![]() As any summer visitor will tell you the BWCAW is also home to a wide array of abundant insect life. Fish population includes lake trout, walleye, northern pike, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, perch, crappie, whitefish, sucker, sturgeon, burbot, and many species of minnows. The BWCAW provides important habitat to many wildlife species at all levels of the food chain including a large, stable gray wolf population, red fox, lynx, fisher, pine martin, mink, otter, weasel, black bear, moose, beaver, red-backed salamander, southern bog lemming, northern leopard frogs, bats, white tailed deer, black bear, beaver, porcupine, snowshoe hare, red squirrel, and chipmunk. The BWCAW also contains evidence of a number of historic European and early American activities ranging from the fur trade up to and including early logging and settlement of the area. These include camping sites, villages, wild ricing sites, cemetery areas, pictographs, and sites of spiritual and traditional importance. There are numerous cultural resource sites in the BWCAW resulting from Woodland period (500 BC - 1650 AD) and historic Native American settlements and activities. The BWCAW has a rich human history beginning with sites from the Paleo-Indian culture from 10,000-12000 years ago. In the winter months visitors to the BWCAW enjoy opportunities for skiing, dog-sledding, camping and ice- fishing. It offers freedom to those who wish to pursue an experience of expansive solitude, challenge and personal integration with nature. The BWCAW has approximately 80 entry points with access to 1200 miles of canoe routes, 18 hiking trails, and nearly 2,200 campsites (designated by a latrine and steel fire grate). This type of experience is rare within the continental United States and the BWCAW is the only large lake land wilderness in the National Wilderness Preservation System The BWCAW allows visitors to canoe, portage and camp in the spirit of the French Voyageurs of 200 years ago. Approximately 1175 lakes varying in size from 10 acres to 10,000 acres and several hundred miles of streams comprise about 190,000 acres (20%) of the BWCAW surface area and provide for the opportunity for long distance travel by watercraft. ![]() The glaciers left behind lakes and streams interspersed with islands, and surrounded by of rugged cliffs and crags, gentle hills, canyon walls, rocky shores, and sandy beaches. Great glaciers carved the physical features of what is today known as the BWCAW by scraping and gouging rock. The BWCAW's northern border is contiguous with Canada's Quetico Provincial Park, also managed as a wilderness area, and together they form a core wilderness area of approximately two million acres. It extends nearly 199 miles along the international boundary. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) is a unique natural area located in the northern third of the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota. ![]()
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