Replinger Honored for Bringing Girls into Outward Bound Programming
We were happy to see Jean Replinger in a slew of newspaper articles this month–during the 1960s she helped open Outward Bound to girls. More recently, as an officer of the …
Inspiration
The Wilderness Canvas: YMCA Camp Menogyn
By Fred Sproat Wilderness is many different things to many different people; it can be a grocery store or a sanctuary, a playground or a classroom. It can be all of …
Gray Hairs: Saving a Place for Youth in the Great Outdoors
By Cliff Jacobson, Wilderness Guide & Outdoor Writer Last year, I presented a program for the Minnesota Canoe Association. About 150 people attended. With the exception of six teenage girls—who were …
Discovering the Birds of the Boundary Waters
By Julie Neitzel Carr Trekking the Boundary Waters, my portages followed a predictable path; I would double-check the distance on my map, hoist up a heavy Duluth pack, or if it …
Oberholtzer Foundation Wins Grant
The Ernest Oberholtzer Foundation recently received an Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society for restoration work at the late wilderness advocate’s Mallard Island residence.
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 …
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.
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 …
Women in the Wilderness
“We can do it. We can do it without a guide.” By Rob Kesselring Wilderness News Contributor It started with a dare in 1986. Seven female volunteers at a nature center …
Book Review: Paddle North: Canoeing the Boundary Waters–Quetico Wilderness
Discover the essence of the Up North wilderness experience, essays by Greg Breining and images by photographer Layne Kennedy. It’s well worth reading, and a worthy gift.
Book Gathers Boundary Waters Writing
A new book — The Firegrate Review: A Canoe Country Chapbook — published by the wilderness advocacy group Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, gathers the BWCA experiences of 19 writers in a collection of stories, essays, and poems.
The Changing Forest of the Quetico-Superior Region
Last year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Quetico Park and Superior National Forest. In reality, this anniversary commemorated the 100-year fight to protect this patch of earth. Throughout the twentieth …
Moments of Clarity
By Andy Wright All I’m saying is, you would just never expect to find jellyfish in the Boundary Waters. Sure, you always hope to spot wildlife on a trip; wolves, …
Big Bill Wenstrom – Last Man Standing
Sig Olson’s readers were introduced to Big Bill Wenstrom in Open Horizons (p. 97). Sig wrote: “It was Big Bill Wenstrom who taught me how to throw on a canoe. He …
Book Review: Our Neck of the Woods
As essay collections go, Our Neck of the Woods is more of a confessional than a nature tale. Up and down the state, and via every outdoor pastime (fishing, hunting, skiing, canoeing, camping), writers confess to a love of Minnesota …
Painting History
In 2006, Quetico Provincial Park’s French River proved impassable by kayak—so Ken Lister crawled upriver through the slippery, overgrown underbrush. His destination? French River Rapids. Lister suspected that an oil painting by Canadian artist Paul Kane portrayed the rapids. If correct, he would disprove widely held notions about the painting’s origins, and possibly discover a new understanding of the fur trade.