The Summer 2006 issue of Wilderness News is in the mail and online, download a pdf here >
What’s Inside:
Wildfires Strike the BWCAW and Quetico Provincial Parks
Over 31,800 acres have burned in the largest fire to hit the Boundary Waters Canoe Area region since 1894. A lightning strike near Cavity Lake on July 13th, started a wildfire which quickly grew to fifty square miles. The fire has burned an area of ‘blowdown’ from the 1999 wind storm representing about 8.5 percent of the total 367,000 acres of blowdown or 3 percent of the 1.1 million acres of BWCA Wilderness. MORE >
White Pine: Can What Once Was–Ever Be Again?
Bold against the sky, the feathery branches of an old white pine have a distinctive silhouette. Although not the most abundant species in the Quetico-Superior forest today, generations have strongly identified with the tree—an emblem of the natural resources that defined the region’s geography, economy, and character. MORE >
Racing Across the Wilderness
These days, the pace in the Boundary Waters and Quetico is fairly slow. It’s a place of leisure, by and large, for today’s visitors. But for Ely’s Don Beland and Atikokan’s Joe Meany who raced across the wilderness during the days of the Ely-Atikokan Canoe Race, the pace was fast, the stakes were high, and the going was rough. MORE >