![]() ![]() Reportedly America’s most visited wilderness area, BWCA has twelve hiking trails, more than 1,200 miles of canoe routes, and more than 2,000 designated campsites. BWCA is also home to a large population of gray wolves, moose, beavers, bald eagles, and other fauna. Pine, spruce, fir, and cedar are common among berry bushes and wetland shrubs. Surrounding cliffs, canyons, and hills (the tallest being Eagle Mountain, at 2,301 feet) harbor dense forest ecosystems. The area is home to a vast network of approximately 1,175 lakes and several hundred miles of streams, which have filled in the depressions left by retreating glaciers. The site was incorporated into the Superior National Forest, dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1909. General Land Office designated 500,000 acres of the future Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) as protected from settlement another 141,000 acres were added in 1905. In the seventeenth century European and French Canadian explorers traversed the area on trade routes. Canoeing through its waters, Dakota, Ojibwe, and other indigenous peoples established villages, grew wild rice, and crafted siltstone tools, beginning some 10,000 – 12,000 years ago. Extending 199 miles along the international border, the area is contiguous with Quetico Provincial Park, in Canada, and Voyageurs National Park, in the United States. Carved by glacial retreat spanning some 2.5 million years, this vast wilderness covers approximately 1,075,500 acres in northeastern Minnesota.
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