In this episode of Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, host Stephanie Hansen speaks with Jordyn Stocks from Paragis Outfitters Bookstore about the impact of recent wildfires on the Ely community, the role of the bookstore in supporting local culture, and the hidden gems of Ely. They discuss the diverse offerings of the bookstore, including popular book recommendations and the importance of community support during challenging times.
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Stephanie Hansen (00:00.824)
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, but I also talk to other people too. And I’ve been doing a little mini-series here for VisitElyMN.com to help you get to know some of the cool Ely businesses. Ely is my second home. It is the place where I wrote the True North Cabin cookbook, and it’s very near and dear to my heart. And you may have heard that they
Have experienced some wildfires in the Boundary Waters Canoe area and around that area this summer. As of this recording, I think the fires are about 40 to 50% contained. Some of the evacuation areas have been lifted. And the town has just really done a great job of keeping people informed and safe. And I’m here today with Jordan Stocks. She is from Piragis Outfitters.
And she particularly runs the bookstore that opened gosh, it was last summer already, wasn’t it, Jordyn?
Jordyn Stocks (00:59.77)
Yes, yeah. So in the new space, we’ve been there since last May, but the bookstore itself has been around in some version for over 20 years now. So it’s
Stephanie Hansen (01:11.286)
So what happened is is there was in the Piragis store, there was the bookstore on the second level, and they used to have another building down the street that they did some surplus kind of sales, and they’ve merged a lot of that together inside this building. And then you guys have paddle boards and canoes also across the street. Piragis sort of owns this corner that has a lot of fun stuff going on in Ely and
I know that with the boundary waters permits being canceled and just opening up more recently to daytime. And I imagine we’ll get some more areas that’ll open up here as the summer progresses. Has it been a hard time for you guys at the store?
Jordyn Stocks (01:54.437)
It’s it’s yeah, it’s been a little bit different. It’s been a little quieter as you can imagine, in outfitting particularly without having the boundary waters open. We’ve definitely seen some slowdown in traffic there.
Stephanie Hansen (02:07.315)
And when you think about the bookstore, yeah. What
Jordyn Stocks (02:11.732)
Yeah, the bookstore and the store have maintained like we’ve still been busy. We’ve still seen traffic. you know, not as busy as it would normally be. Blueberry festival would have been this weekend, as you know. that didn’t happen. But yeah, overall it’s still been we’re hanging in there. It’s still been still been a good weekend, but yeah, quieter.
Stephanie Hansen (02:35.286)
It’s a good example of how smart it is for businesses to kind of silo to. Like, you know, you start with one thing that maybe is your core competency, but then to support the business through non-trip times, you know, you’ve got the clothing store and then you add the bookstore, which is kind of a year-round service business for the town in and of itself. It’s cool to have so many different facets. And I know you guys sell online too and have a pretty big online following.
Jordyn Stocks (02:43.473)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it it it does help that we have a few different things going on with the the clothing and the gifts and the gear and the books and the online presence. So that is that’s been nice to have all of that going on. And we’ve definitely seen an uptick in in online sales and phone sales. So we’re still shipping things out all over the country. We’re still selling things to, you know, fire crews that are here, local folks that are out and about.
People coming up for their cabins. Yeah.
Stephanie Hansen (03:37.612)
What is your history with Paragas and how did you get started and land in the bookstore component?
Jordyn Stocks (03:41.76)
well I’ve been here. This is my third no 14th summer here. So I started out just kind of part-time evening shifts in the retail store. And then the bookstore manager at the time, she was she was moving on to I think she was going back home to Chicago or somewhere. So I was excited about the prospect of working with the books and here I am.
Thirteen years later.
Stephanie Hansen (04:13.856)
And you are an Ely resident. Are there some features about Ely in particular or locations that you feel are like hidden gems?
Jordyn Stocks (04:23.909)
Yeah, so I was actually born and raised here. So I don’t know, growing up I kind of kind of probably took a lot of it for granted, but now you know seeing it with fresh eyes, I guess through people who were coming here for the first time and you know coming here repeatedly year after year. one of one of my favorite things is the the Ely Witten Historical Society. They have this cute little museum in the Vermillion Community College.
