Paddle North: Canoeing the Boundary Waters-Quetico Wilderness

Canoe country has a strong hold on the imagination. The conifers and rock-ribbed lakes of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and neighboring Quetico Provincial Park are still a remote wilderness where Cree, Ojibwe, and voyageurs once traveled in birch-bark canoes, where lynx, moose, and gray wolves still roam. It is a place and a dream, a source of enjoyment for the hundreds of thousands who have paddled—or imagined paddling—a canoe through these distinctive waters.

Writer Greg Breining and photographer Layne Kennedy have hefted their canoes over many a portage in both the BWCAW and the Quetico, and their new book, Paddle North, in words and full-color photos, inspires dreams of simple days out on the water and quiet nights at home in the woods. Meditations on map making and canoe building, on the rock-pine-water combination that defines the northland, on winter weather and forest fire are all accompanied by views of sparkling lakes and rocky cliffs, challenging portages, campfire reflections, and friendships forged away from the hustle of everyday life. Together, these stories and images convey a sense of reverence for the landscape and the playful joy felt by those who paddle north.