Boundary Waters and Renegade Paddling

In order to enter the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), one is required to purchase a permit. The permit is issued at a BWCAW ranger station and is good for one group of up to 4 watercraft and 9 people. Requiring permits makes sense, because there are only a certain number of campsites, and limiting groups ensures one will be available (or at least makes it more likely). This also prevents overcrowding in general, and ensures the pristine wilderness is preserved and the impact of human interaction is kept to a minimum.

Overnight paddling permits are valid for the date of entry, and you may paddle for as long as you want. You may frolic among the lakes for months on-end, spending each night at a different campsite, so long as YOU ENTERED ON THE DATE OF THE PERMIT. No exceptions.

So, if, months ago, you scheduled your Boy Scout troop's permits for Sunday August 2nd, for example, and arrived only to discover one of your canoes needed to be repaired, and you cannot fix it before midnight, your trip MUST BE CANCELED and the whole troop must return home. Your permit is NOT valid for entry the next day. Once the minute hand crosses midnight on the date of entry, and you are not in the water, you are done. Go home. Your trip is over.

This was troubling news for me when I realized we will not be able to enter the water this Sunday. Since we acquired the permit months ago, usual scheduling circumstances have arisen that force us to push in Monday morning rather than Sunday afternoon. Therefore, we either need to cancel our trip or break the law and launch the day AFTER our permit. Saganaga from landing 55 will be under an iron blockade for overnight paddlers on Monday, August 3rd.

Fortunately, there was a permit available Tuesday, but, this means one day of being an outlaw on the water. Yes, from the moment our canoe slips over the placid waters of the north until midnight Monday, we will be criminals. Careful planning is required.

We will be heavily outnumbered and outgunned, so confrontation is not an acceptable tactic. We must slip through their blockade like ghosts, evading their security apparatus. We will blend into the crowd of regular paddlers christened with legal, Monday permits. Ours will be for Tuesday, at least our overnight. Our Monday permit will be for a day trip only, and require us to return to the landing the same day. By they time they discover anything is amiss, we will be miles away and dug-in to our secure bunker.

To ensure they do not find us, we will excavate a 10-foot deep circular pit, falling as many of the tallest Norway Pines as we can to construct an outer shell resistant to any small arms fire. We expect our holdout will be one of the islands on Saganaga lake, where we must repel all advances until midnight, when our Tuesday permit becomes effective. After, we must eliminate all evidence, burning the pines, and detonating enough explosives to ensure the entire island is completely submerged, and never seen again.

As a diversion, we will float one hundred fifty-five gallon drums of light crude into adjacent Seagull lake timed to charges approximately the time of our departure. The resulting oil spill will occupy the authorities the while we hide under our log and pine needle cover. There may be pandemonium and we don't want people caught in the crossfire. Therefore, we have reserved all remaining available permits for every entry point across the entire BWCAW to limit casualties. Almost every date before or after Monday was available, so we could seriously limit the possiblility of any unnecessary casualties.

If we make it, we expect to enjoy our reward. We have used our formidable resources to book every permit at every entry point throughout the BWCAW for the next 10 years. We expect to be the ONLY paddlers in the entire 1.09 million acre area for whichever 2 or 3 day trips we intend to take during that period. A secluded undisclosed location somewhere within this desolate expanse is where we will plan our next assault. The blood of renegade paddlers runs in our blood. It is our purpose, our mission. When we go down, it will be over the broken, scarlet paddle clutched within our fists as we slowly sink to the bottom of our watery grave.