A Boundary Waters canoe camping trip is a bucket list item for every outdoor adventure traveler I know. While I am primarily a kayaker, I was lucky enough to be invited on a Boundary Waters canoe camping trip a few summers ago and it was just as amazing as I had hoped! Fortunately, our trip leader, Bob, has extensive experience leading canoe trips in the BWCAW. If you don’t have experience with Boundary Waters canoe trips, there are plenty of local outfitters who are experts in planning BWCA trips.

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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

The BWCAW is a 1,000,000-acre wilderness, managed by the US Forest Service in the Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota. With 1,200 miles of canoe routes and over 2,000 designated campsites, BWCA is a mecca for canoe camping, fishing, hiking, and biking along several hiking trails, including the 57-mile Gunflint Trail. Voyageurs National Park borders the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area to the West and Quetico Provincial Park along the Canada border to the north.

From BWCA permits, choosing a Boundary Waters outfitter, to setting an itinerary, this is what you need to know to plan your wilderness canoe trip in the Boundary Waters.

A good map is essential for planning your BWCA canoe trip. Ordering your BWCA maps will be the first step once you’ve decided to plan your trip. The BWCA maps are also essential for navigating the many lakes within the Boundary Waters, as well as identifying any portages and campsites each day. On the trip, you will want to make sure that each boat, if not each person, has a reliable BWCA map available.

BWCA Permits

The BWCA permit process is where it comes in handy to have someone with BWCA experience in your crew. Anyone planning a Boundary Waters camping trip between May 1 and September 30 will need to apply for BWCA permits. (You need a permit year-round, but self-issued permits are available in the off-season.) Your permit will determine your entry point into the Boundary Waters but does not limit your movement once you have launched. There are a few high-demand launches that require a lottery, while all others open in late January and are on a first-come first-serve basis. This system for Boundary Waters permits ensures a limited number of parties launching each day, which you will appreciate when you are enjoying the solitude of the Boundary Waters. Additionally, group size in the Boundary Waters is limited to 9 people and no more than 4 boats.

Boundary Waters Canoe Outfitters

Regardless of your canoe trip experience, if it’s your first time in the Boundary Waters, I highly recommend working with a local canoe trip outfitter to help plan your trip. You can choose from fully guided canoe trips, a self-guided trip with a complete outfitting package, or for those with more experience, you can opt for a partial outfitting package. We chose the latter option since our trip leader already had so much experience. As a group, we did all of the planning, used most of our own personal gear, and rented canoes and a satellite phone from Canoe Country Outfitters. We also rented a house from them for the nights before and after our trip.

Most of the canoe trip outfitting companies are based in Ely Minnesota, the gateway to the Boundary Waters. These outfitters are some of the most popular; they will help plan your trip, rent equipment, and sell you any canoe trip gear that you need.

• Canoe Country Outfitters
• Boundary Waters Outfitters
• Piragis Northwoods Company
• Ely Outfitting Company

If you only have time for a day trip in the Boundary Waters, consider this Boundary Waters day trip from Grand Marais!

Boundary Waters Itinerary

Choosing your itinerary is the most critical and probably the most difficult task when planning your trip. While you will have some flexibility in terms of campsites, you still want a general idea of where you will go so that you are adequately prepared for paddling and portage distances. Our itinerary for 6 days in the Boundary Waters included these lakes:

• Day 1 – Lake 1,2,3,4, Hudson, Insula
• Day 2 – Kiana, Thomas
• Day 3 – Hatchet, Ima
• Day 4 – Jordan, Cattyman, Gibson, Ashigan, Ensign
• Day 5 – Splash, Sucker, (Canada!), Newfound
• Day6 – Moose Lake

You want to plan your canoe routes carefully and remember that the packs will be heaviest on the first day when you have six days of food for five people. If you can, save the longer portages for later in the trip when your packs will be lighter. On our trip, I was designated as the food mule, meaning I got to carry the portage pack containing the huge blue bear vault.  This job was NO JOKE! That pack was flippin’ heavy and lacked the internal support frame like a backpacking pack.  I pretty much had to hunch over to keep from falling backward!

A Buffalo River Float Trip in Arkansas is a great “practice run” for a Boundary Waters trip!

