Canoeing in the Boundary Waters

Summary

In the summer of 2023, I went on a week-long canoeing trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with 3 of my friends. Over this week, we canoed about 60 miles, and camped on the shores of various lakes in the wilderness. Originally, our route had us covering more distance, but we had to change our route pretty last-minute because of major wildfires that were happening in Canada at the time. But that was okay, the trip was still a great experience. Throughout the trip, we portaged our canoe three or four times a day. If you don't know this, portaging a canoe is when you carry it on your back, along with all of your gear, over land, to get from one lake to another. It's a pretty unique experience, and it was definitely a workout.

This trip was planned by one of my friends, who had planned trips like this before. He did a great job planning the trip and navigating us through the wilderness. We did this trip in July, so the mosquitoes were really bad. We all had to cover every square inch of our bodies when we were in the woods, but when we were out on the lakes or on island shores, the breeze kept the mosquitoes away, so they weren't completely inescapable. We saw a good amount of wildlife on the trip, including a moose and a loon nest with loon eggs in it. Overall, it was a great trip, and I continue to be in love with the Boundary Waters and the unique experience it offers.

Weather

The weather was fairly standard northern Minnesota summer weather. The low was low 60s/high 50s, and I don't think it got above 85. We had to deal with a bit of rain, but I don't think a single storm happened. There were a couple days where it was really quite windy, and we had to work quite a bit to make progress in the canoes, but it wasn't impossible. We definitely got lucky with the weather on this trip.

Highlights

My first highlight of the trip was reaching our camp the first night, and getting everything set up. It had been so long since I'd canoe-camped, I forgot how beautiful of a scene it is to rest your canoe at camp, set up your tent, and just be able to look out across the lake. That evening we all just relaxed, read, and explored a bit. There were some loons on the water, so we got to listen to their calls for awhile. If you've never heard a loon call, I encourage you to google a recording of it, because it sounds incredible.

My second highlight was on the third day, when we did some cliff jumping. We found a cliff that was maybe 40 feet high, and was right next to our campsite for the night. I swam around below the cliff for 10 or 15 minutes, making sure there were no rocks or anything for us to smash into, and after I felt like we were safe, we started to jump! I did two or three jumps, and it was such a rush. But I had to stop pretty soon because smashing into water like that was starting to hurt lol.

My third highlight was about a 15-minute chunk on our fourth day, where, when we were out on a lake, the wind completely died down, and we were able to sit on the lake, not moving, barely any waves hitting us, and just listen to nature for a bit. It was so relaxing. Unfortunately, the reason it was so calm was because some rain was coming, so we had to hurry up to camp once we realized the weather was changing, but it was still a nice moment.

My final highlight was just how cool it felt to portage our canoes. We had a kevlar canoe and an aluminum canoe, and the aluminum was fairly heavy, so carrying it on the portage trails definitely wasn't easy. But it made me feel kinda badass :)

Packing list for the trip

Clothing
- 2 t-shirts
- 1 long sleeve shirt
- 1 sweatshirt
- 2 pairs of sock liners
- 2 pairs of underwear
- 2 pairs of wool socks
- 1 pair of cotton socks
- Raincoat
- 1 pair of zip-off hiking pants
- 1 pair of sweatpants
- Rain pants
First Aid
- Medical tape
- Tylenol
- Hand sanitizer
- Lip balm
- A&D ointment (for chafing)
Food & Smellables
- 5 Mountain House freeze dried meals
- 16 Clif bars
- 16 Tuna packets (yuck 😖)
- A jar of crunchy peanut butter
- Gatorade electrolyte mix
- 16 Fruit snack bags
- A bag of dried mangoes
- 16 slim jim meat sticks
- 16 Granola bars
- A fork
- Sunscreen
- Bug spray
Shoe gear
- 1 pair of old tennis shoes for canoeing and portaging
- 1 pair of tevas as camp shoes
Sleeping gear
- 1 Big Agnes 2 person tent
- 1 Exped Synmat HL MW sleeping pad
- 1 Mountain Hardware 20 degree synthetic sleeping bag
- 1 Sleeping bag liner
- 1 Inflatable pillow
Cooking gear
- Pot
- MSR Whisperlite stove
- White gas fuel bottle
- Lighter
- Soap
- Sponge
Electronics
- 1 26800 mAh power bank
- Phone
- 1 Garmin In Reach
- Garmin Fenix 6 GPS watch
- 1 Camera (Olympus OMD EM1 Mk 3)
- 2 Lenses (Olympus M. Zuiko 12 - 45 mm lens and Olympus 100-400mm f/5-6.3 IS M.Zuiko Digital ED Lens)
- 1 Extra camera battery
- 1 Peak Design Capture Clip
- Charging cords
General gear
- 2 Duluth Packs
- 3 32 oz water bottles
- 1 Grayl 24 oz Water filter
- Poop spade
- Headlamp
- Compass
- Map
- Toilet paper
- Small toothbrush
- Small tube of toothpaste

Our routes

This trip happened a couple years ago, and I didn't plan it, so I can't remember our exact route. However, shown below is the first portion of our route. Here's a download link for as much of the route as I can remember.

Map of my first route — Map of as much of our canoe route as I can remember

Additionally, here is an elevation profile of the route shown above. We had some up and down happening because we were portaging between lakes.

Elevation profile of the route shown above

Pictures

Finally, here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

A sunset on a lake — A sunset from our first night in Minnesota

A man canoeing on a lake — A friend of mine canoeing at the start of our first full day

Two men in a canoe — The other two guys on this trip. We had an aluminum canoe and a kevlar canoe.

A canoe on a shore in the evening — After we got to camp the first night, I paddled off by myself to take some pictures. This is my favorite that I got.

A guy standing in a tree — One of my friends standing in a tree at our first campsite

Three men at a campsite — The guys sitting around camp

A small canoe in front of a large cliff — A picture of the cliff we did some cliff jumping off of

A close up image of a swan — A great picture of a Trumpeter Swan I took

A canoe on a river — Two of the guys starting to canoe after a portage

Two loons looking at each other — There were loons all over the lakes we were canoeing. I got this good picture of a pair of them.

Two men carrying a canoe — Two of the guys getting ready to portage our canoes. We had to do this several times a day, with our longest portage being about a mile.

A man with a bug net on his face — The mosquitoes were really bad on some of the smaller lakes, we sometimes had to canoe with bug nets on our heads

A pair of legs on a canoe on a calm lake — A POV shot I took during a calm period on a lake, shortly before it started raining

A colorful sunset — Due to the wildfires nearby in Canada, the sunsets were incredibly colorful

A closeup of a loon in its nest — On our last day of canoeing, we stumbled upon a loon nest, and I got some great pictures of it

A group of guys at a car — A group photo we took at the end of our trip

A moose walking in a ditch — The whole time we were canoeing, I had really wanted to see a moose. We didn't end up seeing one, but on our drive out, I caught a glimpse of one in the ditch and made the whole group turn the car around to go check it out. I'm always so amazed by how big these things are, I'll never miss a chance to watch one in the wilderness.

Conclusion

This was really a great trip. I was so thankful to my friend for planning it, and I hope to be able to go again with that group of guys sometime. I think next time I'd like to bring some fishing gear though. I regretted not having that with me on this trip. I think I could've set up a nice trolling line for a lot of the time. It was a good way to spend a week in the summer, and I feel lucky that I got to do it.