Episode 16: Winona’s Unique Community of Floating Houses

Just across the main channel of the Mississippi River from downtown Winona, Minnesota, you’ll find a unique community of folks who live intimately with the river. Dozens of boathouses line the eastern shore of Latsch Island, and many of them are home to people who live there year-round. In this episode of the Mississippi Traveler Podcast, I talk with Gina Favano about her recent podcast, Back Channel Radio, that took a deep dive into the world of Winona’s boathouse community. We talk about how the boathouses trace their roots to the shantyboats of an earlier era, the battles to protect the legal rights of boathouse residents, and some of the big personalities who called the boathouse community home. We also talk about what it takes to live full-time in a boathouse, the hard work required most days, and the joys of living so intimately with the Mississippi. In the Mississippi Minute, I recommend a book about the boathouses of the Upper Mississippi that takes a broader look at these unique structures and the people who enjoy them.

Check out Gina Favano’s podcast about boathouses at Back Channel Radio

Book Recommendation: The Floating Boathouses on the Upper Mississippi River: Their History, Their Stories by Martha Greene Phillips

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

Don’t want to deal with Patreon? No worries. You can show some love by buying me a coffee (which I drink a lot of!). Just click on the link below.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

boathouse, people, community, living, island, river, stories, winona, big, podcast, happening, mississippi river, long, floating, boat, gina, mississippi, feels, minnesota, land

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg, Gina Favano

Gina Favano 00:00

There’s this thread of seeking community, personal freedom, of self acceptance, you know, there’s these bigger human issues.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:29

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg. And I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.

Dean Klinkenberg 00:59

Welcome to Episode 16 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m really excited today to bring you the conversation I recently had with Gina Favano, who hosted a podcast called Back Channel Radio that spent six episodes going deep into the boathouse community around Winona’s Latch Island. I think there’s a lot of mystery and romance that may be associated with the folks who live in those boathouses. It’s a lifestyle that conjures up images of freedom and being off grid, but there are some significant challenges associated with maintaining a lifestyle in a boathouse as well. So Gina and I we have a wide ranging discussion about the boathouses, from what’s the difference between a boathouse and a houseboat, to what the daily routine is like, the kind of work you have to do to maintain a lifestyle on a boathouse, some of the big personalities who have lived in the boathouses over the years, the legal status, how are folks able to legally live in both houses adjacent to public land, and we also spend a little bit of time kind of looking at the future wondering what the boathouse community might look like down the road. I really hope that this will inspire you to go and listen to the full six episode podcast though Back Channel Radio hosted by Gina Favano. Check it out as soon as you get a chance. You won’t regret it. It’s really interesting look at one slice of life along the Mississippi River. I’ve been fascinated with this community myself for a while so much so that I included a character in one of my mysteries, Letting Go in La Crosse, who lived in a in a boathouse off of Winona’s Latsch Island. So I’m looking forward to maybe one of these days having a cup of coffee with Gina or maybe some other residents there and getting closer look myself at the lifestyle on that in that community.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:19

Gina Favano is a full time visual artist and musician who has performed and shown her work in galleries, venues and unconventional spaces throughout the US and Europe. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives in a boathouse on the Mississippi River in Minnesota. In late 2022, she released the six episode podcast, Back Channel Radio, about the history of the Latsch Island boathouse community. She’s working on a book now based on her experiences archiving this history. Welcome to the podcast Gina.

Gina Favano 03:49

Thanks. Glad to be here.

Dean Klinkenberg 03:50

Well, let’s start off with the most basic of questions and clear this up in people’s minds. What is the difference between a boathouse and a houseboat?

Gina Favano 04:00

Um, I mean, a houseboat is just like a big boat with a little house kind of built into it. And a boathouse, the most accurate description would be a floating home. So it’s not ambulatory, you can’t just put a motor on it. They’re usually not any kind of like spherical shape that would want to like easily cut through water. Some of them are just, you know, four sided square little shacks, or rectangular, you know, some semblance there about that.

Dean Klinkenberg 04:38

So if I remember my history of this right to when these structures were kind of initially built, and we’re going back to maybe the depression or quite a ways back, they actually were built to house boats, like well, they were kind of floating garages, I think, and over time, they kind of evolved into spaces where people started hanging out and living in them a little bit more. Is that Is that what you remember too?

Gina Favano 05:02

Yeah, yeah. And then there was, you know, some evolution between that and shantyboats, which had a lot to do with the Depression, when, you know, people had to travel a lot to find work and just kind of find somewhere to live on the fly, had no money to live in town, so they were able to build these structures that they could then move easily kind of pull them to different locations. If they were told by the authorities, they couldn’t stay there or if it flooded or, you know, the next job was the next town down river, they could kind of pull their, their dwelling along. But, but you’re right. Technically a boathouse is like a garage that just kind of houses a boat. They’re actually some boathouses, and I wouldn’t call them communities, and more like marinas that are nearby in parts of Minnesota and just across the river in Wisconsin, that aren’t, they’re not, they’re not zoned for habitable housing. They’re like literally just boat houses to more your boat, and you have a place to come and take your boat out and easy river access.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:13

Well, right so I, I know that there are still some other like clusters of boathouses at places along the upper Mississippi, and not too far from Winona and La Crosse. And there’s a small community at Red Wing. There’s another one at Brownsville, Minnesota, for example. But they’re kind of slightly different places, than the community that developed at Latsch Island, as I understand it.

