Restless Viking Radio

September 2008. A 158-year-old bank filed for bankruptcy at 2am. I'm in a remote cabin with bad internet, two fighting kids, and clients asking if their money is safe. Outside, it's starting to rain.

A remote island in Lake Michigan. Big water, old ruins, and a small feeling that not everything is meant to come home with you.

At thirteen, I am handed the keys to a truck I have never driven and told to back it up. Some questions don't get answered until you're standing at someone else's table, looking at the things they carried.

She asked for somewhere warm with a swim-up bar. He delivered. Art Van Furniture was not part of the plan.

Thunder Bay Island hasn't had a keeper in decades. The dock and boathouse succumbed to the seas, the forest advanced. The island changed hands. But something is still running anyway.

It's 4am. She has a key, a target, and very clear instructions not to get caught.

The storm passed in the night. By morning, the lake was where the street should be. Some things don't get safer once you understand them. They just get more interesting.

Seven miles of open Lake Michigan. A ranger who wasn't sure what to do with a float plan. And a lake that doesn't care whether you made it or not. Restless Viking Radio.

Behind an unmarked wooden door on a cobblestone street in Sardinia, there is a winery that doesn't sell its wine. Poppins was not prepared for this. Culture isn't something you learn. It's something you stumble into.

Bahalla is a former junkyard dismantling shop on three acres that mostly runs itself. Mostly. On a cold Saturday morning, my heater screams and the computer gets judgmental. Then the cat sabotages the electronics bench, and nothing I was supposed to do actually gets done. There's a difference between a clean space and a useful one, between clutter and capacity. This is about the other kind.

Season 1, Episode 10. Season finale. This final episode closes the road stories of Season One and turns inward. Before there were long drives north, cold coastlines, and strangers holding doors open, there was a dorm room at Western Michigan University, an unplanned interruption, and a moment that quietly changed the direction of a life. This is the story of how I met Martha, who we now call Poppi...

Season 1, Episode 9 A Thanksgiving escape turns into a long winter push across Quebec and Labrador — bad coffee, hard cold, ferries, snow, and the unexpected kindness of strangers. This is a field-tape episode about what happens when you get far enough out that you can’t perform competence anymore… and someone lets you in anyway. Next episode: the Season One finale.

Restless Viking Radio — Season One, Episode Eight Part 5 of the Cape Jones Saga We’re camped on the rocks at Longue Pointe with ten people, freighter canoes below us, and a simple problem: we need two boats, and we have one. At 6:30 in the morning, Jimmie shows up early. Wind’s right. Tide’s right. We go now. What follows is a long, cold run up the coast of James Bay—threading islands, reading wat...

Chisasibi doesn’t welcome visitors loudly. It watches first. In this episode, a single encounter inside a tired northern commercial center quietly determines whether the journey to Cape Jones will happen at all. A man named Jimmie. Long silences. No clear answers. And a decision made without ever being spoken aloud. This is the fourth chapter in the Cape Jones story — where access is earned, not r...

Mamoweedow Restless Viking Radio — Season One, Episode Six The Cape Jones Series — Part Three Before we ever reached Cape Jones, we crossed to Fort George Island for Mamoweedow — a gathering where the Cree return each year to remember, dance, and keep the story alive. What begins with humor — a ferry loaded backwards, strangers testing visitors, and an unwilling guest pulled onto the dance floor —...

Northbound / Longue Pointe Restless Viking Radio – Season 1, Episode 5 Cape Jones Series - Part 2 The morning after the fire at Chisasibi, we packed up camp and drove farther north — toward Longue Pointe, one of the last places pavement reaches in eastern North America. What we found there wasn’t quiet hospitality or solemn history. It was humor. Testing. Politics. Data. Canoes. Kayaks. And a man...

Restless Viking Radio The James Bay Road isn’t just long — it’s alone. In this episode, Chuck begins a northern run toward James Bay, driving thirteen hundred miles into a landscape shaped by hydro dams, silence, and history that runs deeper than the road itself. What starts as a convoy through frost-heaved pavement becomes something quieter and more human: an unexpected welcome, a fire by the wat...

Some Search and Rescue calls are all logistics—maps, radios, boots in the mud. And then there are the ones that stay with you. In this episode, Chuck recounts a quiet rescue that began as a routine missing-person call and became something more human: a young mother, injured and alone overnight in the woods, and a team of volunteers who showed up with skill, patience, and presence. This isn’t a sto...

In Episode 2, I face one of travel’s great equalizers: doing laundry in a foreign country. What starts as a simple chore turns into a comedy of confusion, humility, and one very opinionated pair of socks. If you’ve ever stood in front of a foreign washing machine praying for a miracle, this story will feel uncomfortably familiar. 🎧 Listen Everywhere

In Season 1, Episode 1 of Restless Viking Radio, I walk into an REI looking for a pair of boots… and walk out with a lesson I didn’t know I needed. What starts as a simple shopping trip turns into a conversation about adventure, purpose, and the strange way a good pair of boots can reveal who we really are. This is a story about drifting, rediscovery, and the moment I realized I’m not just making...

Most of our adventures start too early, too far, and with a plan that collapses faster than a cheap tent on the Labrador coast. This is Restless Viking Radio — stories from the road, the workshop, and the edges of maps. Some are funny. Some are not. But every one has a heartbeat.