First-person portaging video

If you’re dying to relive the feeling of a 100-rod portage, check out Bryan Hansel‘s video from a recent Boundary Waters trip. The video shows the view from under the canoe of the entire portage from Alpine to Seagull Lake, through an area burned in 2006′s Cavity Lake Fire.

New study looks at future of BWCAW forests

A new study by Dr. Lee Frelich–who is on the Friends’ advisory council–describes the effects climate change will have on Minnesota’s northern forests in the decades to come. Some tree species will largely die out in Minnesota, Frelich said. Jack pine, black spruce, balsam fir and aspen already are at the southern edge of their [...]

Small wildfire spotted in BWCAW

A small wildfire is currently burning in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness north of Long Island Lake.

Video: The changing canoe country forest

In this short video, photographer Layne Kennedy discusses his experiences with the canoe country forests as a result of the 1999 blowdown and the subsequent wildfires:

Solitude and human relationships

A reverend from Georgia recently brought five kids to the Boundary Waters for a wilderness canoe trip. In a write-up of the trip for his local paper, he described how the experience changed him and the youth. Our pants were muddy and our boots were wet. Someone exclaimed: “I had no idea it would be [...]

Risk and reward in the BWCAW

The risks and challenges of wilderness are as much a part of a Boundary Waters canoe trip as the beauty and solitude experienced. There are not the same safety nets available as in most other places of today’s world