Very cool setup.. You're making me miss camping... I went up into the boundary waters canoe area in northern minnesota last summer for a week long canoe trip, and I'm going back this summer for another week. I can't wait.

As a side note, for anybody that is into the outdoors, I HIGHLY recommend the boundary waters canoe area. It's amazing. You pack your canoe up with all your camping stuff, and if you're willing to do some short portages, you can explore a 1 million acre network of interconnected lakes and rivers. Once you get a day or two away from the entry points, you can go days without seeing another person, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Yeah no doubt.

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Almost 2/3 of Americans either think the current health care bill is about right or doesn't go far enough
We spend 54% of our federal budget on the military
The costs of failing to address global warming

Your description makes it very tempting.
I'll bet it's gorgeous.
If you've got any pics, I hope you'll post one or two.
If not, next time; bring a camera.

btw,
though it was in the first half of the 20th Century, my Mom was raised on White Bear Lake in Minnesooooota.
I spent enough time in Minneapolis / St. Paul to have developed a fondness for Hamm's beer.
Can't get it in NY anymore.

Hmmm my friend's facebook page where he posted the pics from our trip isn't loading... Here is a random one off the web that I think is pretty typical of how it looks though:





Those aren't like unusually scenic spots. The whole (*)(*)(*)(*) place looks like that. And if you're into fishing at all, it's the kind of place where you measure your success in terms of how many fish you catch per hour, not how many hours you spend fishing per fish

They don't allow any motorized boats in. I've had friends that spent two months at a time in there and came out just to try to get some more supplies as fast as possible so they could head back in.

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Almost 2/3 of Americans either think the current health care bill is about right or doesn't go far enough
We spend 54% of our federal budget on the military
The costs of failing to address global warming

Thank you tea!
That's like a mini-vacation! Gorgeous.
How long is the season? June, July, &, August?

I'd love to get a sailboat in there!!

I've liked hemlock trees ever since I read The Last Days of Socrates by Plato.
I only learned later that the hemlock poison Socrates drank wasn't the same hemlock as hemlock trees.
But they're pretty trees.

tea,
I'm not trying to start trouble here. But it wouldn't surprise me if you could get flown in by airplane or chopper at a cost you could afford.

And or, getting resupplied ...

Please, please forgive me for this. I don't own a cell phone. I don't have WiFi.
But I'm curious. Can you get "bars", & or WiFi up there?

I suspect if you'd purchase and pack a few hundred pounds of supplies, and leave it with the pilot, and either pre-arrange a drop, or phone it in; you could stay the length of the season.

Thanks again for the tip.
I can see, that's one fabulous place for some camping (snorkeling, etc.).

And just to keep this tangent on track; any bears up there?
If / when you go, do you bring a gun?

That's the warmest time to go. A lot of people still go in May and September too. Actually some people go in the winter and hike or ski and snow camp... But that's pretty intense. I've never done winter camping, but it sounds pretty freaking cold to me.

They don't allow them. That's considered mechanised transport. They're super strict about the rules against machines. I was talking to a forestry service guy that worked in there all year clearing portages and I said I thought they should allow them to use chainsaws. He said, "nah, we gave up on that long ago. The real problem now is they won't even let them use wheelbarrows because a wheel is considered a machine." It's kind of crazy, but the effect it has is to keep it from getting too crowded and it keeps it quiet. And there is just kind of a tradition to it that's cool. The native Americans were canoeing those lakes as far back as we know, the Voyageurs canoed them in the 17th and 18th centuries. My great grandfather went canoeing up there all the time when he was a kid, and my grandfather, and my dad, and now me. Sort of like a rite of passage or something. If you need a machine to get in there, you didn't really earn the scenery.

I'm not sure you'd want a sailboat in there anyways though. Keep in mind that you'll need to carry your boat over portages. A lightweight canoe is pretty much optimized for the setup there. Some people use kayaks, but IMO a canoe is easier to just toss your packs in and float around fishing in and whatnot.

They don't let choppers or airplanes land in the park, but I've heard there are some beautiful places that you can do that in Canada just outside the park. The bwca is the US side of the park, Quetico is the Canadian half, then north of that is a massive Canadian national forest that you can have planes and motor boats and stuff in. At that point, you're 100s of miles from the nearest road though, so the people that go there either take like a month to canoe there or hire a pilot. I've heard that from the boundary waters you could walk all the way to the north pole only crossing the trans candadian highway and no other roads. Crazy.

I've heard a rumor that you can get a very weak signal in some of the lakes on the very edge of the park, but in most of it you can't. Some people bring satellite phones for emergencies.

Yeah they have black bears. I've actually only seen them in the park a couple/few times, but they're around. One time when I was a kid a bear got into our food pack when we were out fishing, but other than that I haven't had any problems.

I don't, but some people do.

Anyways, if you ever get a chance to go up there, you won't regret it. It's well worth making a special trip for. The best entry points are on the east side in the area around a town called Grand Marais. You can rent or buy everything you'd need there.

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Almost 2/3 of Americans either think the current health care bill is about right or doesn't go far enough
We spend 54% of our federal budget on the military
The costs of failing to address global warming

Famous last words...

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“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.” – Will Rogers

Do you have brown bears in Idaho? If so, that's a little different thing. They still aren't very agressive, but WAY more aggressive than black bears.

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Almost 2/3 of Americans either think the current health care bill is about right or doesn't go far enough
We spend 54% of our federal budget on the military
The costs of failing to address global warming

Excellent advice in this thread.

For me, the minimum would be a .357 Magnum, 6-inch barrel revolver loaded with 180-grain Winchester Partition Golds.

I also wholeheartedly agree that the revolver would most likely be used to defend myself against the two-legged variety of predators.

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"If government is the answer, then it must have been a really stupid question" S. Wolf

Yes, but I did link to the record of all bear attacks in North America earlier and at least half were black bears...Bottom line with a black bear, it it is showing interest in you, you could be dinner.

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“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.” – Will Rogers