Enjoy nature while canoeing deep in Minnesota’s wilderness
BOUNDARY WATERS CANOE AREA WILDERNESS, Minn. — Every paddle stroke sprinkled water drops, reflecting the setting sun like sparklers across the black, glacier-carved lake.
Just a few hours earlier, I had been portaging on an ankle-deep muddy trail with that 25-kg canoe balanced over my head, shielding me from a chilly downpour.
That contrast is the essence of the wilderness experience in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters. The physical effort required to explore its off-thegrid remoteness — including carrying a canoe solo on slippery, rocky trails — makes every worry evaporate.
And once your only concerns become basic — keeping chipmunks away from the breakfast oatmeal or securing tarps against the wind whooshing through the woods — you have nothing to do but soak in the beauty.
Covering over one million acres along the Minnesota-Canada border, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness protects more than a thousand lakes, rocky islets, and towering evergreen forests.
There are plenty of walleyes, pikes and loons along its 1,930 kilometres of lily pad-lined canoe trails — but no electricity, no motors (except on a few big entry lakes), and no cellphone or Wi-Fi signals in the vast majority of the wilderness.
If you want those, or a shower, bed and restaurant meals, there are plenty of nearby spartan-to-five-star lakeside cabins and lodges.
Deep inside the wilderness, the luxury is the silence, quieting everything to the same stillness of the glossy lake surfaces that mirror the bursts of stars or the spindly pine trees. Even planes cannot fly below 4,000 feet (1,219 metres) here.
My favourite route is the demanding loop from Sawbill Lake up several creeks and bogs to vast, islet-studded Cherokee Lake, and back down the Temperance River. The 37-km route crosses 12 lakes, which means 14 portages with sturdy Duluth packs and five-metre canoes on forest trails connecting lakes and bypassing rapids.
The longest portage on this route is 240 rods, or about 1.2 km at one rod per canoe length. Try hiking that carrying a pack bulging with food for eight people for a long weekend. I’d rather carry the canoe, even though that requires some fancy limbo dancing under branches.
Sawbill is also one of the most popular of the Boundary Waters’ dozens of entry points, so reserve a permit in advance if you’re travelling overnight from May through September. Only a few are granted per day, to groups of nine people or four canoes maximum.
Topographic maps are essential to navigate. They indicate the otherwise unmarked portages and the more than 2,000 primitive lakeshore campsites, which provide a clearing for tents, a fire grate and a latrine.
Aside from the glimpse of a yellow or red canoe in the distance, a quick hello at a portage, or a plume of campfire smoke in the evening, it’s hard to notice any human presence.