BOUNDARY WATERS CANOE AREA (BWCA) - Scroll down to learn more about this website
About this Website:
The main purpose of this website is to provide firsthand virtual visits to the BWCA. This allows you to see a place you may have visited before in the BWCA or help you plan a new trip to the Boundary Waters. Your viewpoint will be as if you are actually out there. You will see and hear from a first person perspective what you would encounter if you were canoeing, portaging or camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
As time goes on, more and more lakes, rivers, creeks, entry points, portages, pictographs and campsites will be added to the website. This allows you to actually do a virtual trip through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area starting from an entry point or the lake or stream of your choosing. The maps and links of the website are placed in such a way as to allow you to click through to the next most likely destination along your chosen route, or even change your route midway through your trip. If you get cabin fever for the BWCA in the middle of winter, this is a way to cure it (at least a little). Also, you can use this information (photos, videos, descriptions) to remind yourself of an old trip or plan for an upcoming trip (you’ll know what to expect). This could be particularly useful if you are a first timer to the BWCA. If you’ve ever sat around your campsite pouring over your BWCA maps, and just wondered what that really remote lake might be like, this website may be able to show you. If you are going to the BWCA with some tenderfoots, this website may be able to help you determine if a portages are difficult; you'll be able to virtually walk it and decide for yourself.
Much of the orginal groundwork for this website is built around the BWCA's Primitive Management Areas (PMA’s), but with the overall goal of eventually showing the entire Boundary Waters (and Quetico Provincial Park too). PMA's are remote, unmanaged regions of the BWCA designated by the U.S. Forest Service. There are 12 PMA's in the BWCA and they encompass about 1/8th of the entire BWCAW. Many of these PMA areas are seldom seen, even by regular visitors to the BWCA. (Visit this page to find out about PMA's - What are PMA's?)
The BWCAwild.com website also is a resource for statistical information. The website includes information on such things as historical fires, PMA lake depths, water clarity, fish, lake sizes (acres) and creek and river lengths. Videos and statistical lists will be continually updated and added over time.
