Pagami Creek Fire in the BWCAW
The Pagami Creek Fire burns 93,000 acres, blazes into the largest naturally occurring wildfire in a century. By Charlie Mahler In the heat of summer, with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area …
Editor
Inside the Pagami Creek Fire
A couple of boundary waters paddlers found themselves on Lake Insula on Sept 12 when the Pagami Creek Fire took off – this video shows them caught off guard by the …
Wilderness News Summer Edition is Online
The Summer 2011 Issue of Wilderness News Print Edition is now online! Click here to download the PDF > Featured in this issue: Chik-Wauk Museum and …
Frank B. Hubachek, Jr. (“Bill”) 1923-2011
It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Frank B. Hubachek, Jr. (“Bill”) on January 21, 2011. The 2010 summer issue of Wilderness News featured Hub’s Place, the …
Invasive Species in the Boundary Waters—A question of what, not if
In July, University of Minnesota forest ecologist Lee Frelich and Doug and Peggy Wallace, coordinators of a citizen’s monitoring group, bushwhacked up a ridge in the Wolf Lake inventoried roadless area …
Meet Charles Kelly
President emeritus of the Oberholtzer Foundation and QSF Board Member When Charles Kelly was five years old, he would climb out of bed, grab his pillow and his blanket and lie …
Basswood Beach Resort and Canoe Trips
Travel back in time with an historic family fishing lodge that thrived in what is now the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness…
Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center
By Rob Kesselring Take a drive to the end of the Gunflint Trail and spend a few hours at Chik-Wauk Museum, the word serendipity will come to mind. Could there …
MN State Parks Suffer during Shutdown
MN State Parks are losing $1 million a week in camping permits, trail fees, fishing licenses and concessions as the government shutdown drags on during the height of tourist season. How will the economies of northern Minnesota towns be affected?
Mining Update
By Charlie Mahler While industry leaders, environmental activists, and northeastern Minnesota stakeholders await publication of the revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement for PolyMet Mining’s proposed copper-nickel and precious metals mine, mining …
Building Wooden Canoes for a Rite of Passage
Picture yourself venturing out for the first time into the wilderness of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Imagine the combination of serenity and wonderment you experience as you ply these pristine lakes and rivers, knowing that you are carrying all you need to survive in a sleek, seventeen-foot, skin-on-frame canoe. Now imagine that you just built that canoe with your own hands over the course of eight days. For six teenage apprentices with Urban Boatbuilders, this was the culminating event in the summer of 2010.
On the Scent of Adventure
By Rob Kesselring It’s the smell more than anything, whether you are varnishing paddle blades in preparation for the upcoming canoe season, or spring cleaning and deliberating on whether to put …
Devils Cove: The Most Beautiful Place on Earth
By Greg Breining Imagine the Coldwell Peninsula—a dark fist jutting from the Ontario shore of Lake Superior, five miles across, with rocky knuckles. Poised on one knuckle, like the stone of …
Old Photos Provide a Peek into BWCA History
By Alissa Johnson In our last issue, Wilderness News published photos from an album uncovered in an attic trunk. They once belonged to Big Bill Wenstrom, who was the last private …
Wilderness News Print Edition – Spring 2011
The Spring 2011 Issue of Wilderness News Print Edition is now online! Experience Lake Superior from a kayak, travel back in time with an early voice for the Boundary Waters, and follow urban teens-at-risk into the wilderness in canoes they built by hand.
It’s Gunflint Green Up Time Again!
Help restore the Ham Lake Fire Area to a cedar, white, red, and jack pine forest. Join together with Gunflint Trail community members to plant tree seedlings and help rejuvenate this great place.
Wilderness News Print Edition Fall-Winter 2010
The Fall-Winter 2010 Issue of Wilderness News Print Edition is now online! Follow women into the wilderness, take a trip back in time, and catch up with one of the Gunflint Trail’s most adventurous families…
Photo Gallery: Superior National Forest Boundary Waters Historical Photos
These photographs were found in a U.S. Forest Service photo album, circa 1920. At the time the region was known as the roadless area of the Superior National Forest. Each photo …
Book Review Paddle North: Canoeing the Boundary Waters–Quetico Wilderness
By Greg Breining and Layne Kennedy Published by Minnesota Historical Society Press 2010, 138 pages, $29.95 hardcover Reviewed by Michael Kelberer Paddle North is a collection of essays by Greg Breining …
Andy and Sue Ahrendt
What it truly means to be a ‘Boundary Waters Family’ The Ahrendt’s personal histories are steeped in the Boundary Waters experience. Having spent summers as staff at a local camp, they …