Gina Favano 06:33

Correct. Yeah, it’s kind of an anomaly that we even got to be here. To the best of our knowledge, Latch Island is the only year round habitable boathouse community that’s legally sanctioned anywhere on the Mississippi River still in existence.

Dean Klinkenberg 06:51

Well, so most of those other places, I guess it’s more weekend stuff, or it’s not a permanent residence for people in Brownsville or Red Wing. In those other places, then it’s kind of like a weekend, a cabin in the woods kind of thing rather than a place to live.

Gina Favano 07:04

Yeah. Correct. I think you need to, I’m not totally sure of the logistics, but I think it has something to do with needing to have your permanent, your permanent address somewhere else. And here, this can, this is our permanent address. I’m not sure.

Dean Klinkenberg 07:21

So how did this community get started in Winona, then? Like how did folks, how, because how did this turn into a place where people were living more permanently?

Gina Favano 07:32

Um, you know, there’s no real easy answer to that. And I think that’s part of why the history wasn’t succinctly recorded anywhere. And also part of why it took, it took me so long to do all the the deep dive of research that needed to happen, to even begin to archive it. There were people living on the island around the time of the Great Depression. And also prior to that there were some hunting camps and things like that here, but none of that’s been documented anywhere, like a lot of that’s hearsay, you know, some old timers who heard from someone who has now passed away that so and so maybe lived here or had a boathouse here at one point. It doesn’t really start to get documented anywhere until the 70s. And, or possibly the late 60s, late 60s, early 70s. So there were some boathouses and like shantyboat type constructions here. What made it possible for them to kind of be here under the radar so long was that the islands initially didn’t start out being owned by the city of Winona. It was owned by the Chicago Northwestern railroad. And then, between 1976 and 1978, the City of Winona applied for a grant to the state of Minnesota to try to purchase the island from the railroad. And it took a couple of years for the deal to get worked out, for the money to change hands and everything. So then, towards the end of 1978, when it when it looked like it was going to go through and the city was going to be able to purchase the island, everyone kind of realized that no clause had been written in as to like, what if anything to do with the boat houses? Because at that point, it wasn’t being used very much by the railroad. It was just kind of like a, like a weird blind spot in everyone’s rear view mirror, like no one was really using the island and there was no easy way to get to it up until that point, either, because the bigger bridge to access the island was still being built around that time. And that’s that’s when it became an issue. And by then, some of the people that were living here had been here for quite a while and had really started to, you know, foster this little community and they, they… they cared about these homes that they had built for themselves. And they were beginning to put like a lot of energy into it and you know, all of their resources and stuff like that. So then they, that’s when they first started to have like the early meetings about, okay, what do we do? Are we going to try to get organized or are we going to try to figure out a way for this community to get, to exist here in perpetuity. So then around 1981, that’s when the first kind of informal meetings of the Winona Boathouse Association began to happen, just to have a way to interface with the city. So they weren’t just dealing with people on an individual basis. But it was complicated because it was, you know, it was the Minnesota DNR was involved. The Wisconsin DNR because it’s so close to the border. You know, it was the city. It was the state. It was, you know, it was just a lot of different factions that were interested in ousting the boathouses but also didn’t want to kind of, didn’t want to deal with like, you know, all of the dozens of people that were, that were kind of starting to figure out how to, like, organize in this really grassroots way to protect their homes, and their way of life.

Dean Klinkenberg 11:23

So there had been a boathouse community there when the railroads still owned the land.

Gina Favano 11:28

Yeah, but yeah, but it was informal, and I have not been able to find documentation of it anywhere. So you know, it’s possible that somewhere in Wisconsin, someone has photographs in a shoebox under their bed. If they do, they can email me.

Dean Klinkenberg 11:49

All right. So when the land is being transferred to ownership by the City of Winona, then what were some of the say, I’ll call them institutional concerns about allowing the boathouse community to continue?

Gina Favano 12:05

Um, well, one of the, the big and most substantial arguments was that the, the park itself, the, the park that Latsch Island is connected to, is public land. So that was, you know, part of the idea behind the city purchasing the land was, Oh, we’re gonna develop it into this great park, blah, blah, blah. It’s going to have paths. It’s going to have this and that. And another element that they hadn’t really thought through was that it floods twice a year. So there, there really was, and is no way to properly develop it into any kind of like, usable, you know, structured public park with like, you know, making it accessible with like, paved paths and all of that stuff. That’s that’s just never going to happen here. It just floods too much, especially now, with the way the climate is changing. It’s, it’s flooding even more, and it’s even more unpredictable. So, so that was, you know, their main, their main sticking point, right? Just, this was public land, and they had grand ideas from the park.

Dean Klinkenberg 13:15

And it’s interesting to hear that now too, because I’ve been to that Latch Island many times. And it always, it certainly feels undeveloped to this day. There’s an area with a small gravel or dirt parking lot, a little bit of a beach that people will use when the weather’s nice and the rivers not too high. And then there’s Aghaming Park. I never quite sure how to pronounce that word, but…

