A Trip To The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Here, I share the logistics for our trip, what we packed, what it all cost, and more.


Planning A Canoe Trip In The Boundary Waters

In August, my husband and I and two other couples traveled to northern Minnesota for a week-long canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness....

Six years ago, I met Bonnie and Cheryl at Gunflint, when my hiking partner and I decided to paddle part of our intended route rather than risk getting lost on the remote, unmarked and often obscure Border Route Trail. These two knowledgeable, capable women were very helpful in outfitting us for our canoe trip, obtaining the last-minute permit, providing us with the Fisher maps for our route, and picking up the canoe (along with a surprise delivery of fresh strawberries) when we left the water a week later to hike the well-maintained Superior Trail. I thoroughly enjoyed the paddling and portaging and knew I'd eventually return for more.

This August 1st, the moment we turned off of Highway 61 at Grand Marais and started up the Gunflint Trail (a remote, scenic road), I smiled. Even the trees seemed familiar. And when we pulled up to the outfitters 46 miles later, nothing appeared to have changed, not even Bonnie and Cheryl, who both remembered my visit six years earlier in amazing detail.

The next morning, after my travel companions and I had a tasty dinner down at the lodge and spent a night in the canoer cabins, we finished organizing our gear, transferring canned foods to reusable plastic containers (because cans aren't allowed in the Boundary Waters--read the BWCAW rules) and watched the Boundary Waters Leave No Trace video. Then Bonnie issued us our permit, fitted us for PFDs and paddles, and we loaded our gear and boats for the shuttle to our entry point on Bearskin Lake.

For more information on Gunflint Outfitters, open year-round, visit their website at GunflintOutfitters.com or call 1-888-CANOEING.

Bearskin Lake --> Duncan Lake --> Rose Lake --> Rat Lake --> South Lake --> North Lake --> Little Gunflint Lake --> Gunflint Lake

Well, it wasn't really a full loop, so the trip required a shuttle from Gunflint Outfitters to our put-in at Bearskin Lake, about a thirty-minute drive. The shuttle, including transporting our boats and gear was provided by Gunflint Outfitters for $25 (total, not per person).

Our canoe route was roughly 23 miles long, including the six portages but not including additional paddling we did in the various lakes to and from campsites and while fishing and sightseeing. We finished the trip when we paddled up to the beach back at Gunflint Lodge.

We planned five days for our trip, which allowed us ample time to explore the lakes by boat, relax in camp, do some hiking and fishing, and spend two nights on Rose Lake. The day we spent there was very windy, so we were glad not to have to paddle. That evening, the wind died down, and we enjoyed a sunset canoe.

There are countless routes to choose from in the Boundary Waters, so you can really tailor your trip to suit your goals, abilities and time frame. Routes might include no portages at all or perhaps many, short and/or long. You might simply stay on one lake and explore it to your heart's content. If fishing is your thing, you might want a low-mileage route with plenty of time in each spot. Or maybe you're more the voyageur type who likes to cover a lot of distance. Whatever your preferences are, there will be a route out there to satisfy you. (Our next one will be more in the adventure-travel category, when we plan to paddle and portage more than 200 miles from International Falls to Grand Portage along the historic Voyageurs Route.)

I recommend using Fisher maps for Boundary Waters canoeing and camping.

The portages, measured in rods with 1 rod equaling 16.5 feet, ranged from 4 to 80 rods on this trip. The Stairway portage between Duncan and Rose Lake included more than 100 wooden steps as you descend alongside a cascade (see photo).

We brought quite a lot of gear, including coolers with ice for perishable food, making the portages challenging and usually requiring two trips by each of us. You can certainly make portaging easier by packing much as you would for backpacking. This would be a good idea if doing a canoe route with longer portages, such as the 660-rod (two-mile) "Long Portage" at the east end of Rose Lake.

The etiquette on portages is that you allow anyone already on the portage or approaching it ahead of you to complete the portage before landing your watercraft and unloading. According to the permit rules, there can be no more than nine people at any one place in the Boundary Waters, including campsites, on the water and on portage trails.

