I will check those areas out to see about the clean water, air, etcetera. Thanks, Wildman800!

Are you serious? What is appealing about the demographics? I thought we were talking about pollution. I must admit those localities aren't on the top of my list, but you never know..My thought is that they are still too hevily populated to be reasonably pollution free.....

winter in canoe country is long.say November to May.when winter arrives you could live like the old trappers did in small cabins called tilts.lots of fish and game.this not so backwoods,like a bit farther north in Canada,that you could not snowshoe or ski to a plowed road,the Echo Trail,in a few days.in fact going back into the lakes to ice fish and just hang out is a winter sport.if you don't want to live in the woods just pick out any small hamlet around Orr or Ely Minnesota.there are folks living in million buck log homes and others in something just above shack level.

My brother has a nice little place just north of Bemidji (well below a million dollars, but very comfortable). I am told that the fish from the lake should not be eaten by pregnant women and sparingly by others. I understand this due to heavy metal contamination, primarily mercury.

The trouble with Giardia is that it is transmissible to so many species... practically every mammal can transmit it. And, since that is the case, I really do wonder about the accuracy of the supposed spike of cases beginning in the 1960s. Actual increase of cases, or just an increase of diagnosis due to improved medical techniques?

Sue

hike..i know Bemidji well,i went to the college there when i got out of the Army in 1969.it was said to be a good place to settle back in the old days because it was in heavy forest and not out on the prairie where the wind drove the heavy snows.the mercury is everywhere,they have the same warning for the native women in the far north of Canada.giardia is one of those "who you talk too" issues.i wish i had bookmarked the post at a science blog but a guy did a study that found it was not nearly as wide spread as it is said to be. a canoe buddy filters all of his water,pointed to a wilderness lake he told me "every drop" had the cyst.on the other hand i seldom filter and have never been effected.

As with many things, luck plays a part.

If you are in a serious survival situation, the unfiltered water you drank would probably give you giardiosis, diarrhea, dehydration, etc. If you were found soon, you would have drunk clean water with no repercussions.

I guess it all depends on if the wild animals poop in the water in that area, or not!

Sue

In short: Nowhere.

Scotchgard ingredients belong to a family of fluorocarbon chemicals that degrade to form perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). 3M has manufactured PFOS since 1948, and in 2000 was expected to produce more than 10 million pounds of the compound for use in Scotchgard products. It does not anymore. It's in the blood of every human being now. PFOS is in most fish. It's found in the Antarctic.

Eating too many fish is problematic. Many fish contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), toxic industrial compounds that were banned in 1979, but that persist in the environment. Mercury is in most fish now too - more than two servings a week of fish is considered dangerous.

All of the air in the world has contaminants, both from natural and man-made sources, and the USA's air, while much cleaner than, say China's, is often dirty.

Every single state in the US has advisories against drinking any form of untreated water. Now, I know of a spring right in New Jersey that emits clear, wonderful drinking water that needs no treatment - but they monitor it daily in case that changes.

30 years ago, my brother used to canoe the Hudson bay, and they would drink right out of it - but a few kids got bad bouts of Giardia and they stopped. I don't know about today.

Now just a minute. The last time I looked, Hudson Bay was connected to the rest of the world's oceans (and I just checked Google Earth, to be sure)and hence would be salt water. I would think that if you drank directly from it, Giardia would be the least of your problems. Were they near a large river where the surface water might be fresh?

I suspect that spiking giardia cases has to do with reduced numbers of people naturally immune as municipal water became ubiquitous, a lack of exposure in childhood, and an increase in sensitivity of medical diagnosis.

It isn't just giardia. Most westerners who visit Mexico are prone to getting "Montezuma's revenge". Natives have developed immunity from long exposure to the native pathogens.

The up side of treated municipal water is safety and a smaller infant mortality rate, and both children and adults can freely enjoy water that is both cheap and quite safe. The down side is that you're digestive tract remains unchallenged by disease and may remain potentially naive. If/when you emerge from the treated water bubble and are exposed to diseases you will have little to no immunity and will like have a rough time adjusting.