Snoloha [sno - loh - hah], n.  A lifestyle shared by those who live, play, travel, vacation, relax, or simply enjoy life somewhere between the islands and the arctic.

Snoloha’s roots are firmly planted in a vacation state of mind due to a much needed escape from the realities of everyday life.

Sounds deep. It’s not. It’s quite simple actually.

It was March of 2003. Rod Call had just returned to the blustery winter winds of Michigan after a much needed escape to the Virgin Islands. It was one of those moments in life where you decide to move forward dealing with the daily grind and all that is bothering you…or you pack a backpack, leave it all behind for a while, head to the islands and return with a fresh outlook on life.

Looking back, that seemed to be the right decision.

It was during a long morning commute to work shortly after this island escape that the idea began to take shape. That “ah-ha” moment, if you will.

Driving north along the waters of Lake Michigan from Traverse City to Petoskey (Michigan), Rod passed a sign that he had seen countless times before, “45th Parallel Halfway Between Equator and North Pole.”

This time it got him thinking back to his recent islands trip and how within mere hours he went from enjoying a cold beer at the humid Puerto Rico airport bar to the snow covered grounds of the Detroit Airport.

As he left the 45th Parallel sign in the rearview, he leaned over to the passenger seat of his Jeep and scribbled on a Rolling Stone magazine, “somewhere between the islands and the arctic.”

He didn’t think too much about it at the time. It just seemed like the right thing to do at that moment. It wasn’t an instant epiphany…until some time passed and the brand slowly began to take shape.

Having worked in the specialty outdoor / ski / snowboard retail industry for a number of years, Rod began researching and developing his idea for a new lifestyle brand. A brand that’s purpose was to promote escapism…to the islands, the mountains, the beach, the hammock, the fireplace, or the woods…basically that place that made you feel relaxed, inspired or energized. Your very own “somewhere”.

It would remain on the backburner for a few years, but life was not waiting around. After leaving the specialty retail world and getting an office job with his very own cubicle (which lasted a full three weeks), in order to finish the ever so elusive Bachelor’s degree he had sought out for fresh out of high school, which led to a ‘normal’ 9-5 marketing job with weekends & holidays off…he eventually (finally) realized it was now or never because the misery of a 9-5 office job might end up as a homicide.

So by February of 2007 Snoloha was ‘officially’ unveiled to the public.

It’s been a wild roller coaster ride since then. But one thing is certain, the Snoloha lifestyle is alive and well…and the connection it has with folks around the world is powerful.

A lifestyle people live everyday, a couple times a year, once in a lifetime, or in their minds all the time. It's carrying a vacation mentality through everyday life, celebrating and enjoying all the seasons that get thrown at us or that we desire to escape to.

It is both a physical location and a mental state of mind. So whether you're island hopping in the Caribbean or heli-skiing in Alaska, sitting in a cubicle wishing you were somewhere else, or on a plane headed "anywhere", Snoloha is that place where you feel relaxed, inspired, or energized.