It’s it’s free, they just feel like goodwill donations, it’s self guided. But there’s a lot of really interesting historical things there. They have a lot of a lot of books that were written by local folks about history and like very specific history, like the Birdside River or Winton and the lumber industry. So that’s pretty fun local history. I love the sedan mine. It’s it’s open now for underground tours again, which I’m excited to do this summer. I haven’t gone
Years. Yeah, we just went.
Stephanie Hansen (05:19.384)
I’m trying to think.
I did go to the Sedan Underground mine tour. It’s super cool. I think I went, gosh, probably when I first started coming to Ely. So maybe, you know, like gosh, 20 years ago, but it was so cool to be taken underground and through the mine system. And you went with a original miner. So they would talk about like what their day was like. That seems like a unique
aspect of being in northeast Minnesota because mining was such a pillar of what was happening here at the time. And just like being underground and the constant temperature, that was one of the highlights of one of the things I’ve done in town.
Jordyn Stocks (06:04.049)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a it’s a very cool experience. I’d highly recommend doing that. but yeah, other than that, we’ve got a lot of great hiking trails, places to canoe and paddle and swim and do all those things. Berry picking. there’s always something to do. We’ve got a great yeah, we’ve got a great you know, local art scene with the theater and art shows, we’ve got the movie theater.
It’s just a lot of fun stuff to do, always always something.
Stephanie Hansen (06:38.12)
Absolutely. And I know you guys for such a smallish town, your bookstore has like a big footprint. You guys have sold a ton of the True North Cabin cookbooks for me, so thank you. Also, the Moon Tav the Moon Tavern.
Jordyn Stocks (06:49.271)
Yeah. Yeah, of course. Thanks for coming and Yeah. Yeah, the the new one’s been popular.
Stephanie Hansen (06:58.964)
And also Kurt’s book, The Barrens, the Canoe Book has still done well too. So I wanna thank you for that. And I know you guys have a lot of artists that come through and authors that come through. When you’re stocking the bookstore, like who would you say is your ideal customer that you’re stocking for? Because you have like such a great romance section, a good kid section.
Jordyn Stocks (07:21.126)
Gosh, that that’s a tough one. and it changes, I feel. a lot of people are just are looking for a book to take out on trip with them. Something something that’s gonna like be engaging right away, something that’s engrossing. they don’t want a lot of heavy reading necessarily. But we’ve also got people who want, you know, the latest best sellers, the things they’re seeing on on book talk or the
You know, Reese’s book picks or all those things. but also a lot of people looking for local history, things about the area, just something to kind of you know put them in the mindset of being here in the woods. Yeah. A lot of lot of different customers, a lot of variety.
Stephanie Hansen (08:07.916)
I imagine maybe that changes as you get into the winter months too and it’s more of the regular town folk versus the though you have a big visitors that come in the winter too, ‘cause we come and go snowmobiling, we cross country ski.
Jordyn Stocks (08:19.792)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, there’s definitely people coming all year round. It’s it’s of course, you know, a little a little more mellow in the winter, not as much foot traffic. But yeah, definitely a lot of locals will they’ll special order things, you know, they heard about on the radio or they read about in the paper, or you know, they’ve got
their favorite Minnesota authors having a new book come out and they want to pre-order that. So yeah.
Stephanie Hansen (08:49.877)
Yes. I love that. if you could pick three books that you think are kind of buzzy right now that you see that people are excited about, we’ll we’ll throw them out there because I think I’m always looking for new reads.
Jordyn Stocks (09:05.333)
Yeah, so people right now are looking for Theo of Golden. I’m blanking on the author’s name, but they’re also looking for the correspondent and Calamity Club. And then the newest William Kent Krueger book, which won’t be out till
August, but you know, they’re always looking for his latest.
Stephanie Hansen (09:29.815)
I think I’m the only one in the world that didn’t love that Theo of Golden Book, but you know, everybody’s got their own vibes.
Jordyn Stocks (09:34.01)
I haven’t read it, but I’ve definitely that seems like a book that people are either loving or they’re hating. There’s no in-between on that, as far as I’m hearing.
