Visit us at Midwest Mountaineering, win a handmade paddle

The paddle was crafted from a single piece of quilted maple.

The Friends will have a booth at the Midwest Mountaineering Winter Adventure Expo this weekend. If you stop by our booth, you can sign up to win a beautiful handmade paddle crafted by longtime Friends member Tom Niesen of Duluth.

If you’ve never been to the Expo before, it’s a fun weekend when folks from all over Minnesota come together to learn about outdoor adventure, gear, and just about everything else concerning Minnesota’s outdoor community. Everything in the store is on sale, too, so it’s a great chance to do some Christmas shopping for the BWCAW aficionado in your life.

There are informative seminars and talks going on all weekend, too. Betsy Daub, Friends policy director, will give a presentation about issues affecting the BWCAW and what you can do to get involved tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 11:30 a.m. More information is available here.

• events

Share your BWCAW photos

The Boundary Waters must be just about the most photogenic place many of us know. From beautiful plants and wildlife to epic landscapes, there is another potential amazing photo at every turn. If you like taking photos in the BWCAW, keep reading.

The Friends has just launched our own Flickr group. This is a place for BWCAW photographers like you to share your photos that show why you love the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and believe it ought to be protected for future generations. You can add photos to the group, discuss the Boundary Waters and photography, and escape to the wilderness without leaving your computer.

A Flickr account is free and it’s easy to join the group. Click here to join!

• photography

October trip report

Friends communications director Greg Seitz (that’s me) went on a great BWCAW trip earlier this month. It was my first trip in October and I would definitely do it again, despite the overwhelmingly cold, wet and cloudy weather.

Three old friends and I did the trip out of Sawbill Lake (thanks to Bill Hansen at Sawbill Outfitters for the canoe rental and invaluable route assistance!), covering about 55 miles in five-and-a-half days. We saw perhaps five or six other groups total, and spent at least a few nights on big, normally popular lakes, where we had the whole place to ourselves.

On our last night, on Grace Lake, any wind died away, the rain quit, and a powerful and profound silence became the dominating force on the lake. We had a bit of time to relax on a rock at water’s edge. One of our party went in pursuit of walleye, while the rest of us enjoyed a bit of reading time. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that hour, when the silence literally roared in my ears, despite the vast lake we were sitting on the edge of.

The silence continued the next morning and, as I sat by the water again, I heard a duck’s wings as it flew through the air. Hearing such was not uncommon, but when I looked up to see the duck, it was perhaps a half-mile across the lake and several hundred feet up in the air.

Here’s a few photos from the trip:

Underwater paddling video

You might get a kick out of this video posted by the Gunflint Trail’s Bearskin Lodge of paddling a canoe on a clear (green-tinted) Boundary Waters lake, shot from underwater: