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Track active fires, smoke impacts, wildfires near the Boundary Waters and North Shore updates during the 2026 fire season. Latest Updates >
Ted Gostomski, the co-author of Island Life: An Isle Royale Nature Guide and a Biologist/Science Writer at the Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Program of the National Park Service, will speak on Friday at Voyaguers National Park in International Falls.
Exploration for copper and nickel resources in Northeastern Minnesota has reached the borders of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of the Superior National Forest. While prospectors hope to find useful and valuable minerals, environmental advocates worry about impacts on the wilderness.
The annual drum count of the ruffed grouse indicates that the population is increasing steadily. This is good news for the state’s most popular game bird.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has sprayed pesticide this week along the North Shore to slow the spread of invasive gypsy moths. The agency applied BTK via aircraft near Tofte and Lutsen.
Five wildlife protection groups have filed a complaint in Federal District Court challenging the removal of federal Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Upper Midwest.
Voyageurs National Park will use $230,000 in federal stimulus funding to rehabilitate campsites over the next two years. The money appropriated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will support work on some 38 campsites in the park.
Visit Grand Portage National Monument this weekend—for free! The National Park Service is offering three free weekends at sites across the country this summer.
The wilderness and environmental advocacy group Friends’ of the Boundary Waters Wilderness is concerned with the climate-change impact that destruction of 1000 acres of peat bog for the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine in Northeastern Minnesota will have.
Canada’s Ministry of Natural Resources is funding a new study of the sturgeon population in Quetico Provincial Park. Once abundant, the sturgeon is now considered a “species at risk.”
Today’s kids do not connect with the outdoors or nature because societal changes have taken away the opportunity to do so. National park and wilderness lovers take heed; the implications are significant for child development, but they are also crucial for the long-term protection of natural places.
Copper-nickel mining projects in northern Minnesota continue to move forward as environmentalists question the impact of the proposed mines and proponents hail the economic benefits. Meanwhile, the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness notes that the land for the proposed PolyMet mine was once identified for its ecological significance.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that the State of Minnesota looked for ways to sweeten the deal for U.S. Steel to sell land to the state for a state park on Lake Vermilion. The paper questions whether laws were skirted to procure land for the park strongly supported by Governor Tim Pawlenty.
A new program co-sponsored by author Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods, reviewed in the Spring 2009 print edition of Wilderness News) and the Children & Nature Network inspires families to get outdoors.
Rainy weather has confounded Voyageurs National Park’s efforts to conduct four prescribed burns this spring to further pine and oak regeneration in the International Falls-area park. While the window for spring burning may have passed, burning during the summer months is still a possibility.
Betty Vos Hemstad’s new book spotlights Boundary Waters area wildflowers in a new way. “Wildflowers of the Boundary Waters: Hiking Through the Seasons” depicts northern Minnesota’s wildflowers in various stages of development — from bud, to flower, to seed.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a temporary order requiring all new projects in U.S. Forest Service-managed roadless areas be approved by his office. Apart from the permanently protected Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness, the Superior National Forest contains roughly 62,000 acres of roadless areas, mostly adjoining the BWCAW.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers to count loons on lakes in Cook and Lake county. The one-day count by volunteers is part of the Minnesota Loon Monitoring Survey, now in its 15th year.
A three-year prison sentence for Boundary Waters terrorizer Jay Andrew Olson was upheld by the Minnesota Court of Appeals this week. Olson was one of six men convicted of participating in a drunken shooting spree that frightened campers on Basswood Lake in the BWCA in August of 2007.
A study examining the health of the Namakan Reservoir’s sturgeon population has entered its third year. The study, which could have an impact on proposed hydroelectric projects on Ontario’s Namakan River, seeks to establish baseline information on health of the species of “special concern” in both Minnesota and Ontario.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has assumed management responsibilities for the state’s gray wolf population following the delisting of the wolf as a threatened species.