Colorado to Nova Scotia: the Boundary Waters and Pukaskawa

In 2026 the Boundary Waters are on fire. It’s hard to believe a place so lush and wet (compared to our arid Colorado plateau) could catch fire that spreads so rapidly and intensely. Alas, our new normals are fire and flood even in places where we thought change would take longer and come later. 

Lake Superior

In 2025, we stopped through the Boundary Waters wanting to understand this place enough to scope a future trip which we planned for 2026, but... see above. So, no boundary waters canoe trip in 2026 but we love this beautiful place and we will try again in the future. Sending love to everyone trying to manage a very challenging season in the BWCA.

camp rain

In 2025, on a rainy July morning, we set out to explore the 57-mile Gun Flint Trail. 

With crave-able treats and coffee from Crosby Baker, of course!

The rain let up long enough for a wildflower stroll. 

Devil Track Wildflower Sanctuary

And the sun came out for a hot, humid buggy climb up to Northern Light Lake Overlook. Here we glimpsed the teeniest portion of this vast, what-seems-like half-water, half-rock, half-tree place.

Northern Light Lake

We passed the Laurentian Divide where, on one side, all the waters flow to Hudson Bay and the Labrador Sea and on the other, they flow straight to the Atlantic. We spent the rest of the day wandering and dreaming about paddling out into the wilderness: What would it be like to paddle away, to find out what lies around that bend, to explore a new, wild island? The huge maps at the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center illustrated the breadth of this land of lakes, how far it expands North, the countless inlets, rivers and channels, some connected, some dead ends. To see them all! It would take a lifetime or forever.

Now, I am reading Paddling My Own Canoe by Audrey Sutherland. She writes this feeling, this dream: the curiosity, the desire and the drive to see what lies around the next bend, deep in that canyon, over the next outcropping. She gets it (or we get her)!

crystal clear water

A few days later we found ourselves further North, further East, paddling around Hattie Cove and out into the big lake, over rock mountains hidden slyly under crystal clear water with shells and mud and Lilly pads and ducks. Here, in Pukasawa National Park (with its excellent first come-first served campsites with nearly new, hot, clean showers), we watched others packing up their backpacks and canoes in the parking lot, getting ready to head out into that great wilderness of water, granite and marsh and thick trees. And the love of this place, the dream of more adventure, just grew. 

little big lakes and a big, big lake beyond

Tucker and I took a hike around Halfway Lake on the Bimose Kinoomagewnan (The Ojibwe Walk of Teachings). We wandered through the mossy forest, by potholes and shallow ponds opening to smooth, rock monoliths and a view of the little big lakes, in front of the big, big lake (the superior lake?).

Honesty

Teachings of respect, truth, wisdom, honesty, courage, humility and love. 

"When people are going through troubled times, this is when they need love the most. You have to know love, and then you will know peace. Love knows no boundaries (colour, nationality). Once you leave into the spirit world, you know your love will be left behind." – Myra Michano (Strong Black Bear Woman)

Yes! To a teaching of love in a place full of dreams.