Quetico Provincial Park

And yet even now, quiet stories continue to unfold as the people in the land still recover.

We recently shared the story of the Nelson family, a follow-up from this summer and the wildfires that closed both the entire Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Quetico Provincial Park in July, that the Nelson family were in Quetico on Konnipi Lake, having entered through Cache Bay at the end of the Gunplant Trail and needed to be airlifted out, evacuated from Quetico, leaving their canoes behind.

only later in October of this year to have those canoes flown out by an outfitter.

I believe actually in late September they were flown out, and Matt Nelson drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan and came and got the canoes.

So we're going to talk about some serious stuff today.

Go back to July and the wildfires.

Of course, national news in the BWCA and also very impactful in Quetico Provincial Park, which is just across the border in Ontario.

There were some campers, youth campers and guides from Minnogen who were in Quetico during the fires, which was mid-July, right in the peak of it.

Well, the big kid night when we when we travel, we've got a 17 foot.

Oh, Quetico.

And so it's just a big lumbering thing to carry a whole bunch of really heavy gear.

And we pack everything into it.

And I'm like, I don't want to end my season with a dicey trip.

Um, so I don't think there's anything more in, in this season for me.

Um, the big thing that happened to me this year is, um, I turned 50 in November and I was supposed to go to Quetico and do a big solo trip, uh, in August, this past August.

And, um, Unfortunately, the park closures from the fire overlapped with my dates.

So smallmouth bass are the same.

I've caught smallmouth using topwater in like Eva Lake, which is north of Lake Superior, Quetico Provincial Park, where I'm getting a smallmouth, a three pound smallmouth on a popper.

And when I get it in the boat, it's regurgitating fresh smelt.

You could almost fry the smelt up.

Yeah.

is a thing unto itself much different than paddling the boundary waters of Quetico in terms of like what wind can do and weather obviously on some of the bigger lakes like Knife and Sag and there's some big water in the boundary waters of Quetico of course but Lake Superior is a thing unto itself when we're talking about how weather can impact a paddle trip in particular and you had these alpaca style rafts they're like you can sort of like break them down and put them in like a pack raft

is

what it's called so it can be broken down and put into a pack means you can be sort of hybrid terrestrial like you can go on the land and take go under the water which is a really really cool way to do isle royal but when you hit wind like you guys did on your trip tell us how that How it went in terms of your schedule, itinerary, and your initial plan.

the lake and it resides in me in a way that is indescribable and so that was really cool to see yeah

sweet okay yeah well i love that the thing you were sort of intimidated or afraid of the most ended up being the thing that sort of grabbed you as you were there, and that it's leading to, you know, planning other adventures and backpacking and opening new doors.

I think, you know, some people that come to the Boundary Waters or Quetico who are backpackers and feel that sort of reverse intimidation, like, I don't know about this canoeing, portaging thing.

This seems out of my wheelhouse.

Um, she wants our big trip next summer.

We wanna go back to Quetico and the Boundary Waters.

But, uh, but she said the next summer she would do the Thorofare again.

Um, and, and I don't know, but I also don't know, I don't know that I would go back at the end of June.

This one will blow you away.

Other shows we have in the works, trophy trout in Lake Taneycomo, the chalk streams of England, the boundary waters in Quetico, and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, and more.

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Now grab your camo and your backpack as we go ninja into the backcountry of New Zealand with Manny.