Long before Steger Mukluks became a beloved name among winter campers, mushers, everyday northerners, and Arctic explorers, founder Patti Steger was just another newcomer to the Northwoods, shivering her way through subzero days.
Discovering a Better Boot
Patti moved north in 1978 and soon met polar explorer Will Steger. Before long, she was helping teach winter survival courses. Her tall frame and long limbs made her especially prone to the cold.
“I was just freezing,” she said. “I kept telling Will, ‘There’s got to be something warmer than these pack boots.’”
One day, he disappeared into a storage area and came back with a pair of Native-made mukluks. Soft, flexible, and almost slipper-like, they didn’t look like serious expedition gear.
“I laughed and said, ‘That can’t be warm,’” Patti recalled.
From Survival Course to Innovation
In 1981, planning began for what would become the Steger International Polar Expedition, a long and demanding journey across the High Arctic. For the trip, Patti and the team ordered mukluks from Churchill, Manitoba, where a sewing company run by a non-Native woman employed both Native and non-Native seamstresses. Patti had special felted-wool liners—called “tossos,” from the Finnish word—made to pair with the boots.
“It was the most extreme environment I’d ever been in,” she said. “And I never once had cold feet.”
That experience changed everything. When she returned, Patti became determined to make her own version of those life-saving boots. Money was tight, so she started small. Customers brought her their own leather. She traced their feet on paper and stitched mukluks one pair at a time, working from home.
“The big trick was the bottom,” she said. “A mukluk without a good sole isn’t very useful.”
“It’s your blood supply that keeps you warm,” Patti said. “If your feet are locked in something stiff, you lose that circulation. Mukluks are lightweight, insulated, and flexible, so your feet keep moving and stay warm.”
Building a Business in Ely
As demand grew, Patti built a small, insulated fabric house, then a Quonset hut with a solar wall, on land outside Ely. In 1987, she moved into town and opened a shop. Over the decades, that modest start became an 18,000-square-foot factory on the edge of Ely, powered about 75 percent by solar energy and employing roughly 25 people. Her adult son, Seth Wohsen, now serves as the company’s president.
Today, about 90 percent of Steger Mukluks’ business is online, with customers from across North America and as far away as Europe. Canada has long been a major market, though recent tariffs and shifting politics have complicated cross-border sales.
“Mukluk is an Inuit term,” she said. “These boots have been used for centuries by northern peoples—Inuit, various Native tribes, and Laplanders in Scandinavia. I learned mukluk-making from Nancy Magrum, a nurse in Yellowknife who lived on Joliffe Island in Yellowknife Bay [Northwest Territories], more than 2,000 miles northwest of Duluth. Mukluk-making isn’t exclusive to any one group or solely a Native American tradition, but I have deep respect for all the cultures that shaped it.”
A Global Following
Through the years, Steger Mukluks has outfitted countless winter travelers and sponsored boots for major expeditions, including the 1990 Trans-Antarctica trek. Patti and Will divorced in the late 1980s, but they remain close.
Beloved By Those Who Live in the Cold North
Northern Wilds caught up with Brian Darley and Sue Darley-Hill at a December event. They moved to Duluth in 2003 after living in other cold-weather cities. By their second year in Duluth, they purchased Steger Mukluks. Brian walked long distances to the bus stop, and Suzy walked 5 miles to work. She said her feet never got cold, but the fancy brickwork on downtown Duluth sidewalks could be slippery.
“We’ve had our [Steger] boots for 22 years, and the bottoms were utterly worn out. So, we went straight to the horse’s mouth [the shop in Ely] to get new pairs,” said Darley-Hill. “They keep my feet warm all the time.”
Linda Nervick of Winter Fun 101, a company devoted to where to go, what to do, and how to do it in the Upper Midwest and Thunder Bay, shared her praise for Patti’s work.
“She’s truly a gift to us winter lovers. I’ve enjoyed wearing Steger Mukluks since the 1990s—love them!”
Steger Mukluks retail store is located at 33 East Sheridan in Ely. To learn more, visit: mukluks.com.