I don't want to make this too long but thought that people should know about the good and not so good experience we had in June.

Our party of 4, 2 adults and 2 teen boys, arranged a package with Voyageur North for 5 day trip starting into Moose River. First morning we loaded gear up at VN office and was delivered by van to the trailhead. The VN driver helped with some gear and seeing that we were in good shape left for other duties. On the trip down, my buddy carried a pack and a canoe down the trail and when we got to the bottom, about 10 minute or so trip, he said his arm was numb, really numb. He couldn't move it or fingers. No pain, just numb. We thought maybe it just fell asleep and gave it 20-30 minutes but no help. Arm was hanging like a piece of meat. We sent him back up the trail and started carrying the gear back up. Luckily another group was coming out and they gave him a ride to VN office.

The guys at VN took him to the local hospital and sent a van back for us. After getting the 3 of us back to the office, my buddy came back from the hospital and said we had to take him to the regional hospital in the town of Virginia about an hour away.

After about 8 hours of MRI, Xray, etc. the neurosurgeon said it was a compressed disc between C4-C5, cervical neuropathy I think is what he said. Nothing could be done, would heal eventually, but no BWCA for us that week.

Anyway, the folks at VN basically said "What do you want to do? We'll make it happen if at all possible." They suggested a lake in the local National Forest that allowed camping and motors so they set up us with a 19' square stern canoe with 6 hp motor for me and him and the boys had a 17' canoe. I controlled the motor in back and my buddy fished one-handed from the front. Kids managed to be kids and have a good time. Fishing wasn't as good as BWCA, we went for the fish, but overall we managed to salvage some fun.

Our thanks go out to the Vouageur North folks. Very helpful, did everything possible for us. Can't say enough good things about this outfitter. Went above and beyond.

PS, If any VN folks are out there, my buddy Steve's arm was back to about 90% after 3-4 weeks and is 100% now after 2 months.

BTW, I'm new here and probably won't post much. Hope I'm not breaking some rule about endorsing a commercial vendor but thought people should know about this outfitter.

Sorry to hear about your trip partner but glad you determined the medical issue before you were back in the wilderness. Made it much safer for all involved. Cool heads prevailed at the Entry point-good for all of you!

Also glad to hear you still got in a vacation. I am sure everyone, especially the member with the back issue, felt terrible about not going into the BW, but its good to see you all had the right frame of mind to have a good time. Its also good to hear that customer service is alive and well. I am sure many BW outfitters would have tried to do something similar as well.

I know VNO and I'll just say: Job well done VNO!

No need to go into great detail about how many businesses these days give an extremely low level of customer service. I'm sure everyone's been experiencing it. So it's extra nice to hear about the ones that do.

I don't have a lot of extra $, but I at least like to be choosy about who I give what little I have to. I prefer not to give it to places that don't care if I'm their customer or not. I scouted some of the comments on this board and others before I decided to give VNO my business this year. I didn't give them a lot, but I'm glad to see that my money went to good people, as hoped.

I'm glad to hear your buddy is 100%! I'm willing to bet he'll try again and I'm sure I know which outfitter he'll go with.

I have been using VNorth for about 7 years now and I cannot say enough good about them. Hearing this story makes me feel even better about supporting their business. They are truly good people and are obviously in the right line of work.

I wonder if I could convince the VNO staff to go take over the car dealership's service department that I am dealing with over my son's car in Superior, Wisconsin today.

They are an all to common example of the poor customer service we often run into these days. Trust me, they won't be seeing my face in their shop again and I will go out of my way to tell people personally not to use them.

Hmm-I just thought of something. Maybe I should suggest they change the name from "service department" to something else. Seems hard to call it a service department when you get such lousy service.

For over 25 years I've dealt with outfitters up north (BWCA is 13 hr. drive north) in Canada and MN, everything from canoe-in, boat-in, drive-in, and fly-in and have had service that ranged from great to pathetic. VN is one of the best we've dealt with.

We actually felt lucky (look at the bright side, eh?) that it happened at the first trail and not two or three days back in the bush. That would have made things real interesting.

Just for the record, my buddy is not a small person, 6'-2" or 3", 225lbs. maybe, jogs, decent physical shape. The pack and ultra-light canoe shouldn't have caused this problem, but... nature plays tricks on you just when you expect it the least.

Oh yeah, the regional medical center in Virginia is nice but I'd avoid their cafeteria food.

And we will try again!!

I don't know VN but maybe I should... that level of personal service is rare in this day and age! My current outfitter still gets my business (but if they forget to pick me up again, that would be very, very bad for them) However, I know where to look if I need a new outfitter.

Lynn and John at VNO will be the first to tell you that the vast majority of outfitters will go out of their way to provide good service to insure we all come back for more trips. They are very good but not the only ones that give a level of service that may amaze many.

They are friends with lots of the other outfitters up there even though they all are in competition. The folks in Ely and around the BW are all nice people.

I agree with Bogs about V-North... after finishing my trip this past June Lynn tried to get me to go to the clinic there in Ely to get my foot checked. Only reason I did not was the fact my wife works at a medical clinic here at home and it was only 20 hours away. Thank goodness for cruise control!

Bruce

I just got back from a 10 day trip. Used an outfitter in Ely for 2 canoes. Signed up for 2 Bell Northwinds. (lightweight) One was in good shape, the other wasn't. Our group (6 women ages 35-59) asked that different yoke pads be put on both canoes (the big puffy ones) as we would be portaging and moving every day, and the usual pads didn't seem to fit our shoulders. Sad to say, the staff was extremely unpleasant. We left there with the canoes with puffy yoke pads and headed to our entry point. We paddled and got to our first portage. I picked up the 1 canoe and carried it over. Then I came back to get the next Bell. I was shocked at the weight of it. It was so stern heavy. I could hear water sloshing around in the back as I walked. We tried to fix it by draining the water it collected, fix the skid plate with duct tape, etc.. but without success. The trip had increased difficulty because of that canoe. Instead of one gal taking the canoe, we had to have 2 people or switch halfway through the portage. Frustrated, we brought the canoe back yesterday. We explained the major difference in weight, how we had been renting from them for 10+ years, and that we wanted some sort of discount for the heavy canoe. THE WORKERS WERE JERKS! No customer service whatsoever. No "gosh, so sorry that we gave you a leaking, damaged canoe." (that's really all we wanted) We will never go back to them.
Sorry about your friend's injury, but so happy to hear about a good outfitting experience.

That wasn't VN or the outfitter I've been using... mine forgot to pick up the wife and me after our trip last summer (we rode back with a 2 hour later pickup) but they apologized 100 times (and bought us t-bone dinners) so they get another chance.