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In August, my family and I enjoyed our second canoe trip of the summer in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) of northeastern Minnesota. The 1.1 million-acre BWCAW is a lakeland wilderness with over 1,000 lakes connected by rivers, streams and portage trails. It is part of Superior National Forest and is one of the most visited (if not the most visited) Wilderness in the National Wilderness Preservation System. We enjoyed five days of paddling, portaging, camping, swimming, fishing, and laughing. But we did have to contend with strong winds almost the entire trip, including becoming windbound overnight at a point of land where the strong west winds howled unimpeded along many miles of open lake. There have been many reports this summer about new and inexperienced visitors coming to the BWCAW, anxious to get out of their homes after hunkering down for months because of the coronavirus. While we should welcome new people visiting Wilderness for the first time, we would also hope that these first timers don’t trash the area (as some have done this summer) and come prepared for wilderness challenges. On our last full day of travel in the BWCAW, we encountered part of one such ill-prepared group that had placed its faith almost entirely in technology that didn’t work. |
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Kevin is Wilderness Watch's conservation director. He helped pass the 1978 BWCA Wilderness Act through Congress, directed the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness for 16 years, and co-authored the 1995 book, Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. |
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