Peta Barrett is preparing to retire from Women’s Wilderness Discovery, the company she started in 2014 in Ely, the gateway community to the Boundary Waters.

Barrett moved to Ely more than 10 years ago to start up the guiding and outfitting company. She wanted to focus on offering a safe and comfortable place for women to have a means to access the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

In this episode, we hear about Peta's journey to the Boundary Waters. 

This episode is sponsored by Ely Outfitting Company and Borderland Lodge. 

The power of a place can change lives. It can also determine where someone lives, and how they live. 

The Boundary Waters is one such place. In this episode, we learn how two families have been, and continue to be impacted by the power of place. 

Special thanks to Andy Cochrane, Stellan & Lena Bengtsson, Scott, Jess, & Niklas Henderson, and Bob & Deb Friedrichs, for participating in this episode. 

Thanks also to Chad from Gunflint Wilderness Guide Services for participating in the fishing adventure shared in this episode. 

This episode is made possible with support from Sawtooth Outfitters, Loons Nest Coffee, and Solbakken Resort on Superior. 

A small group of kayakers started Team River Runner in 2004 with the goal of helping veterans get on the water. They now offer paddling opportunities to veterans and their family members in more than 60 locations across the nation, including the Yellowstone River in Montana. 

Team River Runner seeks to get physically (amputations, mobility impairments) and/or visually impaired veterans in kayaks or other watercraft. This summer, M Baxley from the P&P Podcast traveled to the edge of Yellowstone National Park to learn more about the paddling clinics, and to speak with some of the participants. The adventure took Baxley from Minnesota to Montana. Join the road trip turned paddle trip to hear the full story. 

To learn more about Team River Runner, visit their website: https://www.teamriverrunner.org/

This episode is made possible with support from the Bending Branches Canoe & Kayak Paddles, Bent Paddle Brewing, the Yellowstone River Motel, and Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. 

Chuck Alexander is a canoe guide and carpenter who lives in Maine. He'd long aspired to paddle in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It took meeting a longtime paddler of the BWCA, Tim Cochrane, to make that dream come to fruition. Before embarking on a multi-night trip to the wilderness, the podcast team had a chance to meet Chuck, including a fishing trip to the Boundary Waters. This is the story of how paddling connects us, from Maine to Canada to Minnesota. 

This episode is supported by Cascade Vacation Rentals and Sawbill Canoe Outfitters. 

A resident of Duluth is sick with a rare case of West Nile virus in Minnesota.

The Duluth woman was in the emergency room at St. Luke’s Medical Center Sunday, Sept. 7. She is now home and recovering from the virus. She believes she was infected with West Nile while on a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in mid-August. After nearly three weeks, she continues to experience body aches, headaches, fatigue, among other symptoms.

The group entered at the Kawishiwi Lake entry point, which is in Lake County near the border with Cook County.

This is believed to be one of the first confirmed cases of West Nile virus ever reported from the BWCA Wilderness. Her case is one of only 21 cases of West Nile reported statewide this year, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. 

In this news update on the podcast, we hear from the Duluth woman about the West Nile infection. We also talk with Elizabeth Schiffman, supervisor of MDH’s Vectorborne Diseases Unit. 

The intersection of paddling, yoga, and self-reliance carries us into the BWCA Wilderness in this episode of the podcast. 

Boreal Bliss Yoga Retreats is a Minnesota business owned by women who bring together themes of self-reliance, seasonal living, and the transformative power of time spent paddling and portaging in the BWCA Wilderness and surrounding area. They've been in business since 2017 and have hosted more than 60 retreats focused on this theme. For their BWCA adventures, they partner with Birchwood Wilderness Camp and Ashley Bredemus.

We travel to the end of the Gunflint Trail, South Lake, and Rose Lake in this episode of the podcast. 

Music in this episode from Upstream Drifters and Ian Tamblyn. 

This episode is sponsored by Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, Chik-Wauk Museum & Nature Center, Northstar Canoes, Borderland Lodge. 

We head west in this episode, to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. M Baxley joins a group of paddlers who came together under the leadership of Jordan Taylor and Sandra Newbury to travel on the Salmon River in Idaho. One of the great rivers of the West, the Salmon rolls through the Frank Church, the largest federally managed wilderness in the United States outside of Alaska. Confluences River Expeditions provided the group with rafts and raft guides while the other boaters traveled the river via canoes and kayaks. Join us as we head to the river of no return.

This episode is supported by Bent Paddling Brewing Company, Sawtooth Outfitters, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness.

The Paddle and Portage Podcast team spent time paddling and talking around a fire with Minnesota author Joe Whitson in early August. Joe is the author of the new book, “Marketing the Wilderness.” 

Joe’s book pulls back the curtain on the outdoor recreation industry, on the glossy images, the feel-good branding, the well-meaning campaigns, and asks, “What’s being left out?” It traces how the idea of “wilderness” in the U.S. was built through marketing strategies that romanticize land as empty and pristine, while erasing the Indigenous people who’ve always been there.

Joe discusses the concepts he raises in his book on this episode of the podcast. 

Abby Golden has been teaching at an organization called Wilderness Water Safety for 15 years. She is a certified lifeguard, wilderness first responder, and experienced wilderness trip leader. She has led trips in the Lake Temagami area as a trip leader for Camp Wabun and has traveled extensively throughout the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Born and raised in the St. Croix River Valley, she talks about water safety and shares stories of danger and death and what we can learn from these anecdotes from the BWCA and beyond.

This episode is supported by Rutabaga Paddlesports and Ely Outfitting Company.