My two sons, Nate and Tristan, navigating with me into the Minnesota wilderness.
Last time, I talked about a couple of books that served to fire my childhood imagination and creativity. Today I want to share with you a special place that inspired my life-long passion for living things and the world they inhabit.
In Northern Minnesota, close to the border of Canada, is an area of pristine wilderness called the Boundary Water Canoe Area (BWCA). If you’re not familiar with this special place, it’s worth mentioning a few words about.
The BCWA encompasses over a million acres within the Superior National Forest. The land is a mix of North Woods (a combination of conifer and deciduous type trees), glacial lakes and streams. The vast area is preserved as primitive wilderness, meaning there are few roads and no electricity or cell phone service. Visiting requires a taste of adventure as exploring the BWCA is challenging. It requires good map reading skills, a canoe, a strong back for portaging between lakes and a tolerance for living without modern day conveniences.
While not visitor friendly, the chance to witness the raw beauty of a pristine wilderness trumps the difficult travel. In the BWCA, you can canoe down a lazy stream and come across a moose foraging in the shallow water or a beaver swimming alongside before slapping his tail and disappearing under a thicket of lily pads (the photo on the header of my website is of the Kelso River in the BWCA).
The diversity of natural scenes in the BWCA is awe inspiring. You’ll come across the serenity of small islands in the center of a lake, puffy white clouds floating over sweet-fern scented pine and aspen forest to name a few. However for me, ever since I first visited with my family as a small child, I’ve come to love the miniature habitats that are everywhere you look. 
Canoeing over shallow waters of a lake, my face was always turned down to peer into the underwater forest of p
lants or into the thickets of floating bogs where dragonflies dance and carnivorous plants lurk.
And while on shore I’d search the rocky coves looking for and finding schools of minnows gliding underneath Fragrant White lilies and around stands of wild rice.
Filled with ideas of recreating these mini ecosystems, I tried with limited success to replicate what I saw by building plastic lined ponds I dug in my backyard and in the plethora of aquariums that filled my room. I had given up on my childhood dream, forgotten about it really, until a several years ago when I came across the work of the famous Japanese photographer, Takashi Amano. To my amazement, Mr. Amano was doing what I had dreamed about as a child. Next time I’ll share with you what I learned.
For those of you unable to visit the Boundary Water Canoe Area in person, here is a great book to check out: Border Country by Craig and Nadine Blacklock.
Do you have a favorite inspirational place?
David—–I still remember those days traveling with your Dad and the senior high youth. It was rough but beautiful. The bugs were pretty darn big but one of the best parts was racing the canoes back to take showers!
Dad loved the Minnesota canoe country. A few years ago, I took my two boys to Cherokee Lake and we saw the big rock on island where we use to camp. It felt kind of weird not having Dad with us. The bugs are still as bad as they use to be, but thankfully the new Kevlar canoes are much lighter than the old aluminium ones we used.