Gina Favano 13:38

You got it. Yeah, Aghaming is technically in Wisconsin. It’s just across the bridge from here. What’s interesting about this area is that it’s just, there’s so much public land. And all of that can be traced back to John Latsch, who was briefly the mayor of Winona, who was this eccentric man. He was a naturalist. And he had a ton of money and thought it was really important that people and animals have access to this land that remains undeveloped. So there’s a ton of, I mean, huge swaths of land kind of all through the Driftless Area that can be attributed to John Latsch, but not Latsch Island. Latsch Island was actually named after John Latsch because there used to be this really big bathhouse over on the main beach, where people could swim in kind of like a controlled, mostly so that children could swim in a controlled place and not drown. Because, you know, there were a lot of kids just drowning in town doing unsupervised swimming when it was hot out. But that area, it gets used. I mean, all summer long. Even all winter long, actually, it’s really funny. There’s a ,there’s some, there’s been this like, well, it’s a YouTube trend, but it’s something that people have been doing for hundreds of years, which is just sitting in really freezing cold water. Um, but all winter, all winter, there was this group of kids that would come and sit in this like giant, square shaped hole. They had chainsawed through the ice, and they would have like mittens and hats on would just sit there. But then in the summer, it’s just like, packed. It’s like, sometimes there’ll be 100 people on the beach. And that and again, that part of the island doesn’t flood nearly as much as this part. So you know, it is it is used a lot. And that’s great. There’s picnic tables, there’s, you know, a little trail and there’s actually like a new bike path. It’s just across the bridge, and people love their outdoors activities in Minnesota.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:21

Absolutely. They love their water as well do they really do? Well, let’s go ahead and cover that piece of the story now then because you were alluding to it. We started talking about how during the transfer of ownership, then there was a fight to possibly evict people who were living in the boathouses here. So how did that play out? Obviously, there’s still a boathouse community on the island today. So there must have been some accommodation reached eventually to allow that legal status?

Gina Favano 16:15

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it happens over the course of like 15 years. You know, the, the informal Winona Boathouse Association was formed in 1981, which was a few years after the the island was acquired by the city of Winona. And then the the boathouse community didn’t receive their first permit until 1996, which was also the same year that the Winona Boathouse Association first became incorporated, which means it’s a nonprofit. And it still is. So again, it’s, there was just a lot of all of these moments kind of spread out over the course of more than a decade of like, okay, so now, the DNR has this issue with us. So we’re going to work with them over the course of a couple of years and have a lot of meetings and you know, in the boathouse community. It can’t be understated that I think a big part of the reason they were allowed to remain was the amount of support they had from people living in the town of Winona. Because you know, Winona, it’s a, it’s a small town, but it’s kind of big for a small town and there’s like, definitely, like, a counterculture presence in Winona. There were a lot of like rural communities, communes, that’s what it’s called. There were a lot of communes kind of living just outside of town. There were a lot of people who, who had an appreciation for what the boathouse community was trying to accomplish, for how they considered themselves to be such stewards of the river. You know, how they, they had ecology, first and foremost in their minds. So I think that had a lot to do with it. Like when they would have the city council meetings, and have these different issues kind of arise one by one, whether it was like, you know, the dumpster in the park, or what do we do about receiving mail, stuff like that? You know, sometimes 100 people would come to that meeting and show their support?

Dean Klinkenberg 18:29

Well, that’s great. Well, I think on the podcast, you go into a lot more detail over about this, this fight over 15 years, to be granted the legal right to stay. It is… We forget sometimes, I think, the number of agencies that have a hand in managing some aspect of the Mississippi because this wasn’t just the city of Winona. You mentioned the Minnesota DNR, Department of Natural Resources. The Army Corps of Engineers was involved in this as well, that it sounded like they kind of didn’t really want to be involved in any of it. So there’s, there were a lot of different big institutions that were involved in basically determining the future of this small group of the small community living on the river.

Gina Favano 19:15

Right, right. Yeah, it’s kind of amazing that it all got to, you know, pan out the way it did.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:23

That’s amazing. This small group of people, you know, many of whom were just kind of living there because they wanted to be left alone ended up fighting these big institutions that eventually, you know, getting some legal recognition along the way,

Gina Favano 19:39

Something that I didn’t really fully understand, when I first got here, and again, I’m from the East Coast and I I grew up in a city for most of my life, and this was just like no one can, no one could actually even like give me the full story either, which was part of it. I was like… What, so wait–so why is this allowed to be hear? And then I would I would just hear like little bits and pieces like, oh, well, we had this court date in ’78. And that’s when it was legalized. And they’d be like, no, no, it was a ’95. And that’s when this happened. But anyway, something, something that I didn’t fully appreciate, at first until I really started to, like, lean into the history of the place was, there was a historical precedent for living this way. And that was, that was part of, you know, the argument that the early boathouses were standing upon, was that we have a right to live this way. Because in this part of the country, there’s, there’s a history of living this way. It’s a culture, and this culture deserves to be protected and perpetuated. And that was something I didn’t fully get. And then once I understood that, I was like, oh, okay, now I, now I understand. Now I understand why, why it’s important, you know?

Dean Klinkenberg 20:57

So was that something that would be that was more of a tradition, like a cultural tradition? Or is it something that had some legal framework supporting it to be going that far back? Do you remember that part of it?

Gina Favano 21:10

You know, that’s another kind of gray area. In my research, it’s pretty ambiguous, and it differs from county to county. And we’re, again, we’re so close to Wisconsin that, you know, like, I can throw a rock and hit Wisconsin probably. And the rules are totally different governing boathouses over there. So it was, I haven’t gotten a clear answer as far as like, is there a was there a legal precedents where there’s definitely a cultural precedents for it?

Dean Klinkenberg 21:38

Well, there’s absolutely a long history of people living on the river, you mentioned shanty boats. That’s a little different, as you alluded, because shantyboats were mobile, at least, you know. If you didn’t, your prospects weren’t very good where you were, you could always, you know, lift up anchor and float on down somewhere else, whereas the boathouses are not going to float to another location anytime without some assistance anyway, I suppose.

