Boundary Waters Canoe Area - General Information
June, 1988
There are excellent guidebooks to both the U.S. and Canadian parks. The ones I own are:
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area (volume 1 - Western Region, vol. 2, Eastern Region) by Robert Beymer Wilderness Press, 2440 Bancroft Way, Berkeley CA 94704. I have the 1978 version, but I believe a new edition is available. You might find this in local libraries or bookstores.
A Paddlers Guide to Quetico Provincial Park by Robert Beymer; W. A. Fisher Company 123 Chestnut St. Box 1107 Virginia, Minnesota 55792-1107 copyright 1985.
These three guides each contain several chapters of useful general information about entry points, permits, etc. The rest of the book is organized as a series of hypothetical trips of varying lengths from each of the major entry points. Each trip shows the total distance, number and difficulty of portages, and suggested stopping places, and total time required, based on a moderate pace with typical heavy rental equipment. We found that with light equipment, single-carrying the portages, we could complete any of the recommended days in an easy 4 to 5 hours. Small maps are included with each book, showing all portages and campsites.
More detailed maps are available from W. A. Fisher Company (same address as above. This series of maps covers both areas in 16 maps at a scale of approximately 100,000:1 (1.6 miles per inch). These are not topographic maps - no contours, no lake elevations, terrain type or ground cover indications.
On the other hand, they show portages, trails, and campsites. You could presumably get US or Canadian government topographics maps, but they wouldn't have the portages and campsites, so you would end up needing two sets. We got by nicely with just the Fisher maps. The full set of 16 is available at a bargin price. I believe you can order them by mail from the publisher. we used the guidebook maps for planning, then bought the Fisher maps we needed from an outfitter near our entry point.
BWCA and Quetico have quite a different flavor from each other. BWCA is organized - portages and campsites are usually well marked (although it is not unusual for vandals to remove signs). You must camp in designated sites. Quetico has no signs and no designated campsites, although many campsites are obvious because of the wear marks of heavy usage. The guide book for Quetico shows locations of campsites known to the author, giving you some assurance that any particular lake actually has a usable site. The popular routes in both parks are crowded during the summer, and the entry point quotas are routinely filled with advance reservations. If you are willing to work a little harder (long portages) and skip the standard tourist attractions along the border, you can find rarely-travelled routes even at peak season. These areas are huge and primitive. No one should go into the interior of these areas unless the group has someone with reliable and well-tested map and terrain reading skills, and a thorough knowledge of back-country camping and survival technique.
The book from which I quoted in the 1988 trip report is "The Singing Wilderness" by Sigurd Olson, published by Alfred Knopf, original copyright 1956, twenty-Thrid printing January 1987. All of Olson's books are worth reading. This one is a series of short essays about particular aspects of the Quetico-Superior region, and contains details about particular lakes, etc. He helps open our over-civilized eyes and ears to some aspects of the area that we might otherwise miss, enriching the experience. At least some of his books should be available in Rochester (Rundel Library), bookshelves at Curtis and ABC, maybe even Village Green or WorldWide). Indiana Camp Supply also has a list of available outdoor books in their catalog, often including a couple of Olson books.
A different set of books is available in Canada, and not generally available here (chauvinism? import restrictions?) so if you browse your local sources in Toronto, you'll probably find different guide books with Canadian authors and publishers.