Tag: Boundary Waters
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Unplugged and Off-the-Grid ~ Our Island Home (Part 3)
We finished our seventh portage of the day, and finally found ourselves in Long Island Lake, with the goal of setting up camp on the island closest to the portage. A pair of loons greeted us as we began paddling toward the island. My sons lifted their paddles and just floated along for a short…
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Unplugged and Off-the-Grid: Getting our Paddles Wet (Part 2)
Turning off the cell phone and leaving it behind for four nights is a liberating feeling. Once we were up the Gunflint Trail, cell phone signals were no more. Problem-solving while camping and on the water in the BWCA would be handled through good old-fashioned brain power rather than plugging the query into Google. No…
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Unplugged and Off-the-Grid: Gearing Up (Part 1)
Recently, I introduced you to (or for many of you, reacquainted you with) Minnesota’s cabin culture. In northern Minnesota, I dare say that Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) trips are woven into the region’s culture just as strongly. Amazingly, in over 20 years of living “up north” we had yet to make it into the…
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Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes
Having just emerged from several unplugged and off-the-grid days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) Wilderness, images from that camping trip are fresh on my mind. Rather than sharing my view of the classic lakes and woods of the famed pristine wilderness, I am bringing you into the forest. The rains have been frequent,…
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Embracing the Beauty of Winter
I am wistfully wishing for more snow, as the last layer retreats with temperatures pushing 50 degrees Fahrenheit — an unseasonably warm day for early December. We are past the warm colors of autumn, and the green of spring is many months away. Living in northern Minnesota, you learn to embrace winter, or face the risk that…
Travel. Garden. Eat. 