Hello from Southern Minnesota!

[mnsportsmanjr]

Hello! My name is Brandon and I was referred to this site by a member on another forum (if his name is the same here, Boonie). My wife, two kids and I will be taking our first trip to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota end of spring 2025. So I am here and a few other forums to learn as much as I can before we take our first adventure. For the past 6 months since deciding we are taking this trip I have spent darn near every night researching and learning.

I have put together a pretty lengthy excel document with (probably) far more information in one place than is needed haha. So now we (mostly I haha) am in the final planning stages to really hone in on the little things, first timer mistakes, the things you don't think about, but others can point out to you.

Time to get to reading!

 

[Boatman53]

Welcome to the campfire Brandon, pull up a stump, throw another log on the fire and make yourself at home. Lots of good reading to keep you busy all winter. Don’t be shy to ask questions.
How much experience do you and your family have?
Jim

 

[mnsportsmanjr]

Welcome to the campfire Brandon, pull up a stump, throw another log on the fire and make yourself at home. Lots of good reading to keep you busy all winter. Don’t be shy to ask questions.
How much experience do you and your family have?
Jim

We have both been hunting and fishing our whole lives. The only real paddling experience either of us have is taking the canoe, or johnboat out to put out duck decoys and retrieve downed ducks. That is really the only thing that has me "worried' about our trip. The route we chose is going to be 5 or so miles by water.

 

[BWCA66]

Welcome to the site, I'm from SE MN. How old are your kids?

 

[mnsportsmanjr]

Welcome to the site, I'm from SE MN. How old are your kids?

My daughter is 20 and my son is 15. Neither have been in a canoe.

 

[BWCA66]

If you can find a time and place to do some paddling before you go but I know there are plenty of folks whose first canoe experience is in the bwca. You might be best to avoid some of the larger lakes.

 

[Gamma1214]

Welcome. My first canoe trip when I restarted canoeing was to the BWCA. My 1st piece of advice would be to make sure you take the tent and not something that you thought was the tent. (trust me, it happens)

Lots of trip reports to read through, enjoy the planning, have a great trip and share your experiences in order to encourage and inform others who come after you.

 

[Alan Gage]

Welcome aboard!

My advice would be to not over complicate things.
You said your planned route is only 5 miles by water so I assume you're planning to paddle in and base camp?

If that's the case then a lot of things aren't as important as they would be if you were planning a long trip with lots of portages. By all means keep weight and bulk down but it's not as big of a deal as it would be on a longer trip.

I think the most important thing to do would be to paddle some local lakes and rivers during the summer to get a feel for being in the canoe, learn some proper paddling techniques, and learn to paddle well with your partner. That will pay off more than anything else.

You might even find out that you really like being in a canoe and decide to change your trip to paddle deeper into the BWCA for more solitude.

Alan

 

[mnsportsmanjr]

Welcome aboard!

My advice would be to not over complicate things.
You said your planned route is only 5 miles by water so I assume you're planning to paddle in and base camp?

If that's the case then a lot of things aren't as important as they would be if you were planning a long trip with lots of portages. By all means keep weight and bulk down but it's not as big of a deal as it would be on a longer trip.

I think the most important thing to do would be to paddle some local lakes and rivers during the summer to get a feel for being in the canoe, learn some proper paddling techniques, and learn to paddle well with your partner. That will pay off more than anything else.

You might even find out that you really like being in a canoe and decide to change your trip to paddle deeper into the BWCA for more solitude.

Alan

With me having a heart condition and our inexperience we felt it was better our first trip to do a reletivly short paddle and base camp. Plus we love fishing so we plan to spend most of our time in the 5 days doing that.

Our route plan is entry point 30, thru Lake One, Lake Two and into Lake Three, find a spot on Lake Three and make that base camp

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Brandon, welcome to site membership! Feel free to ask any questions and to post messages, photos and videos, and to start threads, in our many forums. Please read Welcome to CanoeTripping and Site Rules! Also, because canoeing is a geographic sport, please add your location to the Account Details page in your profile, which will cause it to show under your avatar as a clickable map link. Many of the site's technical features are explained in Features: Help and How-To Running Thread. We look forward to your participation in our canoe community.

You've gotten some good advice already. Practicing several short trips locally is always a good idea to get the feel of the canoe and to improve your paddling technique before taking off on a wilderness adventure. How many canoes will you be using and what models are they?

 

[Erica]

Welcome.