What is the Boundary Waters
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA or BWCAW) hasn’t changed much since the most recent ice age. Glaciers scoured away depressions in the huge slab of rock known as the Canadian Shield leaving over 1000 lakes and the rocky landscape here. Throughout history; the Sioux and Chippewa Indians, explorers, fur traders, miners, and loggers have inhabited the land and used its resources.
More recently, the US government set aside more than one million acres of wilderness where the United States Forest Service manages this piece of the Superior National Forest along the Minnesota/Canadian Border. The federal government officially established the BWCA in the 1964 Wilderness Act. Anyone with a Forest Service Permit can travel and camp in this beautiful place.