Gina Favano 22:05

Right?

Dean Klinkenberg 22:06

So there’s a long history, it just seems like in the 20th century, maybe, maybe even after World War Two, we did a lot to regulate people away from being able to live like that on the river, except in this little area around Winona.

Gina Favano 22:21

Yeah, it was, it was definitely perplexing to me when I first got here. Um, but then, again, another thing that I really, as I started to read about it more and understand it more, another thing that’s really started to make sense to me was was just the way I mean, not just in this area, but the entire length of the Mississippi, has been changed by the lock and dam system, which is governed by the Army Corps of Engineers and like, learning that that’s purely based on commerce, it has nothing to do with controlling the flooding, um, it just, it just kind of like, made me understand where that, like, the spirit of their fight kind of came from, was like–oh, yeah, well, who are they to completely, you know, rearrange all of the flora and fauna and like, reintroduce the species that now we have to contend with, and this and that? And, you know, now we, we’re having flooding, because of the specific locks and dams that are, that exist only to accommodate these large barges that are just moving commerce. Right? Um, so it’s interesting, it’s multifaceted, you know. But now that it’s, you know, that argument, or none of these arguments actually, come up very often because it was established so long ago that the boathouse is or are just here, and they’re legal, and they’re protected. And that was part of why I wanted to document this was I wanted to hear these stories from these people while they were still around to tell their stories, you know, because it’s only like in a generation or two, they’ll just be forgotten. Like, how did these boathouses get to be here? Why? Why did these people think it was important to fight for that and to preserve them?

Dean Klinkenberg 24:20

Right? Absolutely. And I want to get to more about some of the characters and the day to day life in a boathouse. I want to finish this up, but just like the status today, then… so to live there, is there a permit that an individual has, like a residency permit of some kind, and they’re capped at a specific number as well at this point, right?

Gina Favano 24:41

Correct. Yep, there’s 101 spots, and there shall be no more. And we pay a mooring agreement to the city of Winona. And every five years, the boathouse lease gets re examined. So it’s not just, you know, it’s never gonna get looked at never again. It’s just, it gets looked at by the city and it just makes sure that it’s still working for everyone and the Winona Boathouse Association, the WBA, is still a very active force and you know, has meetings fairly often. And we just, you know, revisit all of the policies and make sure that it’s still working well for everyone, including the city.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:21

Right, and then you have a not for profit that sort of serves as your government in a sense that represents you to the city and other entities.

Gina Favano 25:28

Yeah, yeah, you got it.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:31

Well, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about some of the nuts and bolts first of what it’s like to live there. You’ve, you’ve lived in a boathouse for awhile yourself now?

Gina Favano 25:39

Yeah. Well, we’ve been here full time since COVID started, but I’ve lived here part time, it’ll be going on 10 years in September.

Dean Klinkenberg 25:50

So describe a little bit about what your boathouse is like.

Gina Favano 25:55

My boathouse is a floating geodesic dome that was built in 1973, by people who thought it would be fun to try out carpentry for the first time.

Dean Klinkenberg 26:10

Which always goes well!

Gina Favano 26:12

Yeah, 50 years later, we’re still, we’re still fixing a lot of early mistakes. It’s been, I would say, only 20 to 25% of that is still original at this point, because it’s, it’s sunk at least twice. My husband acquired it, before he and I got together. And something we talked a little bit about in the podcast was just how, like, how he was able to even resurrect it, because it was, it was sunken when he got it. And, you know, he had to work on it a lot in the winter, when you have the ice to kind of like, you know, push up against, so he had to like jack up the house and cut off the bottom and replace it. And it’s a decent size, it floats on 100, blue plastic barrels. And we have a long walkway that goes to shore. And, you know, all of that stuff just requires kind of constant maintenance.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:12

You’re exposed to the elements, you’ve got the river around you, there’s probably, it’s probably humid a lot because you’re so close next to the water. And you have you there are no utilities provided for the community, right? I mean, what’s the utility situation for you?

Gina Favano 27:30

Um, well, we’re on the lower portion of the island, which is known as, if you look at a map, it’s called Lower Latsch, but it’s also known colloquially as Wolf Spider Island. And there’s, there’s no utilities at all down here. The upper island has access to electricity. So we have solar panels, and backup generators for when it’s cloudy, like today. And we, you know, bring all of our water in, and we have different water that we use for washing dishes and washing ourselves. And drinking water is in a separate container. The stove is propane, and we burn wood to keep warm in the winter. So it just it’s a lot of hauling, honestly. And I like winter, I like the snow. But I’m, I’m you know, pulling all the wood inside and drying it out. It’s starting to wear thin. I’m ready for spring.

Dean Klinkenberg 28:30

Right? It sounds, to me just sounds like a lot of work. Like there’s stuff you have to do every day that I, you know, I take for granted, but you’ve got to, you’ve got to haul water in regularly and pay attention to how well the solar panels are picking up the sun and all things that I don’t have to worry about.

Gina Favano 28:46

But yeah, yeah, it’s not it’s not conducive to a lot of things. You know, it’s, it’s living like this gives me a lot of insight about why the people that lived here weren’t the ones to archive the history, because you kind of, you kind of can’t, you know, you can’t. It’s, it’s like, your, your daily work becomes just doing all of the things that you need to live, you know, and not freeze to death. I was gonna say live well, but I changed it to just not not freeze to death.

Dean Klinkenberg 29:26

So you really have to want to live there.

