Minnesota A Great Place to Camp

This year over 250,000 folks will travel to the Northwoods of Minnesota commune with nature and the outdoors. For the young adults and teens this oppertunity comes in the form of an Minnesota Adventure Camp.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) is a picturesque area in the northern third of the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota. This 1.3 million acres extends nearly 150 miles between the International Boundary of Canada and the United States. The Canadians protected areas are Canada's Quetico Provincial Park and Voyageurs National Park. The BWCA is mainly seen as a canoers heaven, contains over 1200 miles of canoe routes, 11 hiking trails and approximately 2000 designated campsites. And we won't even mention what seems to be 1000 of Portages.

Those who come pursue an experience of expansive solitude and personal one to one with nature. It is this Minnesota wilderness that seems to offer freedom to those take the challenge of this adventure. When at this Minnesota Sanctuary one realizes hw small they are and how much thiings have changed over the last 100 years. While paddeling it may be days before you see another human requiring individual independence and being self-sufficient.

The combination of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Canada's Parks form one of the world's great wilderness areas; the largest international area set aside for wilderness recreational purposes in the world. For thousands of years, the area has served as a travel corridor for native peoples and, more recently, as one of the main routes to the west for European explorers and fur traders. The so-called Voyageurs' Highway ran through Canada and Minnesota. Today its quiet waters and non-mechanized mode of travel serve as a haven from the pressures of modern-day living

So how did this come to be? Here is the short form.

July 10, 1930, the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act, the first statute in which Congress expressly orders land be protected as "wilderness," is signed into law by President Herbert Hoover

September 3 1964, the Wilderness Act, U.S. is signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, establishing the U.S. wilderness preservation system and prohibiting the use of motorboats and snowmobiles within wilderness areas except for areas where use is well established within the Boundary Waters, defining wilderness as an area "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man . . . an area of undeveloped . . . land retaining its primeval character and influence without permanent improvements." This date is considered by many to be the birth of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

To learn more about Summer Camps Minnesota see Swift Nature Camp

Swift Nature Camp is a Minnesota Overnight Summer Camp for boys and girls ages 6-15. Our focus is to blend traditional summer camp with a Science Summer Camp increasing a child's appreciation for nature, science and the environment.