In a couple weeks, I’ll be joining four of my close friends for a canoeing trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Since COVID-19 is still in full swing, camping seems like one of the few vacation options that won’t bring you into contact with tons of strangers. I’ve been to the BWCAW a dozen times in my youth, but this is my first time going since I was in high school, and it’s been really fun planning out the trip. Some of my friends have done some camping in the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management out West, but this will be the first wilderness canoe trip for everyone excluding myself. I ended up picking Sawbill Lake as our entry point, as lots of people on the BWCA forums recommend it as a good lake for beginners. We’re renting our canoes from Sawbill Outfitters, which is very conviently located right at the entry point for the lake so we don’t have to have the canoes transported to another lake. Ideally we would have camped at the Superior National Forest campground right next to the entry point before and after out BWCAW trip as well, but the showers are closed for the season due to the pandemic, so a hotel it is. It’s not very nice being in the woods for five days and then driving eight hours back home without a shower first. I’d say that I’ll do a follow-up post about the trip, but my track record for updates thus far has been pretty lackluster.