Memoirs of a Tracy Kid
Continuing on from last month’s column: after my first encounter with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in 1966 when I was 17, I wasn’t able to return until 10 years later when I was married and working for Caterpillar Tractor Co. in Peoria, Illinois. Caterpillar had a large manufacturing presence in Peoria at the time and every summer during the last two weeks of July, they shut down all their operations for vacation. I had told my wife, Bobbie, about the BWCA over the years and we planned, along with another couple, to spend our vacation there. This was the beginning of what became an annual trip to this wonderful oasis of peace and solitude, far removed from the daily stress involved in working in a large corporate environment.
For our initial trip to the BWCA in 1976, we went through an outfitter on Lake Saganaga located at the end of the Gunflint Trail west of Grand Marais, Minnesota. It was owned and operated by one of the Methodist pastors who managed and led my summer canoe trips ten years earlier. The outfitter provided all the necessary equipment and food required for our 10-day trip through the Minnesota wilderness. As is the case with most trips into a wilderness area, we had fresh food for the first two days and then had to rely on freeze-dried food supplemented by fresh fish for the rest of the trip. (No cans were/are allowed in the BWCA.)
I had told Bobbie that we would undoubtedly encounter bears and other wild animals on the trip so she did some research at the library and found that a whistle was a good deterrent in case of a bear encounter. So, while I always had a compass on a string around my neck as the chief navigator, she had a metal whistle on a string around her neck 24 hours a day as the chief scout/protector! I’m not sure that the whistle would have protected us, but it helped her sleep at night. Since we were our own guides on this trip, waxed parchment paper maps and a compass were our only navigation tools. The maps were very detailed showing designated camp grounds on each lake and trails from lake to lake that could be used for portaging. Since this was before the age of cell phones and twoway portable radios, the only recourse for emergency aid during this era was to attempt to signal a low flying seaplane operated by the rangers which would fly over the BWCA area once a day. They could land on the lake and evacuate a person if they needed emergency medical care. We had a well-stocked first aid kit which was sufficient for most hazards encountered while traversing through the northern wilderness.
Our trip started on Sea Gull Lake which was at the end of the “Gunflint Trail” road. The outfitter dropped us at the trail head and from that point, we were on our own. As was the case on my first trip to the BWCA 10 years earlier, we always took our drinking water from the middle of which ever lake we happened to be on, as long as it wasn’t a small pond. Our trip followed a clockwise direction and included portages from lake to lake. From Sea Gull Lake we traveled to Alpine Lake, Jasper Lake, Ogishkeminscie Lake, Jenny Lake, Eddie Lake, Knife Lake, and then followed a string of lakes along the Canadian border back to “Big Sag” (Saganaga Lake) where the outfitter was located.
The whole journey lasted 10 days. Navigating on these lakes required good compass skills and a keen sense of direction. On the larger lakes it was very easy to get lost unless you carefully kept track of where you were using the detailed maps. The campgrounds and portages were unmarked and, of course there was no GPS in that era. Consequently, there was no easy way to figure out where you were if you did get lost. Because many of the lakes were interconnected and the portages often all looked the same, you could easily end up on a different lake without realizing it. It wasn’t uncommon to encounter another canoe group who was lost and, on a lake different than what they thought and intended.
On one portage we encountered Benny Ambrose, who actually lived in the BWCA (as did Dorothy Molter). They were longtime local residents who owned cabins in the BWCA before it was designated a protected wilderness area. They were allowed to live there for the rest of their lives, after which their property would revert to the public domain. We met Benny on a portage and he offered to help us by carrying one of our packs on the portage. He was an interesting, gentile “hermit” and we all enjoyed talking to him. We acquiesced and let him carry a pack. For us, our gear comprised three large, heavy packs and the canoe. On the first portage I carried the canoe and Bobbie carried a pack. Then we then retraced our steps and each of us carried one of the two remaining packs on the second portage.
