8/16/08 – The Siebenmanns, long-long-long-time Sawbill customers (45 years!), brought along a special guest on their annual trip this year. Shogo Okada, 22, Yokohama, Japan, got his first glimpse of wilderness when he accompanied Fred Siebenmann III, Fred Siebenmann Jr. and Welden Blum on a Boundary Waters canoe trip through Brule Lake. Okada, an undergraduate pre-law student back home, is in the United States on a year long ESL exchange program, and is staying with the younger Fred’s family in Portland, Ore. Six months in, he’s already visited Yosemite National Park, toured Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, skied and snowboarded Mt. Hood, in Oregon, whitewater rafted (with Fred III as his private guide) on the Deschutes River, in Oregon, and paddled the Boundary Waters. Who knows what the remaining six months have in store? – Lee

Fred Siebenmann Jr., Welden Blum, Fred Siebenmann III and Shogo Okada (left to right) take a well-earned break in the canoe yard after their trip.