Spring Paddling Season is Here!

This is a bit of a site update. It has three parts:

1. Feedburner Subscriptions (aka my email newsletter provider) are being discontinued by Google. That means if you got this post via email that you will not get them anymore unless you take action. See below
2. I’m heading out on a canoe trip that is mainly following a route from 1879. It’s 160 miles and will take around 10-12 days. I’m leaving later in the month and hope to have something to write about when I’m back. The longest portage is about 7 miles. Basically, I’m going from Grand Marais, MN to Lutsen, MN via historic canoe routes through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Wish me luck!
3. I changed the front page. Let me know what you think. Also, Google is running an ad experiment on the website right now to determine the best ad mix as far as making the website money. I’m not sure if I’ll go with their recommendations but I wanted to see what they would say. I’m doing this because I’m losing an affiliate website that generated a GoPro 9 plus a bunch of accessories, such as the Media Mod and Max Lens Mod and more, worth of money a year for the website.

How to get emails again?

Fill out this form. You’ll need to add a new email address to your allow list. I’m using Automatic’s Jetpack to deliver instead of Google. Unfortunately, Jetpack doesn’t allow for transferring the emails via a list.

Trip Route

This is the approximate route that I’m taking on my trip. Below are examples of a few of the missing portages. Due to time constraints (and a bit of lack of desire to bushwhack at a 1/2 mph), I’m skipping some of these and using a nearby road. The portage from Grand Marais to Devil Track Lake is completely gone (I’ve looked), so I’m taking the Superior Hiking Trail and a road to get there. I’d love to get into Abita, but I’m sure that will be a huge mess. I’m going to scout it out this week or next before I go. If there’s any of the portage left at all — even a faint animal trail — I may do it. The portages were on maps as late as the 1930s, but then those portages disappear. The black lines on the map below come from the original 1876 surveys of the area.

This will hopefully be a fun trip. It’ll probably end up being during peak black fly season though. Yikes!