Paddle and Portage Podcast

The Border Route Trail on the eastern side of the BWCA continues to grow in popularity and use. The trail is 65-miles long and follows the international border between Minnesota and Ontario. It is the first long-distance, wilderness backpacking and hiking trail in Minnesota planned and constructed by volunteers.

In the spring of 2025, just as the ice was leaving many of the lakes across the Boundary Waters, the P&P team met up ...

Old Man Ed is a fixture in the Boundary Waters. He's been following, in the literal sense, the Paddle and Portage Podcast team for years. Often, he crawls from the water's edge and provides wisdom and perspective to the folks who make this whole thing go. 

In this episode, Ed arrives on the great fishing opener weekend, which includes Mother's Day. 

Music on this episode is shared, with permission, from the album Crook...

Resignations. Terminations. Confusion. Reductions. Limitations.  

These are all themes the U.S. Forest Service is seeing and facing on a routine basis as the 2025 paddling season arrives to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. 

In this episode, we hear from Barb Soderberg. Soderberg's career with the Forest Service started in 1967 on Superior National Forest, and she was intricately involved with crafting the 1978 BWCA Wilder...

The Hudson Bay Girls is an all-female canoe team paddling a historic Voyageur Fur Trading Route in 2025. The expedition will take them on a 1,200-mile journey from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay, Canada. Along the way, they will share their story to raise awareness about the importance of environmental stewardship, outdoor education, and gender equality in outdoor spaces. This video episode of the podcast was recorded at Canoecopia in...

Most people come to the Boundary Waters to engage with wilderness. Solitude. Peace. Escape. These are sentiments commonly shared by the more than 125,000 people who come to the BWCA each year. And while some people come to fish, not everyone does. Regardless of one's interest in angling, this episode gets into the science (and ethics) of why it's good to release the larger fish one catches in the Boundary Waters and beyond. 

Suppor...

Pete Marshall and Dave Meier are friends of the Boundary Waters, and they happen to work for an organization named Friends of the Boundary Waters. In this interview, which was recorded at Canoecopia in Madison, Wisc., in spring 2025, Pete and Dave talk with Joe from the Paddle and Portage Podcast about paddling the BWCA, the political climate as it relates to wilderness recreation, and what trips are on the books for the paddling s...

Whitewater is a powerful force. It's often destructive, drastically changing entire landscapes. It can also be a place of both play and healing. For Jordan Taylor, a 30-year whitewater paddling instructor, it has been both destructive and healing. Join the Paddle and Portage Podcast team as they travel to Wisconsin's Wolf River and beyond to tell the story. 

This episode is sponsored by: 

Borderland Lodge on the Gunflint Trail

Frie...

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is highlighted on a map of possible places for “increasing timber production” that was shared by federal officials in Washington D.C. last week.

The order, signed April 3 by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, declares an emergency on more than 176,000 miles of national forest. The order calls for logging in order to increase timber production and reduce the risks assoc...

Canadian helicopters and drones are flying over the lakes of the Boundary Waters with greater frequency as the 2025 paddling season nears. 

From Lake Superior to the far western edge of the Boundary Waters near Ely, reports of sightings of drones and helicopters flying just above the tree line continue to reach the Paddle and Portage Podcast team.

Part of the podcast team traveled to Saganaga Lake at the end of the Gunflint Trail i...

Maddy Frawley is a fixture at the end of the Gunflint Trail. For the past decade, she's worked at Voyageur Canoe Outfitters, including the past three as a manager on site. Maddy, along with her partner, Clay, won't be around this paddling season, as they are moving to the Twin Cities in the months ahead.

Maddy stopped by the Paddle and Portage headquarters in Grand Marais to discuss Trail life, living and working at the end of the ...

The Paddle and Portage team is constantly taking inspiration and motivation from wilderness. The act of regularly getting out not only inspires the work, but actually is the work itself. It is both the goal and the path to the goal. In this episode, we support this notion through the stories of Oregon Bill Busacker, Cousin Jeff Frawley, Emma Froh, and Natalya Egon. 

This episode sponsored by: 

North Country Canoe Outfitters

Ely Out...

Canoecopia 2025 found itself in the middle of a news story. As Canadian paddlers and businesses arrived to Madison, Wisc., for the world's largest paddling expo, talks of tariffs and political tension between the U.S. and Canada dominated news headlines across both nations. This simmering unfolded in multiple ways at Canoecopia, both ahead of and during the event. Rising above any tension was unity. And that unity comes from paddli...

Kelcy Huston grew up splashing in the creeks and rivers along Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior. She moved out West as a young adult, working a number of outdoor jobs for state and federal agencies. It was a job based near the Lochsa River in Idaho Huston discovered a passion for whitewater paddling. This passion would lead her to some some of the best paddling destinations across the nation, including multiple trips down th...

There was a report from the Star Tribune this week that the Gunflint Ranger Station in Grand Marais “has no employees.” The Paddle and Portage Podcast team went to the office Feb. 20 and found it was open and there were people at the front desk.

In this news update on the podcast, we talk about Trump administration’s deferred resignation program for federal employees. The offer, commonly referred to as “Fork in the Road,” has now e...

Ella Hall is buried in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A grave on a small island located on a lake bearing her name is not something most BWCA paddlers are aware of, let alone come across. 

In this episode, we share the story of Ella Hall. We do so with the help of the late Mike Hillman, an iconic storyteller who lived for many years in and around Ely. Known locally as “Iron Mike,” he wrote and published many stories abo...

It's been a cold winter across the Boundary Waters region. Damn cold, in fact. 

Temperatures hit -30 Fahrenheit from the Gunflint Trail to areas near Ely in the middle of February. Double-digit negative temperatures have become something of the norm this winter, dating back to the Jan. 1 trout opener in the BWCA Wilderness. 

In this episode of the podcast, we talk about what ice thickness means for anglers and winter campers for th...