5 fun ways to entertain your family on your Northeast Minnesota camping trip
Dreaming of a family camping trip but want to ensure it’s fun for everyone? Check out these tips to make your next trip your best trip.
Wilderness Voices
Book Review: The Scenic Route, Building America’s North Shore by Arnold R. Alanen
In The Scenic Route: Building America’s North Shore, author Arnold R. Alanen takes readers on a 150-mile journey that showcases the man-made features and unique personal stories that define one of Minnesota’s most scenic byways. This in-depth field guide will draw readers back to its photos and maps time and time again.
Paddling and camping the Timber-Frear Canoe Route
The Timber-Frear is located about 15 miles northwest of Tofte in Superior National Forest. If you make the trek, consider extending your trip to explore additional camping, hiking, paddling, and fishing opportunities in the area. The route is about 10 miles long and can be explored as a day trip.
Women who shaped Minnesota’s early conservation movement
For Women’s History Month, we’re spotlighting women conservationists and environmental stewards who have contributed to preserving forests, wilderness areas, and cultural history in Northern Minnesota. Their efforts and activism helped shape the modern conservation movement and led the way for sustainable practices.
All-women expedition from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay
A four-person paddling crew will tackle 1,200 miles of historic routes between Minnesota and Canada. Their journey will take them from Grand Portage on Lake Superior to York Factory on Hudson Bay this summer and is expected to take 85 days. Through their journey, they aim to inspire young women and girls while advocating for gender equality in paddlesports.
Interactive kiosks share stories of the North Shore
New kiosks are appearing in ranger stations, state parks, and local businesses along Minnesota’s North Shore, making it easier for visitors to connect with the region’s cultural, natural, and environmental history.
New BWCAW Collaborative promotes shared learning with the USFS
The Superior National Forest and stakeholders who care about the BWCA collaborate on topics including forest stewardship, visitor use, fire management, impacts and restrictions…
Nan Onkka: inspired by Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters
Grand Marais printmaker Nan Onkka finds inspiration in the northwoods: “The beauty, the rawness, the timelessness of the wilderness is so totally different from agricultural landscapes or urban recreational areas. I think everyone deserves the chance to experience that, and I hope that we are able to continue to protect the waters and the woods of these wild places.”
New podcasts highlight northern Minnesota
Two new podcasts explore hot topics from Superior National Forest, the Boundary Waters and Quetico. In-depth interviews and key experts talk about everything from the challenges of wind and wilderness tripping, to this year’s ‘go-live’ day for BWCA permits.
Winners of 2023 Boundary Waters Photo Contest
Each year the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness receives thousands of submissions…
Wilderness Voices: John A. Spelman III, Artist and Printmaker
One artist’s view of our impact on a place casts light on the wilderness nearby.
Wilderness Voices: Justine Kerfoot, Gunflint Trail Leader
“An infinitesimal speck in the cosmos, I stood on the shore of Gunflint Lake beneath a great white pine-matriarch of a fast vanishing tribe. And I knew I was home. I was twenty-one. The year was 1927.”
Walter Mondale – a legacy of wilderness protection
An influential advocate for protecting northern Minnesota’s natural treasures, instrumental in Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area we know today.
Icy Wonderland
“I could hear the ice shattering like panes of glass as it came ashore… One moment you can see an endless expanse of skim ice and with a shift of the wind it can be gone, waves lapping the shoreline – sculpting ice as far as the eye can see.”
Wilderness Voices: Betty Vos Hemstad
She delights in discovering the wildflowers of the Boundary Waters and was instrumental in the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center. Betty’s passion for the beauty of life on the Gunflint Trail…
Honoring Janice Matichuk, legendary Quetico Ranger
On August 5, 2020 we lost a wilderness legend. An ambassador to the backcountry, a passionate voice for Quetico Provincial Park, a trailblazer, a source of knowledge, a true hero. “What …
Remembering Wilderness Hero Bud Heinselman
“Bud is one of our greatest and least recognized heroes. A giant figure in the battle for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness…”
For the Love of Loons
“As twilight descended and the fire settled to glowing embers, the stillness of the night was shattered by the unmistakable tremolo of the common loon. Within moments, loons from other territories and adjacent lakes began to respond, and the air came to life with the reverberating echo that we long to hear…”
Watch: Documentary traces long legacy of defending the Boundary Waters
‘This Wild Land’ focuses on lessons from past wilderness advocates for people fighting modern threats.
Poem: Rocky Shores
What Wilderness Means to Me Series Submission: “Rocky shores, lakes, rivers, and waterfalls, full moon paddles and islands alone, Boundary Waters you are my throne. Great wilderness of untold stories, nature is proof of your glory…”