My wife and our friends who had never encountered another area quite so magnificent as the BWCA became hooked after our first trip together and we returned every summer for several years. After our initial trip, we decided to save some money and acquired much of our own camping gear and supplies, only relying on the outfitter for providing the rental canoes. Our friends moved out of state after a few years so Bobbie and I continued our annual trips as just the two of us until we also left Peoria and moved to California in 1985 for work reasons.
While all of our trips through the BWCA started on Lake Saganaga at the end of the Gunflint Trail, some of our trips included traveling through the BWCA’s sister park on the Canadian side of BWCA called Quetico Provincial Park. The USACanadian border runs through the middle of Lake Saganaga. All trips through either BWCA or Quetico Park require a permit. To enter Quetico Park from the U.S., there is a Canadian Ranger station on an island in Cache Bay which canoeists entering from Minnesota must stop to show their passport and entry permit.
The combined BWCA and Quetico Provincial Park is a massive international wilderness reserve, one of the largest in the world totaling over 2 million acres. The BWCA totals 1.1 million acres and includes 1,200 miles of canoe routes and over 2,000 primitive designated camping sites. The Quetico Park does not have designated camp sites but experienced visitors can easily spot open camp sites that have been cleared of underbrush over the years to make setting up camp much easier.
My column’s title mentions a danger confronting this pristine wilderness area in Minnesota. That danger is a proposed copper mine along the border of the BWCA. This mine would be a sulfideore copper mine which is a notoriously “dirty” form of mining. It would be located along the South Kawishiwi River, which flows directly into the Boundary Waters and many of its inter-connected lakes. Approximately 99 percent of the rock extracted in the proposed mine will be waste. When this waste rock interacts with rain, ground water and air, it forms sulfuric acid and releases toxic metals which in this case will flow into the South Kawishiwi River within two miles of the Boundary Waters.
Similar mines throughout America generate hundreds of millions of gallons of acid mine drainage and will require active water treatment for thousands of years to avoid complete destruction of streams and groundwater. Likewise, the edge of the iconic Boundary Waters Wilderness will be turned into an industrial mining complex at the head of these irreplaceable and interconnected rivers and lakes.
While the history of this wilderness area goes back hundreds of years, more recent events began when the BWCA was designated a federal wilderness in 1964, just two years after my initial visit to the BWCA. Later in 1974, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act was signed by President Jimmy Carter. This act banned mining, mostly eliminated logging, and strictly phased out snowmobiles and motorboats, restricting motorized use to a handful of large entry-point lakes. In 2023 under President Biden, a 20year moratorium on mining in the BWCA watershed was enacted.
However, a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution was passed earlier this year to officially repeal the ban, clearing the path for projects to apply for permits. Now, Twin Metals Minnesota (a subsidiary of Chilean-based Antofagasta Minerals) is actively working to re-apply for a permit to establish their long sought mine two miles from the BWCA.
My personal opinion is that although copper is a key ingredient required in much of the world’s growing infrastructure, including electric cars and artificial intelligence developments, I do not think it’s wise to potentially destroy an irreplaceable pristine wilderness in the northern part of our state of Minnesota to obtain a new source of copper. Do we really want another part of our state to look like the Mesabi Range iron ore mines around Hibbing, Minnesota? Yes, some new jobs would undoubtedly be created, but an equal number or even more jobs related to canoe outfitting around the BWCA would likely be lost should the BWCA be destroyed in the mining process.
I urge all Minnesotans to carefully research the pros and cons of allowing mining near the BWCA and if you agree with my assessment, please get involved. Again, this is my opinion only, but I feel strongly that developing an open pit copper mine right next to Minnesota’s iconic Boundary Waters Canoe Area would be a big long-term mistake which could never be rectified once this mining operation begins. You also might consider becoming a supporter of the “Friends of the BWCA” conservation group of which I have been a member of since 1973.
Next month: My final column
