Backwoods Services

About Backwoods Services

Out past the last streetlight the driveways around Eagle River stop being driveways and become corridors cut through red pine, and that is where Backwoods Services does its plowing. Winter shows up in the forest first, where the canopy toward Anvil Lake holds a load of snow until one gust drops all of it across a two-track. The work starts in the dark — headlights against tall trunks, a blade finding gravel it has learned by feel, banks stacked back so the next storm has somewhere to go. By the time the sun comes up gray and low, a cabin a half mile off the county road has a way out again. A lane opened through country that would rather stay closed is worth getting up for.