Recent encounters between black bears and visitors to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has the U.S. Forest Service considering a food storage order on certain lakes.

If implemented, the order would aim to reduce the likelihood of negative encounters between BWCA visitors and bears, according to Superior National Forest spokesperson Joanna Gilkeson. The Forest Service enacted a food storage order for a collection of lakes at the end of the Gunflint Trail in 2020 due to bear activity.

The WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast was informed in recent weeks of multiple incidents involving canoe campers and bears in the BWCA. During one incident from July 15 on Duncan Lake in the Middle Gunflint Trail area, four bears aggressively pursued a hanging food pack at a campsite. According to reports, the bears, a sow, yearling and two cubs, would not flee even when whistles were blown and pots and pans were banged together. Additional reports of bear encounters surfaced days later on nearby Rose Lake.

Podcast host Joe Friedrichs spoke with Chris Vincent from St. Francis, Minn., about his experience with several bears on Rose Lake from July 17. This short track shares Chris’s story.