Here's a good article on portaging, including portaging techniques, etiquette, tips to make it hurt less, and even a record-breaking portage: The Pain of Portaging by Kevin Callan

In the BWCAW, you have to camp either at one of the sites designated by a U.S. Forest Service fire grate and latrine or within "designated Primitive Management Areas" specifically approved on your permit.

The Fisher Maps have the designated campsites indicated with red dots. Camping is on a first-come, first-served basis, so it's advisable to get on the the water early in the morning if you're moving on and set up camp fairly early in the afternoon.

But it really depends on the season and the lake. When I was in the Boundary Waters in early June, 2003, my travel companion and I saw only 2 other boats and always had our choice of campsites. This time around, in August, 2009, we saw other people every day and sometimes the first sites we looked at were occupied.

Nonetheless, the permit system helps ensure you'll find a site without too much trouble, though you sometimes might have to paddle (and maybe even portage) further than you'd anticipated to find one that's open, especially during the more popular mid- to late summer season and on the less remote lakes.

One thing's for sure, though: you'll always have a lake view! Even sometimes from the potty.

There's something about food cooked over a campfire or on a camp stove that makes it taste so much better than it does at home, no matter how basic (and sometimes flawed) the recipe might be.

On our trip, though it meant a heavier load than if were eating backpacking-type food and more to carry on the portages, we decided to bring some fresh and perishable food in coolers and go "gourmet," at least for dinners.

For breakfasts, some of us had cold cereal/granola with rehydrated milk and fresh fruit, while others had oatmeal.

Lunches were various types of sandwiches, some on sliced bread and some on bagels, with various fruits and snacks.

Our dinner menu included:

• Shrimp and seasoned vegetables over cous cous
  Dessert: Cherry cobbler (made in an aluminum dutch oven)
  
  
• Whole wheat pasta with sundried tomato pesto and salad
  Desert: Cornbread (dutch oven)
  
  
• "Hippie" burritos (rice, black beans, avocado, shredded cabbage, salsa and cheese in tortillas warmed in the dutch oven)
  Dessert: Peach cobbler (dutch oven)
  
  
• Beanies and weenies
  Dessert: Cornbread (dutch oven)

We had a treat one day, when my father-in-law caught some small-mouth Bass, which were fried up with a coating a potato buds.

Again, our food could have been much more compact and a lot lighter if we'd gone with more traditional backpackers meals--dehydrated stuff like Ramen, Knorr pasta and rice dishes, and Mountain House meals--but we opted to go with the two-burner Coleman stove, coolers, and the Dutch oven and make multiple portage trips.

During the full day we spent at Rose Lake, where we camped for two nights at the same great site, the six of us decided to do some hiking and step foot in Canada. (We couldn't camp on the Canadian side of the border lakes, because we didn't have the necessary international permit.)

So we started out from camp, bushwhacking east along the shore towards the two-mile Long Portage (not on our canoe route), where there's a creek that separates the United States from Canada. But the bushwhacking wasn't all that difficult, since it appeared we were following what may have been the old path of the Border Route Trail though that area.

When we reached the Long Portage and the creek next to it, we all waded through and crossed the border. So we were basically illegal immigrants for about five minutes in the middle of the wilderness.

Then Steve and I decided to take the longer way back to camp, along the current Border Route Trail, looping around above our campsite and coming out along the portage we'd done the day before to the west of camp, while the others returned the way we'd come. At times, the BRT was pretty easy to follow. And then it closed in, becoming more like swimming through thick brush rather than hiking, with just a faint footpath barely visible at best beneath the green mass.

When we neared the portage we'd crossed from Duncan into Rose Lake alongside an impressive cascade, the trail opened up and we enjoyed a break at an overlook before descending to the waterfall and portage. From there, we bushwhacked along the shore to our camp, which was much more difficult on that part of the lake than it had been on the other side our campsite.

The above photo of the branch pattern made by the yellow-bellied sapsucker won the August photo contest on BWCABoard.com! Comes with some nice prizes too, like free canoe rental in the Boundary Waters. Now we're definitely going back next year. Woo-hooo!

Check out the August photo contest .

 
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