in the Regional Ramblings supplement to the Roseau Times-Region in December of
2010. I’ll read that story today. The title is “Remote Forest Roads in Winter”.
I was a “woods widow” every winter for 25 years (1955-1980). My husband, Kenny Stoe, hauled
pulp wood at the Northwest Angle from January 1 to April 1 each year. He came back to our
farm home – near the Stoe Bridge in northwestern Roseau County, not so far from the Canadian
border – for just 24 hours each weekend. He arrived home at two o’clock and began work on his
truck and 31-foot trailer as soon as he had eaten the hearty meal I had waiting. After changing
oil, greasing and making necessary repairs, he could enjoy cleaning up with a bath, a shave and
clean clothes. On Sunday morning we went to church. After a big dinner, he was on his way
back to the Angle by two o’clock. Of course, I had washed his clothes and packed food for him
to take.
The drivers ate in their small, crowded bunkhouses which housed two or three men. They had
wood or oil burning stoves for heat and cooking, but no facilities for showers or baths. They
strung up a line to hang up their sweaty, smelly socks. Once, Ken had to make a special trip
home to see a doctor. Mice, that had invaded his cot seeking warmth, had shared their mites
with him. He had to have medical attention to get rid of the pests beneath his skin.
The cutting and hauling operation never stopped unless the temperature dropped below -50
degrees. The trailers, which could hold thirteen to fourteen cords of wood or more, were loaded
by dragline operators, hired by Ralph Karlsen from Warroad. Kenny owned two trailers so he
hired an extra hand. Sometimes some of my cousins and my brother Louis helped. The timber
drivers hauled around the clock on forest roads that were solid ice and out onto the frozen Lake
of the Woods. Often they could feel the two to three foot ice sway and hear it cracking beneath
them as they moved forward at carefully regulated speed. One of Ken’s drivers lost a trailer
when it sank through the ice. They had to hire a winch from Winnipeg to pull the shredded
remains up out of the water. Most trailers loaded and dumped their huge, heavy loads again and
again. The wood was piled inside booms arranged on the thick ice. After ice break-up in the
spring, the floating booms surrounding the pulpwood were towed by tug boats across the large
lake to the north shore near Kenora in Ontario, Canada.
During Ken’s three months in the woods, I made many trips to see him and bring food. Intending
to eat supper with him, I would set out alone and unafraid about 4 PM and drive the ninety to a
hundred miles over narrow, icy trails. I’d bring a variety of foods to replenish Kenny’s waning
supply – hot dishes, meat balls, ham, cookies, cake and food. Every bite was appreciated by my
husband, his friends and his coworkers.
I enjoyed seeing deer every once in a while and the array of different trees – birch, tamaracks,
pines, spruce, cedar – hugging the road. Nightfall comes early in the northland. On my way
home I enjoyed the beauty of the moonlight streaming through frost. I don’t know what I
would’ve done if my car had broken down, run out of gas, or gotten stuck in deep snow drifts. I
never once saw another vehicle on the isolated trail, although I made that long cold trip many
times every winter. I believe my guardian angel must have been keeping me safe.
Would I drive that remote winter road again in order to see my husband? Yes, I would.
Thank you to 
for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.