Celebrating the Quetico-Superior’s public lands

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of both Minnesota’s Superior National Forest and Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park, the “Canoe the Heart” expedition paddled away from Atikokan, Ontario today on the first leg of what will be an 18-day trip through the public lands that comprise the Heart of the Continent.

The paddlers will travel in a 24-foot voyageur canoe through Quetico to Rainy Lake and Voyageurs National Park, then along the border through the Quetico and the Boundary Waters. On Lake Superior, it will travel from Grand Marais to Fort William, ON. All told, the route will be approximately 350 miles.

Paddlers will include individuals representing a diverse collection of groups and organizations from the Heart of the Continent area. A different group of paddlers will navigate the canoe on different segments of the route. In total, approximately 60 individuals will participate. On this first leg of the trip, from Atikokan to Fort Francis (where the group is expected on July 4), paddlers include representatives of the Superior National Forest, Quetico Park, the Quetico Foundation, a member of the Canadian parliament, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and Lakehead University.

Friends intern Kate Logan will join the expedition for the trip from Crane Lake to Ely, and Friends executive director Paul Danicic and intern Michelle Hesterberg will paddle the leg from Ely to the Gunflint Trail.

The event is sponsored by the Heart of the Continent Partnership–a Canadian and American coalition of land managers and local stakeholders working together on cross-border projects that promote the economic, cultural and natural health of the lakes, forests and communities in the Ontario/Minnesota border region. The Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness is one of the founding members of the Partnership and currently sits on its steering committee.

Trip reports will be posted on the Heart of the Continent’s website.

One Comment

• David C. Marsh says:

  July 23, 2009 at 9:05 am

  Quetico Park and surrounding wilderness will remain forever in our hearts and those of our children. Many times during the seventies and eighties we travelled by canoe and portage through this wonderful area. We experienced noseems, mosquitoes, horse flies, bears, moose, wolves, spruce grouse, eagles, ospery and otters. We swam with giant turtles, broiled lake trout, canoed and camped to the music of the loons. In 1969 we even experienced a hurricane which threatened to swamp our Grummans or kill us with lightening strikes. That evening, bears attempted to raid our wanagons but we uttered unkind words and threatened them with a beating from our paddles. We called ourselves the Jean Lake Trout Club.

  We MUST preserve this place for those who come after us as the Quebec Timber Company preserved the pines for us.

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