28 August 2023
A reduction in available permits for paddlers entering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness helped reduce the overall number of visitors in 2022, according to data recently released from the Superior National Forest.
Nearly 151,000 people entered the northeastern Minnesota federal wilderness in 2022, down 9% from 166,000 people in 2021 — the second summer of the pandemic and the recent peak in total visitors.
The drop in visitors coincides with the 13% reduction in available permits for 2022 after the 2020 and 2021 rush to get outdoors. Under those cuts, there were an average of 37.5 fewer groups allowed into the million-acre wilderness each day, with the cuts spread across several popular entry points.
The reduction in permits and visitors was intended to help ease what some visitors complained felt like overcrowding even before the pandemic rush and what the Forest Service said was too much pressure for the resource, including some people leaving trash behind, cutting live trees and otherwise acting badly.
Forest Service officials said the decline was likely caused by other factors, such as changing travel and vacation patterns, the economy, weather and even insects, adding that the number of visitors was down in other federal destinations nationally. Canoeists also were allowed into Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park for all of the summer 2022 season, the first time since summer 2019, which likely alleviated some pressure on the BWCAW.
The report notes 93% of BWCAW visitors in 2022 went between May 1 and Sept. 30, the season when an entry permit is required, with only 7% going in early spring, fall and winter.
The 1.1 million-acre BWCAW contains over 1,200 miles of canoe routes, 12 hiking trails and nearly 2,000 designated campsites. This area was first protected in 1926 to preserve its primitive character and made a part of the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1964 with subsequent wilderness legislation in 1978.
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