With pristine water, clean air, respite from technology, abundant wildlife (eagles, loons, moose, black bears), and hundreds of square miles of lakes to paddle and portage -- it's a canoer's paradise!

To further protect the wilderness, aircraft is restricted to 4,000 feet and above. Roads and buildings are strictly limited to ranger's cabins and international customs stations, with the only improvements available to visitors being portage trails, as well as a fire grate and latrine at each designated campsite.

The BWCAW is a unique area of the country. You will see the Milky Way bright in the dark night sky, cook over a campfire, travel under your own power, and enjoy true quiet. Sometimes the northern lights dance across our summer nights to the song of the loons. The border country is a special place to visit and re-connect with the environment.

The BWCAW is the most popular wilderness in the United States, but even in 2021, only about 1 out of every 4 visitors was a woman. We are proud to introduce Girl Scouts to the BWCAW and hope to make the wilderness a welcoming space for all genders.

The Nature of the Border Country

During the ice ages 10,000-20,000 years ago, the physical scraping of glaciers in retreat left the land hollowed and dimpled. Thousands of deep, clear, and nutrient-poor lakes formed a lattice across the boreal forests of pine, spruce, fir, hemlock, birch, and poplar. Low-growing blueberries thrive in the poor soil and mayflower, trillium, starflower, bunchberry, and bluebead lily provide beautiful trailside vistas as you sweat your way along portage trails.

Beavers build dams and lodges on the creeks and rivers, engineering water-management marvels and maintaining critical swamps, marshes, and bogs that clean the waters and nurture an abundance of life. In the deep granite lakes, you can find trout, pike, walleye, and bass flourishing.

Black bears, moose, and gray wolves range the border country. You are unlikely to see a wolf in the wild, but you can learn more about them and see captive wolves at the International Wolf Center outside of Ely, MN. Moose do not take much interest in humans, and we just wait for them to cross a portage or swim past our canoes. Bears are interested in our food and we take special precautions to control food smells and protect our rations while in the wilderness.

Guides are trained to keep our crews safe from large animals. We have an excellent safety record and a great reputation for leaving the wilderness better than we found it. Girl Scouts follow leave-no-trace principles to retain the wilderness character of the BWCAW and as part of our own Girl Scouting principles.

Around 400 years ago, French Canadian trappers ventured inland along the Great Lakes and ultimately took their cargoes through the St. Lawrence River to Quebec and onward to Europe. These voyageurs traveled by canoe and portaged their gear from lake to lake. 

Later, settlers came to harvest the abundant timber and mine the earth for iron, copper, and nickel. The Iron Range Communities, arcing from Grand Rapids to Ely, are built on a rich vein of ore. The forests in the Arrowhead supplied timber to build Chicago and the booming cities of the Midwest and West. Many of these settlers came from the European migrations of the 1800-1900s and the area retains traditions of immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Britain, Poland, and Russia. Mining and timber continue to support the economic backbone of Minnesota today as new immigrants add to the diverse cultural of the state.