A visit to the Hudson River Valley reveals family history stretching back to the Revolutionary War and beyond. What lessons does it hold amidst today’s government overreach and global instability? Two Thousand Miles to Pictou: Part II - American Pastoral. open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...

As I took out the garbage before the New Year, I saw a bald eagle take flight. It got me thinking. 2025 was quite the year. www.bayviewwonder.com/p/weve-wande...

I left campus for the last time on Homecoming Day. jjakin.substack.com/p/homecoming

Reflections while washing chalk off the administration building at a liberal arts college. www.bayviewwonder.com/p/chalk-on-t...

Some days it don't come easy. Tales from the South Metro Karaoke Circuit, circa 2011-2013. www.bayviewwonder.com/p/some-days-...

Hooks: important tools for fishing and effective communication. www.bayviewwonder.com/p/hooks

What do Mountain Dew, Top the Tater, and a ragtag group of teenagers known as the Sweet Dreams Speed Team have in common? Read the latest from Bayview Wonder: www.bayviewwonder.com/p/sweet-drea...

Check out our new landing page! www.bayviewwonder.com

I’m not sure exactly when we got engaged. It might’ve been somewhere between Chippewa Falls and Wausau, Wisconsin. It was early July, 2018. We’d been dating for six months and it had been serious from pretty much day one. It was time to talk about marriage. jjakin.substack.com/p/lucky-charms

The flags outside the campus center hung at half staff on first-year move-in day. It was Friday of Labor Day weekend, a still morning on the hilltop campus above the Minnesota River Valley. I couldn’t decide if the lifeless flags looked tired or ashamed. jjakin.substack.com/p/tears-and-...

The week I turned 24, I emptied my savings account to buy a used Harley Sportster from my friend’s mom’s second ex-husband. jjakin.substack.com/p/misadventu...

Five traps per trawl and 56 trawls means that 280 lobster traps need to be checked, cleaned, baited, and reset. This takes place six days a week from May 1 - June 30 on our little corner of the Atlantic. Read about my first excursions on the lobster boat... jjakin.substack.com/p/markets-an...

Fish Camp: A meditation on masculinity through the lens of an annual multigenerational fishing trip. And some poetry to boot. jjakin.substack.com/p/fish-camp

When I met my now-wife for the first time, I was wearing short denim cut-offs and a leather tool belt. We didn’t start dating until over a year later, but with an introduction like that it’s really no wonder she found me so charming and all-around irresistible. open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...

A lot of people look at me and think I used to be a wrestler. I get it. But back in those schoolboy days, once autumn wore on and the weather turned cold, I didn’t wrestle or play hockey or shoot hoops. I was on the swimming team. open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...

A week ago, I got caught in the closest thing Pictou Island has to a traffic jam when I stopped for two minutes so the mail plane could take off from the stretch of gravel road that doubles as a runway. jjakin.substack.com/p/back-in-th...

Just in! Bayview Wonder stickers, including the first one seen in the wild at Nate’s Barber Shop in Saint Peter, Minnesota. See what they’re about: open.substack.com/pub/jjakin

The summer washer toss tournament on off-grid Pictou Island, Nova Scotia, is much more than a lawn game. The annual tournament is a distillation of life in all its joy, sorrow, competition, and community. jjakin.substack.com/p/washer-toss

I signed up for a ghost tour. “…I approached a man holding a clipboard and wearing the sharp black suit of a Victorian undertaker. A top hat and spectacles completed the look. I introduced myself and handed him a twenty. He directed me to sign a waiver.” Read: jjakin.substack.com/p/that-place...

Lawn care is a growth area for me in Nova Scotia. There are a lot of growth areas. But even if I didn’t know it at the time, I’ve been training for this since that first visit to the province back in 2019. Read now: open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...

"The inland miles of the route looked like the cutting-room floor after a postcard photoshoot, pretty enough to capture on film but nothing that anybody’d buy at the drugstore to send home." - A Love Letter from the Sunrise Trail jjakin.substack.com/p/a-love-let...

100 subscribers! Thanks to all who've started reading about the view from my little corner of the world as I make the move from Minnesota to Nova Scotia. Want to see what it’s about? “A Love Letter from the Sunrise Trail” drops tomorrow morning! Catch up (and sign up) here: jjakin.substack.com

I woke up Saturday morning thinking I’d spend the afternoon at the beach. Pictou Island had other plans. open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...

I'm among the sixth generation of my family to be raised in the same small town in Minnesota. Soon, I'm moving 2,000 miles to Nova Scotia. Read the first edition of Bayview Wonder: open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...

Join me on the move from the flat, rich farmland of Minnesota to the heavily forested hills and rocky shores of Nova Scotia. I’m moving to a community called Bayview—and I’m keeping my eyes open to wonder. open.substack.com/pub/jjakin/p...