Stephanie Hansen (09:51.192)
I feel like that’s also what is the name of the book? And I bought it at your store about the social media influencer who gets dropped into the eighteen hundreds.
Jordyn Stocks (10:00.429)
Yesteryear. That one’s been really popular too. Yeah, that’s another love it or hate it one. Yeah.
Stephanie Hansen (10:02.347)
Yes. Another book that I yes, like I totally hate read that book and read the whole thing and hated it, but kept going. It it was, you know how sometimes you don’t love a book, but it’s compelling enough to keep reading and sort of see what happens at the end.
it’s fascinating, I think, that that book got so much traction. But I don’t know, like I I love the diversity of what you guys offer there. You have a ton of local too, like Abby Yaminez. I know you have a large section for her romance books. And romance is a big seller.
Jordyn Stocks (10:36.246)
We do. Yep. It is. We never used to carry much of it or like have much of a demand for it, but it’s been like flying off the shelves lately. I I don’t I don’t know what it is, but and and that’s not a genre that I typically read. So I I’ve been relying a lot on like s like coworker and customer recommendations, which has been fun. .
Stephanie Hansen (11:09.793)
It for your personal life, like you probably have to read a lot of books. Like how many books do you think you read in a month?
Jordyn Stocks (11:17.462)
And I I don’t know. I also listen to a lot of books, but I don’t know how many I read in a month. Probably like half a dozen, maybe. I don’t I don’t really know. I do
Stephanie Hansen (11:31.064)
That’s a lot. I listen to people talk about, you know, is listening to a book the same as reading or does it count? It’s like who’s keeping score number one? And yes, it counts. when you can think of a book that is narrated by someone that really makes it come alive, like I just listened to Whistler by Ann Patchett, which I don’t know if I would have liked that book as much if she hadn’t read it.
Jordyn Stocks (11:58.966)
Yeah, I totally get that. I I listen to more nonfiction, more memoirs and things, and I especially love when the author reads it. Like David Sederis will read his own, like Nick Offerman reads his own. They’re both really great to listen to. And it’s just I don’t know, it it I think it brings a lot more to it in that circumstance. So but yeah.
before we break here, I do want to mention that you guys have the catalog. And in the catalog are you have a lot of books in the catalog, a lot of the cookbooks, the seasonal books, there’s also gear.
Jordyn Stocks (13:16.393)
We do. We do, yeah, and we have the website as well that’s fully shoppable, the Boundary Waters catalog website. there’s I mean certainly more than what was in the catalog, but not not as much as in the store. But there is quite a variety there and I’m I’m always happy to special order things too if someone’s looking for something that they’re not seeing in the store or
on the website that’s happy to look for things. Yeah.
Stephanie Hansen (13:43.949)
That’s good to know. That’s good to know because I know there’s been a lot of interest in supporting Ely in particular. I’m going to link there’s a fund that’s been established that the United Way of Northeastern Minnesota is putting together and there’s three pillars that you can donate to. One is nonprofits, one is Ely specific small business, which I appreciate. And also there is an opportunity to donate to the Wildfire Fund. So
I will put that in the show notes. Anything you want people to know specifically about Ely before we break?
Jordyn Stocks (14:15.351)
Great.
gosh. it’s just it’s just such a great place to to live and to visit. There’s you know great people here. Just the way you know you’ve mentioned people have been showing up for one another and supporting people during this just weird, uncertain wildfire time. It’s it’s been really cool. It’s just a great place to be. Lots, yeah.
Stephanie Hansen (14:42.423)
I think so too. We’re lucky. And we’re lucky to have you, Jordan, be such a good supporter of books and reading. And I appreciate everything Piragis has done for our books. And I’m looking forward to seeing you soon. I always pop in to sign books and I’ll see you, I’m sure, in the next week.
Jordyn Stocks (14:59.62)
Yeah, sorry I missed you yesterday. Hopefully we’ll see you soon. All right. Wonderful. You too. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Bye.
Stephanie Hansen (15:02.34)
Yeah. you will, you will. It’s good to see you again, Jordan, and thanks for being a guest. Okay, bye-bye. Mm-hmm.
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