'Back Channel Radio' documents Winona, Minn. boathouse community
There are communities of devoted boaters all across Minnesota. But this next story takes our attachment to boats and water in a unique direction.
Since 2013, Gina Favano has been living in a boathouse on a narrow island off the shores of Winona on the Mississippi River. She’s not alone.
There are over a hundred “boathousers” there who make up a community that stretches back to the 1970s. And Gina has started a podcast about the boathouses, the community and its history. It’s called Back Channel Radio.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: There are communities of devoted voters all across the state. But our next conversation takes our attachment to boats and water in a unique direction. Since 2013, Gina Favano has been living in a boathouse on a narrow island off the shores of Winona on the Mississippi River. She's certainly not alone. There are more than a hundred boat houses there who make up a community that stretches back to the 1970s.
And Gina has started a podcast about the boathouses, the community, and its history. It's called Back Channel Radio. Here's a little clip of it.
GINA FAVANO: Geographically speaking, the back channel is the smaller of two channels in a river that diverged to form an island. The main channel hosts the immense barge traffic, commerce. It's the primary channel. The main stream. But here on the back channel, we're more underground. And it's potentially always under threat. This is Back Channel Radio, a Wolf Spider Island story. Stories from beyond the mainstream. I'm Gina Favano.
CATHY WURZER: And Gina Favano's here to talk about it. Gina, welcome to Minnesota Now.
GINA FAVANO: Hi, Cathy. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
CATHY WURZER: Glad to have you with us. Now we're talking about the Latch Island homes, for folks who are curious. And I know many people know about them. They're this community of boathouses. And just for purposes of definitions here, is there a difference between a boathouse and a houseboat?
GINA FAVANO: Absolutely, yeah. Boathouse, is-- it would be more accurately compared to a floating home. So a houseboat has locomotion. You can put an engine on it or a motor and move it around. And while you can move a boathouse, you'd have to attach it to a boat with a bunch of ropes, and it's a whole different process.
CATHY WURZER: And so you have a boathouse along with your spouse, right? And so is there a little bit of give and movement then? You can feel things moving about?
GINA FAVANO: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Not currently, because we're frozen in for the most part. Although we're usually more frozen in this time of year. There's been a lot of thawing that's occurred in the last week and a half or so.
CATHY WURZER: Latch Island is right off of Winona. And you have a really beautiful description of the community in your podcast. I want folks to listen to that.
GINA FAVANO: Imagine a mosaic of small floating dwellings. Hundreds of turtles climb out of the muck to sun themselves on black logs slick with neon green duckweed. Gar spawn in the shallows between them, their lurching mating dance virtually unchanged for eons. When seen from above, the boathouses present a multi-hued variegated quilt, at once rugged and quaint. Each boathouse is unique. Each shape specially dictated by necessity, resources, and the vision of the builder.
Most of them are small. Picture a shack with one or two rooms built upon an undercarriage made of floating blue plastic barrels. These structures are tied to the shore, and most have a little walkway.
CATHY WURZER: It is a beautiful area, by the way. Just stunning. You're living in a beautiful part of Minnesota. What led you to take up this lifestyle?
GINA FAVANO: Oh, honestly, it was very circumstantial. My husband's from Minnesota, and he had been working on resurrecting a boathouse for a few years before he and I got together. And we were-- excuse me-- dividing the year between the East Coast and here in Minnesota up until the pandemic hit. And then we were here full time or we've been here full time since then.
And honestly, recording the history and releasing a podcast had almost nothing to do with wanting to highlight this lifestyle and how I live personally. It had almost everything to do with wanting to record the history, which felt very ephemeral. It hadn't been documented in perpetuity almost anywhere. There was some hard copy paper archives that some people have been collecting over the decades, but they were starting to crumble.
So actually I just started out by digitizing decades' worth of documents that were then going to be archived in the Winona County Historical Society. And through that process, I got to know one of my neighbors, John Wuttke, who was in his mid 80s at the time. And he was the main unofficial documentarian of this whole community.
And his personal story was just so special and important. So then I started to record him. So we had over 22 interviews over the course of about 2 and 1/2 years. And again, I was just thinking I would put them in the archives at the County Historical Society. But then eventually came to the conclusion that that didn't necessarily mean that they would be accessible. You had to know that they were there and do a lot of digging.