Gina Favano 29:29

You have to want to live there. Yeah, or it really doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like, you know, technically, especially compared to what’s happening everywhere else in the country, right now, technically, it’s, it’s a, the cost of living is low. But it’s kind of not if you factor in, you know, what my time is worth. Because it’s, it is constant. It’s a lot of work. And that was another reason that I wanted to capture some of these stories was you get to a certain place, and you kind of can’t do it anymore. You know, and I really was interested in talking to some of the older folks who were in the process of kind of having to transition, you know, off the islands, and what that might be like for them.

Dean Klinkenberg 30:23

Right? I mean, there comes a point where you’re physically, it’s probably very hard to keep up with all that as, as you get older. Yeah. On the podcast, you do go in depth with a couple of people, in particular, who as they got older, some of the challenges they ran into staying, the choices they had to make. I don’t want to like just like belabor the negative aspects of this, but obviously, there are benefits, joys that come from living there, as well. Like, you get to experience the river, for example, in a very different way than the rest of us do. Can you tell me a little bit about what that’s like?

Gina Favano 30:59

Um, well, I’m looking out the window right now. And I’m watching the water, I’m seeing the trees reflecting on the water. I’m seeing some birds fly by, I see an eagle off in the distance. There are these little moments there, these like little moments of, it kind of feels like, you know, your eyeballs are being massaged by the scenery a little bit. It’s definitely easier living in the summer, you kind of feel like, oh, wow, I just I have it made I, don’t I get to be so lucky. And then winter comes and it’s, you know, you have you work for it. It feels like you kind of get to, you appreciate the easier moments, because you have kind of like worked to be there and to get to witness them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s beautiful, there’s no, there’s no two ways about it. But I do appreciate having the chance to talk about the more arduous aspects of living here. Because that’s something that, you know, when we get visited all summer long by like YouTube, camera crews and photographers, and whoever, you know, feels the need to come and document it, but they’re, they don’t document it properly. It’s a… 99% of them, they everyone has the tendency to kind of romanticize it. And there is, I mean, it’s just abundant, nonstop beauty here, no matter what the season is. But there, I find that there’s always kind of like an undercurrent of, you know, you have to be kind of hyper aware of, you know, my, my anchors set properly, what’s happening with the river, you know. But then there, there are days where it’s just peaceful and nice, and you don’t have to think about that kind of thing.

Dean Klinkenberg 32:53

Right. There are still legitimate risks there as well, I, you know, if a big storm blows through, you know, you’ve got to make sure everything’s tied up properly. Or you’re, you know, you could suffer damage on the river, you don’t really want to be stranded in the middle of the river in the middle of a big thunderstorm.

Gina Favano 33:12

I think the people that lived here for for all those years. I think they thrived off the excitement, honestly, I think they that was like part of what they loved. Um, they, they, all of them kind of had this like affinity for weather. Like, oh, we got a big storm coming in, or ,oh, this or that, or that tree fell out and was like, like–Wow! You’re really excited. It’s like, seeping through your pores. This is like this is making you feel alive in a way, you know,

Dean Klinkenberg 33:45

Right. As I recall, I lived in Minnesota for a few years when I was younger, and it seemed like the weather was one of the most favored topics of conversation anyway. Now if you live in a community like that, at Latsch Island Boat Community that…

Gina Favano 34:03

Yeah, yeah, what’s really interesting, too, that I really wanted to spend some time documenting was most of those people that, you know, founded the community and were here in the early days, this is before weather apps. No one had a cell phone, and no one had television. You couldn’t just watch the weather on TV and kind of get a get a feel for what might be happening in the next couple of days. And that’s something that that my neighbor, John Rupky, and I talked about a little bit on one of the later episodes of the podcast is he would, he would measure the ice every day. And he also kept this extensive log of what was happening with the weather, so that he could then, you know, try to predict what might be happening in like, the same time of year, the following year. But then in the last few years, that all kind of, you know, went out the window with the weather being so unpredictable, which is also still really interesting to look back at records of it and just see the big jumps in in changes that were happening.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:10

Right. Well, and I imagine living in the boathouse there, too, you’re probably more attuned to the changes that have been happening in the last few years. You know, you’re more atuned to when the ice was, as you were talking before we started recording, part of the one of the advantages of winters, the ice gets thick enough, you can drive out there to bring construction materials and work on the boathouse. And this year, the ice never got thick enough to do that.

Gina Favano 35:37

Yeah, yeah. Then that’s, you know, the first time that’s happened and everyone that I’ve spoken with in their memories. I’m sure it’s happened, you know, once or twice in the in the past, but it was, it was definitely it would have been an anomaly then.

Dean Klinkenberg 35:54

Which would be like, if that’s going to end up being more the norm, that’s going to really make, it’s going to add another degree of difficulty to life in the boathouse community, I would imagine.

Gina Favano 36:03

Yeah, yeah. And that’s again, it goes back to like my original impetus to, to record it, and to archive it, because the future is uncertain for, for these reasons, you know?

Dean Klinkenberg 36:19

Hey, Dean Klinkenberg, here, interrupting myself. Just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the river better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series set in places along the Mississippi. Read those books to find out how many different ways my protagonist, Frank Dodge, can get into trouble. My newest book, Mississippi River Mayhem, details some of the disasters and tragedies that happened along Ol’ Man River. Find any of them wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 36:54

So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about some, a couple of the characters, some of the old timers that you highlight during the podcast. Tell me about a couple of people who really stood out to you.

