"The Trump administration is also looking to revive mining in the popular wilderness area" 

"We’re paddling toward the bolded red “I” with a circle around it. It’s distinct—most of my map shows a land of blue lakes—and has my party’s curiosity. 

Closing in, I can make out burnt-orange pictographs along the rock face: a moose, a heron, a person, a palm. These illustrations were created hundreds of years ago by the Anishinaabe people, also known as Ojibwe—a testament to the permanence of this place. 

That sense of timelessness is part of what draws thousands every year to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), an over-1.1-million-acre lake and forest region in northeastern Minnesota. But despite its protected status, this wilderness—like other public lands across the country—faces mounting pressures: funding cuts, layoffs, and mining projects. 

Here, the most efficient mode of travel is by canoe—either paddling or carrying them between lakes, called portaging. My first time moving through this landscape, I was a steadfast “lily dipper”—a paddler’s term for someone who is barely pulling their weight. I’ve returned a dozen times since."

Text and photographs by Will Matuska for Sierra Magazine August 17, 2025. [2]