fbpx

Projects & Organizations

Urban Boatbuilders Partnership Program Manager Collette King spent three weeks at Camp Ogiche Daa Kwe, helping campers and staff build a skin-on frame canoe, which they named Morning Light. All photos by Liz Hattemer.

Morning Light – A Canoe Built by Campers at Ogiche Daa Kwe

by

There is something delicate about the look of a skin-on frame canoe. In the sunlight, the wooden frame shows through its skin, as do the shadows of paddlers. Looking down into the boat, the line where water meets air is visible. Yet it is a seaworthy craft, light enough for the youngest and oldest of paddlers to carry, and, at girls’ wilderness camp Ogiche Daa Kwe, a perfect metaphor for community. Last summer, campers and staff at the Rainy Lake camp built a 17.5-foot wilderness traveler skin-on frame canoe.

Amy Adair, Quetico Foundation Intern Biologist, measures crayfish as part of a study to assess the impact and risk of invasive crayfish on the aquatic ecosystem in Quetico Provincial Park. Photo by Brian Jackson.

Climate Change in the Northwoods Part III: What People Are Doing

by

In the last two issues of Wilderness News, we’ve taken a look at climate change in the northwoods. In this final installment, we look at some of the things people are doing to cope with and address climate change. In the Quetico-Superior Region, climate change is not something looming on the horizon.

Hiking near Carlton’s Peak on the Superior Hiking Trail. Photo courtesy Superior Hiking Trail Association.

Three Decades of Superior Hiking

by

This summer, thirty years after a pair of trailbuilders first started flagging a hiking route along the ridges overlooking Lake Superior on Minnesota’s North Shore, the Superior Hiking Trail will be finished—mostly. The final section of the trail, connecting it to the Wisconsin border southeast of Duluth, should be completed by Labor Day. Hikers will then be able to travel from that point all the way to the Canadian border on the trail that has been called one of the best in America. But the work is never done. Hundreds of volunteers will continue to put in thousands of hours each year keeping the trail in good condition.

What will it take to get you outdoors?

by

In a recent article for the Star Tribune, writer Tori McCormick sums it up: “What will it take to get you outdoors and into nature? Can you be persuaded, either through …

READ MORE

The paper with the possibly prophetic last words Sigurd Olson ever typed remains in the typewriter in his writing shack. Photo by Greg Seitz.

Sigurd Olson’s Legacy Returns Home

by

By Greg Seitz The soul of Sigurd and Elizabeth Olson lives on at their home in Ely. The soul smells of fresh-baked cookies in the kitchen. In the writing shack on …

READ MORE

Northern Lakes Canoe Base

by

Picture the Girl Scouts, and it’s likely that young girls selling cookies come to mind. And while that can be part of the experience, Northern Lakes Canoe Base is offering up …

READ MORE

Laketrails Base Camp

by

By Alissa Johnson When Laketrails campers arrive at base camp, costumed counselors greet them, singing and dancing, hooting and hollering, and banging on drums. “We’re famous for our welcomes of campers,” …

READ MORE

Dave and Amy Freeman portage their canoe “Sig” in front of the Washington Monument, photo by Nate Ptacek

Paddle to D.C. Ely Adventurers’ Latest Expedition Carries Concerns About Mining

by

This epic expedition was inspired by what the Freemans see as an existential threat to a national treasure: mining. “The Boundary Waters is our nation’s most popular wilderness area, it receives a quarter million visitors per year. Every year I guide people in the Boundary Waters from Texas and California and all across the country. We need to make sure people all across the country understand how special the Boundary Waters is and understand the threats it faces.