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Wind and Fire

The forests, lakes and streams of northeastern Minnesota existed long before Minnesota became a state and the wilderness took on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness moniker. Throughout the many centuries of human habitation in the region, people have observed the natural lifecycle of the forest: seedlings sprouting, trees crashing to the earth at their live’s end, wildfires crackling until the fuel runs out or a rainstorm drenches the flames. But rarely have they observed an event like that which occurred on July 4, 1999, when a tremendous windstorm devastated vast areas of the BWCAW. Called a “derecho” by scientists and “the blow down” by concerned paddlers, the storm’s 90-mile-per-hour straight-line winds flattened an area 10 to 12 miles wide and 35 to 40 miles long. The United States Forest Service estimated that 350,000 acres were affected. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reported that approximately 80 percent of the trees in the wind’s path fell over or snapped as easily as a camper’s wooden match. Forest Service crews visiting the disaster area found trees jumbled like pick-up-sticks 8 feet deep. Some of the worst damage occurred along lakes described in this book as among the most scenic in the wilderness—including Knife, Kekekabic, and Little Saganaga lakes in the central BWCAW, and parts of the Tip of the Arrowhead region.