If you are an outdoor enthusiast like I am the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
is a must for your bucket list. The size of the BWCAW wilderness area is 1,090,000-acres with a mixture of forests, glacial lakes, and streams.
Attached to the BWCAW on the Canadian side of the border is another 1,180,000-acre called the Quetico Provincial Park. Between these two parks are over 2 million acres.
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) has over 1,200 miles of canoe routes, over 1,000 lakes, twelve hiking trails, and more than 2,000 designated campsites. It also contains one of the largest contiguous areas of uncut forest left in the United States. Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota, at 2,301 feet, is within the BWCAW. The main entry point for the BWCAW is a small but gorgeous town called Ely Minnesota
.
The Boundary Waters is one of National Geographic Traveler magazine’s
“50 Places of a Lifetime,” their list of the world’s “must-see” destinations. The BWCAW is a grand and classic adventure trip through some of the most beautiful country you’ll find anywhere. There’s just nowhere else like it in the world. Simply, it’s a paddler’s dream come true.
No one lives in the Boundary Waters, and once you enter it, you won’t find any roads or buildings. When you push off into these waters, you leave far behind the trappings of civilization — city lights and sounds, electricity, stores, and crowds. Most of the lakes are designated as paddle only, with no motors; no planes fly overhead.
It’s just you and nature.
If you are interested in learning more about one of our very few wilderness areas left here in the United States I would suggest adding this to your reading material.
A Year in the Wilderness: Bearing Witness in the Boundary Waters
Since its establishment as a federally protected wilderness in 1964, the Boundary Waters
has become one of our nation’s most valuable―and most frequently visited―natural treasures. When Amy and Dave Freeman learned of toxic mining proposed within the area’s watershed, they decided to take action―by spending a year in the wilderness and sharing their experience through video, photos, and blogs with an audience of hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens. This book tells the deeper story of their adventure in northern Minnesota
: of loons whistling under a moonrise, of ice booming as it forms and cracks, of a moose and her calf swimming across a misty lake.
With the magic―and urgent―message that has rallied an international audience to the campaign to save the Boundary Waters, A Year in the Wilderness
is a rousing cry of witness activism, and a stunning tribute to this singularly beautiful region.
