SATELLITE PHONES

Originally published in our Fall 2000 edition

In setting up our NORTHERN EXPEDITIONS trips into the far reaches of northern Manitoba, emergency evacuation was a very real consideration. If a party on the Seal River has been out for 10 days suffers an accident, and is not expected to reach their pick-up point on Hudson Bay for another 9 days, we needed to check into satellite communications. It was a little pricey (the phones alone were almost $2000 each). But we take safety very seriously.

Satellite phones are totally different than cellular service. The signal transmits directly to one of 66 world-wide orbiting satellites. It is then relayed to other satellites in the system, and finally returned to a ground station receiver. The signal is digital, giving a static free conservation.

We are regularly asked about communications, and whether cellular phones work in our wilderness area. As there are no cell towers in the BWCA or Quetico Park, coverage is limited to only the fringe areas; service is spotty at best. In neither the BWCA nor Quetico Park are there any monitored radio frequencies.

Then it hit us: Why not make our emergency phones available to Boundary Waters paddlers when they are not out on Northern Expeditions trips? Guests have requested them for both personal as well as business use. We've had party members who were attorneys waiting on a judge's ruling, salesmen for a customer's decision, graduates waiting on professional exam scores, military personnel expecting a possible deployment, grandparents hearing about the birth of a grandchild; the list goes on-and-on.

Having sure access to the rest of the world on a moment's notice could be worth far more than the rental charge. (If needed for a legitimate business consideration, the rental cost is a probable tax deductible expense.)