I grew up without the blessing of a close-knit extended family. My maternal grandmother died just 6 weeks after I was born and while I knew my other grandparents we weren't close. We saw each other a few times a year, I got cards with five dollars in them, but mostly we lived too far away for me to have grown up in an "aura" of grandparenting. When I met Cary Steeg, although he claims that his own grandparents aren't much interested in his stories, I immediately thought "this is what I missed."I was introduced to Cary through mutual friends who live out his way in the hinterlands past Finlayson, MN. I told him I was interested in old stories about the region and he told me to come on over. He lives in the woods just up the hill from a secluded lake: an idyllic north woods setting.I didn't have a script or a list of questions. I sat down with him on his screen porch and he started talking. Every so often I'd get in a question or ask him to clarify but mostly he talked and told stories about his life for well over an hour while I recorded. We took a break, he showed me around, and then we talked--I mostly listened--for another hour or more.I try to frame this episode a little bit by focusing on the idea of work. Cary farmed for fifty years, was a lumberjack back in the '50's (next week's podcast tells those stories), trapped fur, worked as a lineman for a local power company, spent a month in the Amazon basin with a native tribe and got his hand chewed up by piranhas, nearly took up commercial salmon fishing in Alaska and in general crammed more living into his seventy-five years than most people do in twice that span.This episode rambles, takes you around the back way, treats you to glimpses of a kind of life long past in many ways and still present in others. Thanks for bearing with me as I learn this craft. I'm improving. Next week's show will be another jump up and I trust I'll be able to keep pushing it along. Drop a note to say "howdy," ask a question, suggest a topic, or give me some tips. Look forward to hearing from you! For a bit more info, check my website http://www.deepnorthmn.com/tales-from-the-deep-north/