Minnesota Boundary Waters

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness doesn’t accommodate every kind of traveler. No roads into the interior, no motorboats on most lakes, no electricity, no cell service. What it does have: a million acres of boreal lake country where the only way forward is by paddle and portage, where the loon’s call across still water at dusk is the defining sound of the place, and where the Milky Way appears with a clarity that most Americans have never seen in their own country. For travelers who understand what wilderness actually means, this is one of the finest destinations in North America.

The BWCAW offers accommodation that doesn’t appear on most travel platforms: the designated backcountry campsite. Steel fire grate, pit toilet, a flat area for tents, and the site is yours alone for the night — in a landscape you earned by paddling and portaging to reach. For travelers who want roofs and beds, the Gunflint Trail lodges — Bearskin Lodge, Gunflint Lodge, Seagull Outfitters — are wilderness properties in the traditional Minnesota resort style: log cabins on private lakes with full outfitting services and docks. Ely’s resorts on adjacent lakes provide comfortable base camp accommodation with full canoe trip planning.

The BWCAW holds over 1,500 miles of designated canoe routes through 1,200 lakes. Entry points are numbered 1 through 116 along the wilderness boundary; each opens a different lake system. Entry Point 1 near Ely on Moose Lake is the busiest and most accessible, providing quick access to excellent interior fishing and camping within a few hours’ paddling. The Gunflint Trail’s entry points (32–47) reach less-traveled eastern sections. The most ambitious routes — the Frost Lake Loop, the Little Indian Sioux South to Big Moose Lake — require a week or more and pay back every day.

Ely (population 3,400) has organized itself entirely around wilderness access. Outfitters like Piragis Northwoods Company, Boundary Waters Outfitters, and Canadian Border Outfitters provide complete canoe trip packages — canoe, paddle, life jacket, tent, sleeping bag, stove, food, bear canister, maps, and trip planning — for travelers arriving with no gear. The International Wolf Center and North American Bear Center run education and research facilities open to visitors. The outfitters’ knowledge of the wilderness is encyclopedic.

Gray wolves, moose, black bears, beavers, river otters, osprey, bald eagles, and the common loon all live here. The wolf population is among the healthiest in the lower 48 states; hearing a pack howl across the water at night from a backcountry campsite is one of North America’s most affecting wildlife encounters. Moose wade chest-deep into lakes to feed on aquatic vegetation; seeing one at dawn in a boreal lake is an image that stays with you.

In January, the BWCAW is an entirely different destination. Lakes freeze to 2 to 3 feet, creating a highway system across the interior. Dog-sled tours run from Ely outfitters across frozen lake surfaces and through boreal forest. The aurora borealis is visible on clear nights from September through March. Nordic skiing on the Gunflint Trail’s groomed system — and in the wilderness itself, traveling between camps on the frozen lakes — is one of the finest winter wilderness experiences in the country.