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The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck is a documentary-style audio descent into a place that shouldn't exist—but very much insists that it does.
Once a forgotten military outpost in the depths of Northern Ontario, Bootstuck has taken on a life of its own. Discovered only through a pile of mislabeled cassette tapes at a Sudbury garage sale, the story of Bootstuck slowly unravels through scattered interviews, cryptic clues, and increasingly bizarre residents. The deeper you listen, the more you realize — this isn't just a town. It's a puzzle. And somewhere in that puzzle?
A plane crash that changed everything.
Somewhere between folklore, found audio, and fever dream, Bootstuck blurs the line between documentary and delusion—offering listeners a place to get lost in, over and over again.
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
TAPE 64 - Move The Shitter 5 feet
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
When asked a simple question about rain, Bootstuck responds the only way it knows how: with large-scale tarp engineering and aggressively sticky-tacked grocery bags. Why spend $800 on a rain shell when you can fashion one from leftover Piggly Wiggly plastic and optimism? Spring has arrived, which means it’s time to string up old military tarps between trees, relocate the outhouse five feet to the left (or left), and reconsider the town’s 72-foot-deep sewage strategy.
Along the way we meet Ricky Martin — possibly a ferret, definitely a little rickety — debate the true meaning of “infrastructure” (apparently a tall chair), and reserve time at Bootstuck’s exclusive seven-by-twenty-two-foot beach. Footwear innovation also reaches new heights with the invention of “sandless” sandals: a Kleenex box you simply step into. Waterproofing, waste management, and weather preparedness have never been handled with less concern and more confidence.
www.bootstuck.com
Let's move on that to something else that you do there weather weather being related. Um what's it like there when it when it rains? Like does there flooding.
Hat Guy:Oh, it's it's wet. Woo! Yeah. All of a sudden everybody's wet. So we've decided that we were gonna make a particular type of coat. What we decided to do, get a whole bunch of plastic bags. You have those where you are, and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna sticky-tacky them so then all of a sudden you can put it over top of your coat. Now you got a waterproof shell. Yeah. You can you can get one at the store for$800, or I can sell you one from the piggly wiggly bags we got left over.
SPEAKER_02:Ticky tacky a big one.
Hat Guy:Yeah, may as well. Sticky tacky up a big one. Woo! Then everybody can use it. Maybe you can make a real big one. Yeah. What we used to do when it rained is we had old military tarps. You ever know what those are? They're green and they smell like smoke. But what we do is we string them up, whoop, whoop, pipes, pipe, pipe, whoop, against the trees in the canopy of the forest. And then when we walk through underneath the tarps, the rain doesn't fall on our heads. We've done that in the past. I think we should do it now because it's spring. Caleb, get the tarp and find a rope. No rope? Okay, hold it higher. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Is that how big are these tarps?
Hat Guy:Well, one of them is four. Uh oh. Think this one later. Yep. Think about that. Yeah. Uh oh. My lord.
SPEAKER_02:It's a weird place, Grootstock. You do occupy your times in a very strangest manner.
Hat Guy:We also occupy the land, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:See.
Hat Guy:Sometimes we just stand there in the middle of the road.
SPEAKER_02:You ever get any Ricky Martin up there?
Hat Guy:Yeah. You have? He drinks the gin and he walks around all Rickety all over the place. We call him Ricky Martin. He's a good little guy. I think actually he's a ferret, Ricky Ferret. Ricky Ferret, same thing.
SPEAKER_03:Ricky Ferret, who's a Martin.
Hat Guy:Ricky. I'm not sure. Maybe his middle name's Martin or Sam.
unknown:Oh god.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. I have another question here.
Hat Guy:I have an answer for you, but I have a question too.
SPEAKER_03:They want to know about sewage. How do you handle your sewage in bootstock?
Hat Guy:Oh, we don't touch it. It goes into a hole. I wouldn't be handling any of that. You know what it is? It's mostly poop. We leave everything outside. Let nature take care of it or Dave. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You just pile it outside.
Hat Guy:Yeah, we have it out house. It's outside our house. So most of our sewage is outside.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I see. I see. So do you dig new toilets every year? Do you move them around or has it just been the same toilet?
Hat Guy:That's a good idea. Caleb, will you move the shitter? Yeah. Five feet should be fine. To the left or left.
SPEAKER_03:You've been using this same hole for how long?
Hat Guy:Well, it's 72 feet deep. We haven't come to close to fill it yet. Infrastructure. Do you ever have that near you?
SPEAKER_01:Infrastructure?
Hat Guy:Infrastructure. Cross it off the border, use it in a sentence. Infrastructure.
SPEAKER_01:Infrastructure?
Hat Guy:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Infrastructure.
Hat Guy:Inside all of our houses kind of like a tower, but more like a chair. So you can sit on it and you're a little bit higher up.
SPEAKER_01:It's like a tower, but it's a chair.
Hat Guy:Yeah. It's like a tall chair. High chair.
SPEAKER_03:I guess you could use that for checking out the weather.
Hat Guy:You can. We also put it down at the beach when people are gone swimming. You can't want to come out and sit somewhere.
SPEAKER_03:You have a beach?
Hat Guy:We got a beach. We do, yeah. It's down by the creek.
SPEAKER_03:It's down by the water, isn't it?
Hat Guy:Seven feet wide and twenty two feet long. It's a good size beach. You need a reservation.
SPEAKER_03:A reservation?
Hat Guy:Yeah. I suggest removing your shoes before going into the cozy sand. Because otherwise the cozy sand goes in your shoes and then later not so cozy.
SPEAKER_02:That's true. You don't. That's why they invented sandals.
Hat Guy:Sandals don't have a top to them, so the sand's always in them. Think about that.
SPEAKER_02:That's true.
Hat Guy:Yeah. We know a lot of things up here, so we create our own sandals. They're called sandless. And essentially it's a Kleenex box, and you put your foot inside of it, and then the sand don't go in. Smart. No brothers. No guy.
