Thousands of Minnesota school children hop on school buses every morning, but up in Grand Marais, some kids ride a little longer than usual.

The 3-hour-ride on the Gunflint Trail is said to be one of the longest routes in the state. Every morning, bus driver Steve Carlson wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to make the trip.

Twice a day, five days a week, Carlson drives a 110 mile round trip. On the trip, Carlson usually picks up eight regular riders...full story

CLEARFIELD - It all began with one simple question last fall, 'What are the future goals of Boy Scout Troop No. 6 in Clearfield?'

When Scoutmaster Jennifer Queener answered the question in a previous Creston News Advertiser story about her nontraditional Boy Scout troop, which is designed to help boys who haven't lived on their own to develop life skills, she replied the troop's dream was to one day go to Boundary Waters Canoe Area... full story

THE sun slipped below a jagged horizon of red pines, and another long winter's night began in the north woods. I sat on a cot in my long johns, a few feet from a wood stove blasting heat like a furnace, inside a canvas tent pitched here about 15 miles from the nearest road in southern Ontario.

On the blue tin plate in my lap lay a lake-trout filet that was all I had to show from six hours of fishing through a hole cut in two feet of ice. The temperature outside was zero... full story

Our crew of three scurried to stash three growlers of India pale ale into two dogsleds already bulging with gear. My sled bucked forward as I wedged one of them between duffel bags - the dogs were about to depart whether we were ready or not. As soon as the lead musher stepped aboard, the dogs dashed us away from the chaos of our staging area in the outfitter's parking lot and the only sound was the shush-ing of sled runners on fresh snow. Soon we had crossed the nonmotorized threshold into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where the trail emptied out into a wide-open 17,000-acre ice-covered lake. The wind froze my eyelashes as I nuzzled deeper into the hood of my anorak... full story

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness lakes are teeming with fish. There are a variety of different species of fish in the BWCA but most sought after are Walleye, Northern Pike, Lake Trout and Smallmouth Bass. While some people come to the canoe country just to paddle ... full story

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is famous for its drinking water fresh lakes, feisty fish, pine studded islands and many other reasons. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area is infamous for one reason alone. Connecting these BWCA lakes are footpaths known in the Boundary... full story

Your living room looks like a Boy Scout campsite struck by a tornado. A sleeping bag sits with feathers popping out, bent tent poles poke out through a bag, blackened cook kits grace the floor and miscellaneous camping gear are strewn from wall to wall. The smell of mildew ... full story

You´ve heard people talk about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. You've seen BWCA photos of big fish caught in the wilderness of Minnesota's canoe country and you've been shown Boundary Waters maps. You want to take a wilderness canoe camping ... full story

Jason Davis finds out what life is like for people who live along the Gunflint Trail. See the challenges and dangers these hardy folks face on a daily basis in the wilderness, sixty miles from town and hundreds of miles from the nearest big city.

Prom Family-Voyageur Canoe Outfitters

School Bus Ride

Voyageur Canoe Outfitters is the key that unlocks Quetico and the Boundary Waters. Mike and Sue Prom own this delightful outfitter at the end of the Gunflint Trail 60 miles from the nearest town of Grand Marais, Minnesota. They offer a full range of adventures for Chicago travelers including canoe and motor boat rentals, fishing gear rentals, outfitting packages tailored to your needs, and cabins with a lodge for those not as adventure minded... full story

An officious permit keeper in a green U.S. Forest Service sweater stands between me and paradise. She peers down her nose and looks me up and down. "Not a lot of people go back there," she huffs. "It's just too hard." I wonder if she's measuring my ability by some inscrutable means, but then she scribbles on the authorization sheet, granting entry to the Pitfall Lake Primitive Management Area... full story