And his story and a lot of the stories that have been here over the years deserved a wider audience. So then it eventually developed into a podcast. But that was never the original goal for me personally.
CATHY WURZER: How would you describe the folks that live in these boathouses?
GINA FAVANO: They're a unique breed. It's a very labor intensive lifestyle. Where we are on the island, we're off grid. So meaning there's no connection with any utilities. So you're hauling water and firewood and creating your own power, whether it's through solar panels or a generator or wind generators. So definitely there's a kind of a rugged type of person that's drawn to living this way.
But again, it was the older folks who had been here since the genesis of the island community that really motivated me to want to record the history of this place. Because it is evolving and changing and shifting, like most places in the world right now. And I was just really consumed with worry that this story would just become ephemeral and eventually lost over the generations if they were only living in people's memories.
CATHY WURZER: There's been, of course, news stories done on the boaters, boathousers. And that it dealt with a fight with the DNR and the city of Winona. So some folks remember those stories. What were those fights like for those folks who live there?
GINA FAVANO: There's no concise way to really answer that. Because all of this occurred over a period of years. And it was a large group of people that were organizing to sanction their homes. I think different people experience it differently. I think it was emotional at times because they had lovingly and thoughtfully built this really specific community. And they were worried about losing them.
And not everybody wanted to become legal, either. Because then that opens you up to being regulated. And that was a concern in people's minds. And again, this goes back to the late '70s through to the early '90s. So this wasn't anything that I was actually around for. So I tried to talk to a wide swath of people. And then I had to go in and fact check everything and make sure that their memories were on point. So it was a long process.
CATHY WURZER: See, before you go-- I have about a minute left. Are some of the concerns that you're dealing with now climate change, gentrification? What are the threats now?
GINA FAVANO: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's something that we talk a little bit about in the podcast, was, those changes are inevitable. And I definitely had a lot of questions for people that have been here for the duration. Like, how important do you think it is that people continue to live this way? Is it important? Should we continue to protect it?
And I don't have any easy answers to those questions. I just knew that this-- I mean, the stories were just so precious and unique to this region. And that was my role in this, was, I'm just going to be the scribe to these stories. But oh yeah, climate change is-- I mean, even-- I've been here less than 10 years, and even in that amount of time, I noticed some pretty remarkable changes.
CATHY WURZER: Well, for folks who want to listen, of course you have Back Channel Radio. And that is at backchannelradio.org. Gina, thank you so much.
GINA FAVANO: Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
CATHY WURZER: Likewise. Gina Favano's been with us. She's the creator of the host of the podcast Back Channel Radio about the boathouse community in Winona.
And Gina has started a podcast about the boathouses, the community, and its history. It's called Back Channel Radio. Here's a little clip of it.
GINA FAVANO: Geographically speaking, the back channel is the smaller of two channels in a river that diverged to form an island. The main channel hosts the immense barge traffic, commerce. It's the primary channel. The main stream. But here on the back channel, we're more underground. And it's potentially always under threat. This is Back Channel Radio, a Wolf Spider Island story. Stories from beyond the mainstream. I'm Gina Favano.
CATHY WURZER: And Gina Favano's here to talk about it. Gina, welcome to Minnesota Now.
GINA FAVANO: Hi, Cathy. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
CATHY WURZER: Glad to have you with us. Now we're talking about the Latch Island homes, for folks who are curious. And I know many people know about them. They're this community of boathouses. And just for purposes of definitions here, is there a difference between a boathouse and a houseboat?
GINA FAVANO: Absolutely, yeah. Boathouse, is-- it would be more accurately compared to a floating home. So a houseboat has locomotion. You can put an engine on it or a motor and move it around. And while you can move a boathouse, you'd have to attach it to a boat with a bunch of ropes, and it's a whole different process.
CATHY WURZER: And so you have a boathouse along with your spouse, right? And so is there a little bit of give and movement then? You can feel things moving about?
GINA FAVANO: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Not currently, because we're frozen in for the most part. Although we're usually more frozen in this time of year. There's been a lot of thawing that's occurred in the last week and a half or so.
CATHY WURZER: Latch Island is right off of Winona. And you have a really beautiful description of the community in your podcast. I want folks to listen to that.
