News Archive

From BWCAWiki

Contents 1 Cavity Lake fire nearly history (8/8/2006) 2 BWCA fire 85% contained (8/3/2006) 3 National Guard members help battle BWCAW fire (7/15/2006) 4 Solitude, great fishing on designated trout lakes -- on most days (6/29/2006) 5 Jackpine Bob dies (6/20/2006) 6 Fifty years of "The Singing Wilderness" (6/5/2006) 7 Preparing for a BWCA summer (6/2/2006) 8 Gunflint Trail logging plan concerns some residents (5/22/2006) 9 Story of a Trophy Walleye Lake (5/21/2006) 10 Tracking Trout (3/5/2006) 11 Snowmobile trail will skirt BWCAW (2/24/2006) 12 USFS, CWCS lose “chain of lakes” appeal; BWCA motor permit levels to be recalculated (2/18/2006) 13 From the City to the Wilderness (01/08/2006) 14 2005 spike in emergencies stumps BWCAW officials (12/26/2005)

Cavity Lake fire nearly history (8/8/2006)

The Cavity Lake Fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is almost out.

Fire officials today declared the fire 95 percent contained and said they're turning over management of the fire to a smaller group of professionals.

BWCA fire 85% contained (8/3/2006)

Nearly three weeks after its first spark, a wildfire that started in the blowdown area of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has been mostly contained — and officials say the threat of another major fire near the Gunflint Trail has been greatly reduced.

National Guard members help battle BWCAW fire (7/15/2006)

The fire, which doubled in size Friday night, has spread across "well over 1,000" acres of forest around Cavity Lake ... Cavity Lake is a small lake just southwest of Seagull Lake that is near the end of the Gunflint Trail, about 50 miles northwest of Grand Marais. It is not accessible by portage or trail. The fire is of special concern because it's burning in the area struck by a 1999 windstorm.

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Solitude, great fishing on designated trout lakes -- on most days (6/29/2006)

This time of year you have to set your alarm pretty early to get up before the sun, but the thought of fishing for brook trout in a designated trout lake deep in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was all the incentive I needed for an early start.</div>

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Jackpine Bob dies (6/20/2006)

Ely outdoorsman and humorist "Jackpine" Bob Cary has died. He was 84 when he died at his home of leukemia on Saturday. Cary made national headlines in 1980 by running for president on the fictitious Independent Fisherman's Party ticket. He promised to live at his cabin near Ely and rent the White House to tourists. He also promised to build a fish hatchery in every town with high unemployment.

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Fifty years of "The Singing Wilderness" (6/5/2006)

St. Paul, Minn. — Half a century ago, Sigurd Olson extolled the joy of a canoe trip in his book, "The Singing Wilderness."

"The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind," Olson wrote. "Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shores."

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Preparing for a BWCA summer (6/2/2006)

With ice out and the woods greening up, eyes all over the country are turned toward the northwoods and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Here, the bugs of spring might be out in force, but so are the fish and the lure of adventure on a chain of Boundary Waters lakes. What better way to spend a few days — or a week or two — than paddling across pristine waters and camping under whispering pines?

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Gunflint Trail logging plan concerns some residents (5/22/2006)

The combined Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Forest Service plans call for more than a dozen logging sites along the first 20 miles of the trail. Several of those plans call for clear-cuts down to the edge of the roadway.

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Story of a Trophy Walleye Lake (5/21/2006)

Sag, as everyone north of Hinckley calls it, is arguably the best trophy walleye lake in the state. The expansive body of water on the Canadian border north of Grand Marais also produces excellent smallmouth bass and lake trout, and the northern pike fishing isn't bad, either.

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Tracking Trout (3/5/2006)

Our five-day winter journey into the Boundary Waters for lake trout had wound down to a final afternoon of ice fishing on storied Ottertrack Lake.

We were soaking up balmy 20-degree sunshine when someone yelled my name and said the flag was raised on my tip-up. This was an event: After four days in the wilderness, we had bagged only one lake trout.

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Snowmobile trail will skirt BWCAW (2/24/2006)

ST. PAUL - Forest officials will replace an illegal snowmobile trail through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with a new one that skirts the wilderness, disappointing environmentalists who wanted one further away.

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USFS, CWCS lose “chain of lakes” appeal; BWCA motor permit levels to be recalculated (2/18/2006)

A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the U.S. Forest Service and Ely-based Conservationists With Common Sense on the chain of lakes issue.

The court ordered the Forest Service to redetermine the number of motorboat permits on the lake chains.

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From the City to the Wilderness (01/08/2006)

Steve Nelson proudly labels himself “a corporate dropout.”

It wasn’t that long ago that he was part of the rat race in the Twin Cities, fighting traffic, sweating out deadlines at the pharmaceutical company he worked for and running into crowds everywhere.

But then he decided he was ready for a life change.

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“So I decided to open my own canoe outfitting business.” [...]

2005 spike in emergencies stumps BWCAW officials (12/26/2005)

The number of emergency evacuations in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness nearly doubled from last year, and officials aren't sure why.

The U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the area, reports that there have been 33 emergency incidents in 2005, up from 17 in 2004. Twenty-one people were evacuated for medical emergencies, and there were 12 calls for search-and-rescue operations. [...]