Gina Favano 37:08

Well, the main one’s, John, who got to be, you know, by the time, by the time it was all said and done, he was, he had become a really important person in my life. He was, he was my buddy, you know? We’d hang out and play chess. And what’s interesting about John, is he didn’t have a big personality, but he had a big story, you know, that was just, like, fascinating to me to, like, move to this, this kind of isolated, rural community. And, you know, he, he moved here, when he was in his early 40s. He was a, he was a graduate dean at a local university, and had been living, living as a closeted person for his entire life. You know, he was born in the 30s. So it wasn’t an era where people could easily just come out and be themselves. And his, his leaving his position, and he was public about it, he wrote a letter–I’m leaving, this is why–coincided with his building this new community for himself on the island. And that was really fascinating to me, just like where those two histories kind of overlapped. Yeah, and it just made me want to get to know him better and hear more about his story. And something that he was also known for locally was he, he was this really outspoken activist for gay rights and human rights, in general. And he would write letters to all the local newspapers. And I tried to count them after he passed away. And I lost track after I counted over 200. And then I just kind of lost track. I was like: Okay, there’s a lot. He’s been doing it for a long time. There’s a lot. But all of his letters were, were generated out of his little boathouse. I mean, I would go by his place at night, and I would just see him in there with like, one little light sitting at his desk, and it was just, it was just such a good feeling. I knew he was in there, like making drafts of his next letter, and he would type it on his typewriter, and then go into town, print it out at the library, and then hand deliver it to the newspaper offices, which was just… and he did that for over 40 years. Yeah, no, and I was like, no one is documenting this. This feels so important to the not just to the island, but to the whole town to have that voice that’s been so consistent. Yeah, so John was John, was an important one. For me personally, I, we sat down and I interviewed him 22 times. So It was an interesting way to get close to someone who’s just through asking them questions about about their life.

Dean Klinkenberg 40:05

I do understand what you mean by he had a big story. One of the arcs that jumped out at me listening to his story was just it, it seems like somebody who maybe for almost the first half of his adult life felt like an outsider. And then when he landed at Latsch Island, he finally found a place where he felt like he belonged.

Gina Favano 40:26

Exactly, exactly. And it was, you know, there were all these little elements, kind of like, peppered throughout the community. That made it even more compelling for me personally, to like, want to archive it, was like, this is, this is important. You know, like, let’s say, you know, 20 years from now a big flood comes, washes it all away. It’s important for people to know that, that these people were here and did this in this like, specific part of the Mississippi River, you know?

Dean Klinkenberg 41:00

Right. Well, and he’s not the only one with a interesting story to tell me a little bit about Tyra Fock.

Gina Favano 41:08

Oh, yeah, um, Tyra? All right. Um, Tyra I didn’t actually get to interview her the way I had John. She was, she was really reticent. And, and, um, you know, I don’t think she would have been comfortable being in that position of being recorded and asked a lot of questions. And so she, she had actually, she had passed away, the year before the podcast was released. But I did, I was able to find interviews with her. So we were we were able to include her voice and her answering some questions in the 70s and 80s from local news crews that came down to the island to interview some of the people living here. She was amazing. She, she grew up in Duluth, and she came from a long line of Norwegian boat builders. And she was the lone woman in her family that took up that tradition. And she actually built two of the boathouses that are out there, still standing there, like two of the most well constructed ones that are here on the lower part of the island. They’re not standing, they’re floating. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Um, yeah, I mean, she, she was just like, another example of like, you know, the thing that, that a lot of these people have in common is they’re all like, really tough, really independent. And also just sensitive in this really specific way. That, you know, it made sense for them to live here and be like, kind of alone, but also have community. And, you know, also be willing to entertain interviews from time to time. So they’ll have like this, like, kind of like, this flamboyant streak that maybe only comes out once a year or every couple years. Yeah, she was special.

Dean Klinkenberg 43:17

And I remember I didn’t she do like a long boat trip down the Mississippi at one point in her life?

Gina Favano 43:24

She did. She built, she built a boat, a kind of a large houseboat. And she did she boated down to New Orleans. Sort of like my husband, actually, in a little plywood boat that he built. He made the trip from Minneapolis to New Orleans. So, well, it’s interesting that I would bring him up because it, it kind of speaks to the commonality between us being like the next generation of people who live on the island, and this older generation who are now like, passing on. I mean, normal people don’t do that. It’s like a special kind of, like, weirdo who is really into the the element of struggle that it just demands. If there’s no way around it, you can’t boat from here to New Orleans in a small handmade boat and not get into a few days and situations, you know?

Dean Klinkenberg 44:26

Right. Just like you can’t live in a floating house on the Mississippi and not have to deal with those struggles, too.

Gina Favano 44:35

Yeah. Very true.

Dean Klinkenberg 44:38

So that, that’s interesting, I hadn’t thought too deeply about that. But is this kind of one of the common threads among the people who live in the community? That obviously you have to have the toughness, as you said, and you’ve got to have some pretty good skills, you know, some good life skills and survival skills, but there’s also that sort of adventurous spirit like, you know, a lot of the people that you highlighted still have these stories about things they had done in their lives that were, let’s say, bigger than what a lot of us would, would consider doing. So I didn’t just live a quiet life in a boathouse, they had all these other aspects of their lives as well.