GINA FAVANO: Imagine a mosaic of small floating dwellings. Hundreds of turtles climb out of the muck to sun themselves on black logs slick with neon green duckweed. Gar spawn in the shallows between them, their lurching mating dance virtually unchanged for eons. When seen from above, the boathouses present a multi-hued variegated quilt, at once rugged and quaint. Each boathouse is unique. Each shape specially dictated by necessity, resources, and the vision of the builder.
Most of them are small. Picture a shack with one or two rooms built upon an undercarriage made of floating blue plastic barrels. These structures are tied to the shore, and most have a little walkway.
CATHY WURZER: It is a beautiful area, by the way. Just stunning. You're living in a beautiful part of Minnesota. What led you to take up this lifestyle?
GINA FAVANO: Oh, honestly, it was very circumstantial. My husband's from Minnesota, and he had been working on resurrecting a boathouse for a few years before he and I got together. And we were-- excuse me-- dividing the year between the East Coast and here in Minnesota up until the pandemic hit. And then we were here full time or we've been here full time since then.
And honestly, recording the history and releasing a podcast had almost nothing to do with wanting to highlight this lifestyle and how I live personally. It had almost everything to do with wanting to record the history, which felt very ephemeral. It hadn't been documented in perpetuity almost anywhere. There was some hard copy paper archives that some people have been collecting over the decades, but they were starting to crumble.
So actually I just started out by digitizing decades' worth of documents that were then going to be archived in the Winona County Historical Society. And through that process, I got to know one of my neighbors, John Wuttke, who was in his mid 80s at the time. And he was the main unofficial documentarian of this whole community.
And his personal story was just so special and important. So then I started to record him. So we had over 22 interviews over the course of about 2 and 1/2 years. And again, I was just thinking I would put them in the archives at the County Historical Society. But then eventually came to the conclusion that that didn't necessarily mean that they would be accessible. You had to know that they were there and do a lot of digging.
And his story and a lot of the stories that have been here over the years deserved a wider audience. So then it eventually developed into a podcast. But that was never the original goal for me personally.
CATHY WURZER: How would you describe the folks that live in these boathouses?
GINA FAVANO: They're a unique breed. It's a very labor intensive lifestyle. Where we are on the island, we're off grid. So meaning there's no connection with any utilities. So you're hauling water and firewood and creating your own power, whether it's through solar panels or a generator or wind generators. So definitely there's a kind of a rugged type of person that's drawn to living this way.
But again, it was the older folks who had been here since the genesis of the island community that really motivated me to want to record the history of this place. Because it is evolving and changing and shifting, like most places in the world right now. And I was just really consumed with worry that this story would just become ephemeral and eventually lost over the generations if they were only living in people's memories.
CATHY WURZER: There's been, of course, news stories done on the boaters, boathousers. And that it dealt with a fight with the DNR and the city of Winona. So some folks remember those stories. What were those fights like for those folks who live there?
GINA FAVANO: There's no concise way to really answer that. Because all of this occurred over a period of years. And it was a large group of people that were organizing to sanction their homes. I think different people experience it differently. I think it was emotional at times because they had lovingly and thoughtfully built this really specific community. And they were worried about losing them.
And not everybody wanted to become legal, either. Because then that opens you up to being regulated. And that was a concern in people's minds. And again, this goes back to the late '70s through to the early '90s. So this wasn't anything that I was actually around for. So I tried to talk to a wide swath of people. And then I had to go in and fact check everything and make sure that their memories were on point. So it was a long process.
CATHY WURZER: See, before you go-- I have about a minute left. Are some of the concerns that you're dealing with now climate change, gentrification? What are the threats now?
GINA FAVANO: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's something that we talk a little bit about in the podcast, was, those changes are inevitable. And I definitely had a lot of questions for people that have been here for the duration. Like, how important do you think it is that people continue to live this way? Is it important? Should we continue to protect it?
And I don't have any easy answers to those questions. I just knew that this-- I mean, the stories were just so precious and unique to this region. And that was my role in this, was, I'm just going to be the scribe to these stories. But oh yeah, climate change is-- I mean, even-- I've been here less than 10 years, and even in that amount of time, I noticed some pretty remarkable changes.
CATHY WURZER: Well, for folks who want to listen, of course you have Back Channel Radio. And that is at backchannelradio.org. Gina, thank you so much.
GINA FAVANO: Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
CATHY WURZER: Likewise. Gina Favano's been with us. She's the creator of the host of the podcast Back Channel Radio about the boathouse community in Winona.
Download transcript (PDF)
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.