Star Tribune
Dan Cooke and his gear-making ‘genius’ covered the Minnesota outdoors
Explorer Will Steger recalled “emergency mukluks” before his epic expeditions.
Camping guru Cliff Jacobson remembered a specially made, multicolored tarp that caught the eye of a rescue plane in remote Saskatchewan.
Titans of Minnesota’s outdoors community like Steger and Jacobson, and everyday folks who used and coveted Dan Cooke’s gear and called him a friend, are reflecting this week on his adventurousness, kindness and gift for engineering exceptional products.
Cooke, 68, died Monday of brain cancer. He lived in Lino Lakes, where from his home he ran Cooke Custom Sewing, making items like canoe spray skirts and tarps that for some were must-haves on any paddling or camping trip. To his fans, there were his products, and everything else ran a distant second.
Steger said he and Cooke worked together on designs through iterations of drawings and scribbles beginning in 1988. Some of that work happened on Steger’s visits to Lino Lakes, where Cooke and his wife, Karen, continued their sewing business from their basement after living up north. Karen died of ovarian cancer in 2018.
Nothing stumped Cooke, Steger added. “He was a kind soul and generous,” Steger said Tuesday. “And genius.”
Cooke was a fixture in the canoeing world, producing revamped packs and canoe covers, for example, and chatting with fans at shows like Canoecopia in Madison, Wis., or Midwest Mountaineering expos. He said in an interview several years ago that he was the ultimate field-tester before his products went out.
“I make them for myself,” Cooke said. “If they work for me, I like to share them with other people.”
His children said in a Facebook post after his death that their father got a lot of test opportunities — he was always planning his next trip: “He loved being outdoors, so much so that when he couldn’t get away, you would find him in the back yard setting up a tent in the middle of winter. In the last few years, he was able to enjoy time spent canoeing down rivers in Alaska, kayaking in Antarctica, hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro, exploring Iceland, and visiting family across the U.S.”
That spirit ran deep in Minnesota’s wilderness, too. Jason Zabokrtsky, who owns and runs Ely Outfitting Co., connected with Cooke over their shared experience as guides into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for Adventurous Christians children’s camp off the Gunflint Trail.
Zabokrtsky now outfits his customers with packs computer-designed and made by Cooke.
“It so tough to find something so simple and yet so extraordinary,” he said of Cooke’s packs. “They wear like steel. Super bomber. So much design, so much thought and so much understanding put into them.”
Zabokrtsky laughed at the memory of Cooke’s home workspace — a “Santa’s workshop” stuffed with fabric and bits of gear specialty parts — that ran counter to the end product: exacting detail and even upgrades with consistent quality.
“He knew how people used them. He was part of the community of users and he … was constantly talking to us all,” Zabokrtsky said. The outfitter, for example, recalled that Cooke added bright red pack handles when he learned people were picking up packs by the compression straps.
Jacobson, also highly regarded in the tight paddling community and a popular guidebook writer, said Cooke came up with longer flaps on canoe packs to help keep gear dry.
“Some people think expertise is how many trips you’ve done and how far off the beaten path. Expertise is critical thinking about what is going on every time you do a trip, and that was what Dan did,” Jacobson said. “‘How can I make camping better? How can I make paddling better?'”
The veteran outdoorsman longed for more time with Cooke, his longtime friend and collaborator.
“I wanted to paddle more rivers with Dan.”
Cooke’s son Nate told the Star Tribune that the outpouring of condolences online and elsewhere are comforting.
“It feels like another trade show when all of Dan’s friends come to say hi,” he said.
Plans are underway for a public service in August at Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, where Cooke taught people how to canoe.
Nate Cooke is also preparing to carry on the business he’s helped his father build.
“For me, it’s mighty big shoes to step into.”
Two people from Minnetonka were killed late Friday afternoon when their GMC Suburban ran a stop sign and was struck by a GMC Yukon headed north on Hwy. 169 west of Palisade, Minn.
According to the State Patrol, Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, and Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, were dead at the scene. The driver of the Suburban, a 61-year-old Minnetonka man, was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The Suburban, pulling a trailer, was headed east on Grove Street/County Rd. 3 at about 5:15 p.m. when it failed to stop at Hwy. 169 and was struck by the northbound Yukon. The Yukon then struck two westbound vehicles stopped at the intersection.
Four people from Zimmerman, Minn., in the Yukon, including the driver, were taken to HCMC with life-threatening injuries, while two passengers were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Three girls in the Yukon ranged in age from 11 to 15.
The drivers of the two vehicles struck by the Yukon were not injured, the State Patrol said. Road conditions were dry at the time of the accident, and alcohol was not believed to have been a factor. All involved in the accident were wearing a seat belt except for Elizabeth Baldwin.
Hill City police and the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office assisted at the scene.
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
