Women’s Off-Grid Lifestyle Immersion Experiences 2024!
Bring your friends and/or come alone and meet new friends. You will be immersed in our off-grid wilderness lifestyle with sled dogs. Each month and season brings a different experience with each of the below….. and more!
- Up to 8 participants. Come alone or bring your friends.
- Stay in our Guest Suite and Tiny Cabins
- Sled Dogs care, exercise & enrichment
- Beeswax Candle workshop tour and some hands on
- Plant medicine ID by season, respectful harvesting & use
- Hiking in some of the most beautiful places in the world
- Dark Sky Sanctuary gazing just out the back door
- Mindful Paddling into the BWCA (Available for additional charge)
- Fall Sled Dog training on wheels (Available for additional charge)
- $348 per person for two full days of living the life & three nights lodging. You bring and cook your own food. The Guest Suite and each Tiny Cabin have their own kitchens.
2024 Available dates:
- June 10-13
- July 8-11
- August 5-8
- September 23-26
- October 21-24
- November 11-14
- Customize your own dates and bring 2 or more friends. Be in touch for availability.
Register by email NOW before your dates are booked!
Past Participants have said
- Nowhere else in the world can you get as many of these unique experiences in one place
- The Points Unknown experiences are restorative & healing
- Bucket list!
- Once in a lifetime experiences
You will gain
- New friendships that could last a lifetime
- New outdoor skills
- A greater appreciation for off grid living
- A deeper love and understanding of working sled dogs
- Rich knowledge and appreciation for this beautiful place which is the traditional ancestral and contemporary homelands of Ojibwe and other Indigenous people.
Women’s Winter Adventure Trips 2025
Women’s Winter Adventures
Thursday, February 6th – Sunday, February 9th, 2025
Thursday, March 6th – Sunday, March 9th 2025
Choose the date listed above or BRING UP TO 4 PEOPLE and Customize your dates! See the link below for details. $1,495 includes lodging for 3 nights, instruction, adventure & food.
This off grid experience is for women who want to actively participate in every aspect of this experience with the highlight being learning to run a small team of sled dogs on miles and miles of beautiful trails in the remote wilderness of northern Minnesota. At Points Unknown, we offer step by step instruction and there is an atmosphere of encouragement, support and team work. A lot goes into an off-grid, solar-powered lifestyle with sled dogs in a remote location and you will get to experience most aspects of it during your stay.
In addition, if you have any energy left, there are numerous other activities available to you that include snow shoeing and cross country skiing. (Please bring your own equipment.) We want each participant to receive the maximum amount of hands-on experience and one-one instruction. Because of that, this adventure is limited to FOUR participants. To learn more about this adventure, please CLICK HERE.
The Points Unknown adventure trips are all educationally based. This means you won’t get a dog sled ride, you’ll learn how to mush a small team of our sled dogs. You won’t be led through the wilderness by a guide, you’ll learn how to do your own navigation with a map and compass. Learning wilderness survival skills will help build self-confidence and enhance your future experiences. Either on a trek into the wilderness, on a leisurely hike around one of your local parks or in the adventures of your every day life.
Our adventures are for those who want to be actively engaged with a more simple life in the woods. This includes those who want to be involved in every aspect of the adventure offered. Click here for a gear list for this adventure.
Beyond BOW Workshops: Dog Sled, Paddle, Hike, Lifestyle Immersion, Writing & Reflection
What is BOW? It is a wonderfully empowering organization within the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources called Becoming an Outdoors Woman. Points Unknown instructors have been working with BOW since 2005 and are excited to be able to provide “Beyond” BOW experiences right here at Points Unknown!
Our Lifestyle Immersion workshop schedule will appear soon for the 2024 season. Please visit the link below to see what experiences were offered in the past.
Mission Points on Women’s Adventures
Points Unknown holds six things truly important to its mission.
- Safety
- Relationship with Dogs
- Learning and Self Discovery
- Fun
- Wilderness Appreciation
- Excellent Meals
Our Hope for Women’s Adventures
It’s our hope that those attending a Points Unknown adventure will leave having found all of the following:
- New Friends
- An Invigorated Spirit
- New Winter Survival Knowledge
- A Deeper Love for the Outdoors
- A New Love and Understanding of Sled Dogs
Points Unknown has a smoke-free and drug-free environment. This means, no smoking or use of illegal drugs is allowed in the buildings or on the property. Alcohol and learning and working with our dogs don’t mix. You are welcome to bring a bottle of your favorite alcoholic beverage to share for evenings in the cabin. However, alcohol at any other time and excessive and/or irresponsible use of alcohol is not permitted.
About the Instructors
Linda Newman
Linda grew up all over the United States in a U.S. Forest Service family. The wilderness has always been a driving force in her life. She had a dog all through her childhood but didn’t find her true passion for them until the 1990s. Linda has been training dogs since 1994. She got her first sled dogs in 2000 and thus began her sled dog training. She came from a background of Australian Shepherds, obedience and agility training. Linda now applies this training to her sled dogs so they can all reach their full potential in and out of harness.
Linda’s dream of a career that included her passion for the outdoors and her love and respect for her canine companions became a reality in early 2005 when she started Points Unknown. Points Unknown was contracted to provide dog mushing adventures at a popular northern Minnesota Lodge in Grand Marais, MN, USA in the winters of 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 and Linda headed up this program, creating a number of different dog sledding adventures and experiences for their guests.
She is currently a DNR Becoming an Outdoors Women program instructor, and is giving dog mushing instruction at her homestead in Hovland and providing demonstrations at local events. Linda feels strongly about community service and, to that end, was the chairperson for the Cook County Parks & Trails Commission and is currently on the Planning Commission and Board of Adjustments for Cook County, MN. To read the recent Sled Dog Info feature on Linda, please click HERE.
Hailey Quanbeck
Hailey was born and raised in Minneapolis, and attended Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN. She recently began a career in law enforcement around the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN area. She has lived around animals her whole life. Hailey grew up with a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, cat, parrot, and guinea pig. Her love for the outdoors began at a young age, traveling to her grandparents cabin in Wisconsin and being taught about the woods and how to fish by her father and grandfather. Hailey’s passion for the outdoors has only grown as time goes on and she spends as much of her summers as possible in northern Minnesota on canoeing and backpacking trips.
Hailey met Linda in August of 2005, and has been addicted to sled dogs and volunteering for Points Unknown ever since. Whenever her busy life allows, she can be found visiting Points Unknown, Linda and the sled dogs, doing whatever chores need to be done. She is an enormous asset to the kennel. Not only that, but the dogs have helped her to realize more about herself and the world around her, and now she wishes to share her knowledge and passions with others. Hailey was a full-time handler/guide in the winter of 2013-2014 and now, returns to help handle the dogs and to guide from time to time and as needed.