Portages are measured in rods, which is the average length of a canoe. There are 320 rods in a mile. So a 160-rod portage is approximately 1/2-mile. Sometimes portages take you from one lake to the next. Other times, like the picture above, you will portage around rapids. This wasn’t a whitewater trip! Each portage involves unpacking the canoes, splitting up the gear, and loading up our backs and two lucky paddlers got to carry a canoe on their heads!

Portaging is what makes canoes better than kayaks in the Boundary Waters! Portaging a loaded kayak is heavy, and loading/unloading a kayak is a lot more difficult.

Boundary Waters Canoe Trip Planning

We started planning our July trip in January, meeting a few times to discuss meal planning, wine preferences, route planning, and our personal goals for the journey (stargazing and photography for me) With a group of five, we created a group trip packing list and delegated tasks to prepare for the 6-day wilderness excursion. A few days before our trip, we gathered one last time to assemble our group gear and hone in on our BWCA packing list to ensure everything fit into the dry bags we planned to carry. This might seem like overkill, but it really helped the trip go smoothly.

Boundary Waters Camping

There are over 2,000 BWCA campsites to choose from on over 1,000 lakes. Our trip leader had a good sense of which campsites he wanted and they were all spectacular. We usually arrived at a camp in the early afternoon, where we would beach the canoes and set up camp. Each Boundary Waters campsite has a fire ring, a pit toilet off in the woods, and plenty of room for our two tents. (Yes, there were pit toilets, but no outhouse! The BWCA campsites get too much traffic to trust everyone to dig proper catholes, so they have eliminated that issue.)

We quickly settled into a nice routine each day, with a tough paddle followed by an early landing to get the best campsites. That left a lot of free time for happy hour cheese and wine in the afternoon, followed by swimming, reading, napping, or hiking. We split cooking and dishwashing duties each night. After dinner, it’s time to hang the food bag from the bears, which is no small task!

Boundary Waters Packing List

What to pack for 6 days in the backcountry?  Not much, when there are portages involved! Every canoe trip packing list will vary based on the group, but you can start with your own personal gear, similar to my backpacking gear list. However, you do need to make sure you have enough equipment and food to be self-sufficient for your entire trip.

Your Boundary Waters gear list should include:

• Dry bags are key to a comfortable canoe trip! Anything you want to stay dry goes in a dry bag, including your clothing, food, sleeping bag, and tent. They make specific portage packs with shoulder straps for this kind of trip.
• This waterproof fanny pack from Sealine was my river purse and it was perfect! I used it to store my phone, chapstick, snacks, and anything else I needed easy access to during the day. (I still use this years later when paddleboarding in Utah)
• Tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads
• First Aid Kit
• Bear Canisters and rope to hang a bear bag
• Camp kitchen (utensils, dish soap, stove, fuel, plates, and cutlery)
• Water containers and water treatment
• Sunscreen and bug spray (we even used head nets on some evenings when the mosquitos were bad)
• Food to include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for each day. These backpacking meals are a good place to start! Our Boundary Waters menu dinners consisted of a soup mix like Bear Creek, with pouch chicken and dehydrated veggies. For this trip, we used a JetBoil Group Cooking System. Check prices on JetBoil Cooking Systems
• Boundary Waters fishing can be pretty good, so pack a rod, reel, and fishing license for a fresh fish dinner!

Clothing can be similar to my whitewater rafting packing list – lots of quick-dry clothes, good water shoes, and comfy camp clothes!

Getting to the Boundary Waters

The whole point of a Boundary Waters camping trip is to get away from it all. However, that means it’s not necessarily easy to get to the Boundary Waters. The Minnesota towns of Ely and Grand Marais are the two main entry points to the Boundary Waters. This is where you’ll find all of the outfitters as well as lodging and dining before and after your Boundary Waters trip. Grand Marais is located on Lake Superior and is also a gateway for Isle Royale National Park. Both towns are about two hours from Duluth. Duluth does have an international airport if you are flying in for your trip. Otherwise, both entry points are about 4 hours from Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is the nearest city. Driving from Chicago, it’s about nine hours to Ely.

The long drive is totally worth the payoff when you go canoe camping in the Boundary Waters!