Gina Favano 45:17

Right. Right. And the thing about these older folks was, um, you know, they, they weren’t living in the digital age. They didn’t really have the tools to preserve these stories in a way, where they were, they would be, like, accessible, and, you know, not just, not just decay, because they were typed on paper. So that was, you know, that time was of the essence. That felt really important to me to, to devote devote some of my time to preserving those. Another interesting thing was that a lot of a lot of those people that you mentioned, not Tyra, because she was, she grew up around boats and was, had been handy fo her whole life and was just a master woodworker. But by and large, most of them, this was a new experience for them. So they like, they kind of jumped in feet first and learned by doing, which also, like speaks to a lot of the ethos of the place, which you just kind of like, go for it, you know? You see something that you want to do and don’t let ignorance stand in your way. And ineptitude.

Gina Favano 46:34

Right. So it also takes either good self confidence in your ability to do those things, or maybe some naivete.

Gina Favano 46:43

That’s, I mean, you just described youth in a nutshell.

Dean Klinkenberg 46:51

Interesting. Are there other big characters that you want to mention?

Gina Favano 46:56

I would like to mention, I had to actually omit some of the bigger characters, when I was making the podcast because, you know, for ethical reasons. Um, and this kind of speaks to like, being a member of the community and like, the amount of care that myself and the producer Suzanne Hogan, really put into how we, why the stories that we chose to share, the ones that we left out, how, like how we showcase the ones that we did share. Like one of the bigger personalities down here has pretty advanced dementia. He doesn’t live here anymore. He was actually living in like a very nice facility. But he has a close friend who helped out quite a bit his last few years on the island. But, you know, he couldn’t, he couldn’t really give informed consent, um, and I was like: Okay, there’s no ethical way for me to include any interviews with him. Um, I’m hopeful that one day I can figure out a way to record his story in a way that feels appropriate and respectful. But there were a lot of moments like that, like, and there’s another, another person in particular, I’m thinking of who was, oh, man, well, he would have been radio gold. But he wasn’t comfortable. He, you know, he wasn’t comfortable having a story, these stories shared publicly, on any level. And you have to respect that, you know? Yeah, so this is just like a little, just a little slice into some of the stories and some of the people that were here, that we tried to, we tried to present, like, a balanced view from more than one position. So really, you know, we tried our best to give, to kind of give the full picture, even if we couldn’t tell all of the stories.

Dean Klinkenberg 49:06

Yeah, I think you did a great job with that, too. Like, some of the characters are complicated people like all of us are. And, you know, it doesn’t do justice to them by just telling, you know, the idealized, a romanticized version of somebody. So, yeah, you covered that all very well. One thing I was just thinking about, too, is, as you were talking, is that, it’s interesting to me, in some ways, like one of the attractions of living there is, you know, maybe to be a little bit reclusive, to have the space to yourself, but it’s also an area where that line between public and private is much thinner than it is in a lot of other places. Talk a little bit about that.

Gina Favano 49:46

Yeah, I mean, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re moored to public lands and floating on public waterways. You know, it means, you’re absolutely right, it is. It is a public space. So, it’s, you have to be okay with that, you know? And I not only accept that, but kind of welcome it in on some level, you know, as long as people are respectful.

Dean Klinkenberg 50:12

‘Cause you have people floating by you in boats all the time.

Gina Favano 50:16

And they’re curious, you know, rightfully so.

Dean Klinkenberg 50:23

I know when I’ve been when I visited the island and I, I’ve been very careful about keeping distance from the boathouses because those are where people live. So what would you suggest as an etiquette for people who are visiting and curious about it? Just look from a distance? Take pictures from the bridges? What? How do you, how do you wish people would would handle that?

Gina Favano 50:49

I think, I think, um, well, I’m going to start with saying no wakes, please. That’s the, that’s the big one that actually can be dangerous. And you know, we’ve had cups fall off the shelf, and just, that’s annoying. It’s like any other neighborhood, you know? You wouldn’t go past the sidewalk and look in someone’s window. But you’re also welcome to walk down the sidewalk. You know? That’s, that’s a public space. I think just common sense.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:21

The answer to so many things: just common sense.

Gina Favano 51:23

I know. You wouldn’t think it would be like that hard to come by. But right. Yeah, no wakes, please. Please don’t look in my window.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:31

Right. Don’t walk, don’t walk up my walkway to my house.

Gina Favano 51:34

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 51:38

So what’s the, what’s the future look like for this community?

Gina Favano 51:43

I think a lot of people in the city of Winona and beyond value the boathouses because they’re, well, they’re pretty. They add a lot to, you know, they’re kind of a tourist attraction. So even if, you know, people don’t know the backstory or think it’s like that important to preserve, I think they still see its value in other ways. So I think they’re secure for the time being. But, you know, we’ll see what happens as the planet continues to heat up. It might, it might look a little different in the next 10 or 15 years. There definitely aren’t as many people living here full time as there used to be. And so it’s changed. It’s not that, if you know, if you walk down to the islands and walk past the boathouses, the counterculture that was so vibrant in the 70s and 80s isn’t, isn’t as present as it once was. Which is, again, part of why I wanted to record those stories, just have a record of it somewhere. So it feels a lot different. It’s, it’s, you know, they’re going for more money, and that dictates who gets to use them. And it’s usually just people who mainly come down once a month, their kids are, you know, it’s definitely changing. I think the boathouses will continue to be here in some capacity. I’m not like, you know, outwardly concerned with that happening anytime soon. But I think how they get used, and who’s using them will continue to change the next few years.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:32

So the 100 or so, boathouses in that community, do you have a ballpark guess as to how many, how many of them are occupied year round?

Gina Favano 53:41

Um, less than 20? Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that fluctuates.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:46

And that’s different than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago?

