Clearwater, Canoes, and Covid - 2020 BWCA Trip
Clearwater, Canoes, and Covid .....a tale of a family's 2020 BWCA trip The day awakens at Clearwater Lodge Our family's trip planning started on the drive home from the last trip in June 2019. My parents were retiring to North Carolina and we would be losing our home base on the Ely side of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). 2020 was going to provide an opportunity to try something new and the Gunflint Trail was calling our name. As an avid listener of the Tumblehome podcast , I was intrigued by the Eastern side of the BWCAW and new places to explore. We booked a cabin at Clearwater Historic Lodge for 3 nights and planned for 4-5 nights of overnight in the BWCAW from Clearwater Lake (Entry Point 62). We locked the permit in when the 2020 permits opened in January. The plans for an amazing trip were set, or so we thought...... Covid... It struck and week by week the closures and cancellations rolled in yet there was hope that by Summer we would have slowed