Gina Favano 53:49

Definitely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 53:54

So it seems like, well, one of the inevitable things, like you’ve got a limited resource, right? You got 100 or so of these permits? So yeah, you can’t have new ones. So demand is probably still going up. People would love to be able to spend, at least go there on a weekend. So people who can afford to buy those permits when a rare one comes open, it creates a different demographic than who initially lived there.

Gina Favano 54:19

Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s just like, kind of reflecting what’s happening with the housing market everywhere, you know? Which is interesting, because it’s always been kind of like, you know, it’s a, it’s a little community and it has all kinds of like, joys and issues that any other community would have on land. It’s just, we’re human beings, and we like to replicate that wherever we go. So it’s, yeah, it’s definitely, you know, things are tough all over, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.

Dean Klinkenberg 54:51

Right. So have you, is there any talk that there might be other places along the river that might allow boathouse, where they can be introduced to reemerge?

Gina Favano 55:02

Not that I’ve heard. No. Which is, you know, what makes us so special.

Dean Klinkenberg 55:12

Wow. Well, it is. It is a, it’s interesting to me in so many levels, like the collection of people, amazing people with big stories, like you said, it’s a little taste of river life that’s a throwback. And we used to have more communities like this, of people living on the river, that are much harder to find now. Just there’s so many great stories. I really hope people will listen to the full six episodes of the podcast. It’s very well done. Great stories. You’ll learn a lot more about this. So tell us, where people can find the podcast and tell us a bit more about that.

Gina Favano 55:45

Sure. It’s BackChannelRadio.org. And if you just follow the link, you can go to Apple or Spotify. Kind of wherever you get your podcasts.

Dean Klinkenberg 55:55

And I’ll put a link in the show notes to that as well. What’s going on for you? Do you have some work that you’d like to let folks know about? Where people can keep up with what you’re working on next?

Gina Favano 56:09

Well, we’re, we’re discussing the possibility of doing a season two of Back Channel Radio. And, you know, we could spend the next five years just putting out seasons that are only about Latsch Island. That’s probably not what we’re going to do. What’s nice about the the title and kind of the mission statement of the podcast is that it can be kind of an umbrella for these like under-told, under-recorded stories that are kind of everywhere. So we’ll see what happens with that. It’s, it’s grant writing season for me. So I’m just in the process of securing funding to keep the website active and all that good stuff. And I’m also in the early stages of compiling the archives into a book form. So maybe if you interview me, three years from now, we’ll be able to report on that.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:08

You have just a few materials to work with for that.

Gina Favano 57:12

There’s so, oh my goodness, there’s so much there’s so much. Yeah, thousands and thousands of documents.

Dean Klinkenberg 57:19

And as you said, it’s so important to do that, especially… you appreciate it more knowing how few resources you had access to pre-1970 or so. Now you have a wealth of material to work with, at least to document the later time period. But you know, those could go away too.

Gina Favano 57:37

Yeah, yeah. They’re literally crumbling. And a lot of them have gotten wet over the years. So they’re all, they’re all digitized. That’s actually where this whole journey of archiving started was just digitizing them for the local county historical society. But the more I got into the information, and the more I interviewed John, the more I saw, like a, there’s this thread that runs through all the stories that you don’t, you don’t have to know anything about boats or rivers to relate to. there’s this, like, there’s this thread of seeking community, personal freedom, of self acceptance, you know? There’s these bigger human issues, which is a big part of why we decided to go ahead and turn it into a podcast because there’s, there’s more there than just, you know, maybe like river aficionados or boating aficionados could could relate to.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:37

Well, great. Well, let’s, uh, let’s call it a wrap at that then. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today about your podcast, and let’s stay in touch.

Gina Favano 58:49

Yeah, thanks so much. This is great.

Dean Klinkenberg 58:51

And now it’s time for the Mississippi Minute. Well, I just had a nice discussion with Gina Favana about the boathouse community on Winona’s Latsch Island. I wanted to recommend another resource for you. There are other boathouse communities along the Upper Mississippi River besides that one on Latsch Island, you know? Latsch Island, the folks, that community is different because it has more full time residents than the other places. In fact, you generally won’t find full time residents at these other boathouse communities. But there are other clusters of these along the upper Mississippi you’ll see. You’ll see a few boathouses at places like Red Wing, Minnesota, Lacrosse, Wisconsin, and Brownsville, Minnesota. Those are the most visible boathouse communities, I think. I want to recommend though, if you want to continue to go a little deeper into what that world is like, there’s a book called The Floating Boathouses on the Upper Mississippi: Their history, Their Stories, by Martha Greene Phillips. It’s a really delightful little book that goes deep into the history of boathouse communities, tracing their roots from the early days when people lived in shanty boats and we’re living off the river in, in wooden craft, living off the river through hunting and fishing and foraging and other means, generally people of very modest means who are living a subsistence existence from these shanty boats. That’s really the roots of the boathouses of today, and she does a nice job of tracing the history from, from those very modest beginnings to what the communities are like today. A highly recommended book, beautiful photography, some very fascinating stories, as well. So once again, that’s The Floating Boathouses on the Upper Mississippi by Martha Greene Phillips.

Dean Klinkenberg 1:00:46

Thanks for listening. I offer the podcast for free but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon you help keep the program going. Just go to Patreon.com/DeanKlinkenberg. I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review on iTunes or your preferred podcast app. Each review makes a difference and helps other fans of the Mississippi River and the Midwest find this show. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original music by Noah Fence. See you next time.