WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast

Welcome to Season Six of the WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast!

To start the season, we get to travel once again with the father/daughter duo Scott and Emilie Burditt.

Scott and Emilie are Wisconsin residents who make an annual trip to Quetico Provincial Park. In 2022, they took their Canadian paddling adventures to new terrain and paddled Wabakimi Provincial Park.

Along the way, the share their stories about a love for the outdoors and paddling in canoe country, and how this bond keeps them connected throughout the year. They also talk about the realities of backcountry travel, including injury.

It's the start of a new season on the podcast! It begins!

The trip started with 24 hours of cold rain and seemingly endless beaver dams overflowing from a rising creek. Dense fog masked the shoreline in the distance on the occasional lake that broke up the swirling creek. Despite the weather and being mostly strangers, every member of this tripping team was smiling and giddy.

Last September, a group of outdoorsy folks from across the country gathered in Ely, Minn., for a truly unique Boundary Waters trip. They all had two things in common. First, each person loved the outdoors. And second, each identified as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. One of these people was the podcast’s own Matthew Baxley.

The WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast marks the 80th episode by sharing a trip centered around belonging, acceptance, and adventure. Most of us know from personal experience how the Wilderness continues to offer life changing experiences. This episode documents the deeply personal way a trip can offer so much beauty in just four short days of paddling.

Juan Martinez is the first tribal liaison for the U.S. Forest Service on Superior National Forest. He arrived to northeastern Minnesota in 2021.

In late November 2022, during the first week of good ice in and around the Boundary Waters, podcast hosts Joe Friedrichs and Matthew Baxley went ice fishing with Martinez near the Gunflint Trail. They talked with Juan while on the ice about his work as the tribal liaison on Superior National Forest.

Also joining the trio was Dean Paron, the Finland area fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Paron introduced the group to spear fishing through the ice, adding another twist to the start of ice adventures as winter settles in across the Boundary Waters.

Bear Paulsen has a style of canoe tripping named after him. Simply put, they're called "Bear Trips."

A Bear Trip means there will be weeks, possibly months, spent paddling on one specific trip.

Paulsen is the general manager of Northstar Canoes. He is also on the short list of the most experienced and well-respected paddlers in Minnesota and across the Boundary Waters region.

In this installment of the WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast Paddler Profile series, we learn more about Bear Paulsen.

Photo of Bear Paulsen by Nate Ptacek.

Dispersed camping on Superior National Forest is something the U.S. Forest Service has encouraged as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness continues to draw more people during the peak of summer. In this episode, podcast co-host Joe Friedrichs travels with The Great Josh Dix to a remote lake on the edge of the wilderness.

Pursuing brook trout in and around the wilderness formed a theme for October for Friedrichs and fellow co-host Matthew Baxley. The two of them worked together to find brookies, while Baxley also traveled with longtime Cook County resident Buck Benson to find fish and adventure near the BWCA.

Bryan Hansel is an outdoor photographer and BWCA enthusiast who lives near Grand Marais. In May 2021, Hansel followed the route of American geologist Newton Horace Winchell and the work he did while surveying the land of Cook County in 1879.

Hansel spent nearly two weeks on the solo adventure that took him from Grand Marais to Lutsen via the Iron Trail to Trail Center, then the Border Route to the end of the Gunflint Trail, and from there to the Ojibwe canoe route to Lutsen on the Poplar River.

Along the way, Hansel traveled about 160 miles, including about 25 miles of portaging.

In this first installment of the podcast's 'Paddler Profile' series, host Matthew Baxley talks with Hansel about his epic journey.

It's episode 75 of the WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast!

In this episode, we hear from a familiar voice on the podcast, BWCA enthusiast Erik "Omaha Erik" Dickes.

Erik goes on his first solo trip to the wilderness in this episode, with hosts Joe Friedrichs and Matthew Baxley joining him for some fall fishing during a memorable afternoon in the BWCA.

Thanks to everyone who helped the WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast reach its 75th episode! What a journey! And in many ways, it feels like it is just getting started.

A Minnesota woman is safe after spending a rainy September night lost in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness near the Gunflint Trail.

56-year-old Jennifer Fitzer, a resident of Golden Valley, Minn., became lost Thursday, Sept. 8 from her group’s campsite on Rib Lake in the BWCA. This was Fitzer’s first trip to the Boundary Waters, according to her brother, Chuck Fitzer. Chuck spoke with WTIP Sept. 12 about the incident.

After being contacted by Chuck Fitzer from the campsite on Rib Lake, Cook County Search and Rescue were deployed in the late afternoon Sept. 8 and traveled to the campsite. Chuck Fitzer and another member of the group of five were able to use their cellphones to call 911, alerting the authorities of the situation.

Jennifer Fitzer became lost while exploring near the Rib Lake campsite in the early afternoon Sept. 8. After becoming lost, she walked north for several miles through thick forest and various swamps. She eventually made it to Dawkins Lake, which is located south of Extortion Lake and just west of the Banadad Ski Trail. After arriving to Dawkins Lake, Jennifer Fitzer found a large floating log and essentially rode it along the shoreline of the lake, thinking she was still on Rib Lake, Chuck Fitzer said. She spent the night in the woods wearing only a t-shirt and thin outdoor-style pants. She did not have food and ran out of water during the night, Chuck Fitzer said.

While ground crews searched on foot and canoe, a beaver float plane rescued Jennifer Fitzer from Dawkins Lake Friday morning Sept. 9.

WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast host Joe Friedrichs spoke with Jennifer Fitzer Sept. 19 about her experience in the BWCA.

(Note: Jennifer Fitzer is pictured wearing the yellow hat in the accompanying photograph. This photo was taken in the BWCA prior to Jennifer becoming lost in the wilderness.)

When we think of the Boundary Waters, solitude, quiet and getting away from the hustle of day-to-day life often jump to the forefront of the mind for many visitors to this canoe country wilderness.

A quiet retreat is indeed a common sentiment shared by the many thousands of people who visit the BWCA each year. And while solitude is sought, many of these same people travel through the canoe-country wilderness with familiar faces by their side. As we’ve learned while making this podcast, many enjoy sharing their adventures in the BWCA with their closest friends and family members.

Take, for example, a group of Minnesotans who traveled up the Gunflint Trail in August. Traveling under the name ‘the Bound Hounds,’ the curious paddlers have traveled to the BWCA every year for more than two decades. Sometimes there’s just a few from the group who make it, other times it’s eight or nine people.

Also featured in today’s episode is Kyle ‘Bill’ Busacker, a longtime Oregonian who recently moved to Massachusetts with his family, was one member of a recent canoe trip with podcast host Joe Friedrichs. The other companion on the September trip was Joe’s cousin, Jeff Frawley, known simply as Cousin Jeff. The three of them ventured to a secluded pocket of the wilderness in search of walleye, a prime campsite, the chance to see the Northern lights and to bushwack to what is essentially hidden lake. During the course of their trip, they found all of these things, though in reality what they, much like the Bound Hounds, came for was an opportunity to connect with other people.

The WTIP Boundary Waters Podcast team take to the road (and air) for this episode, traveling more than 1,000 miles south to the hills of Kentucky.

On the trail of Jordan Grider, a young man from New Mexico who died in the Boundary Waters in 2018, hosts Joe Friedrichs and Matthew Baxley travel throughout Appalachia on their journey to learn more about where Grider spent time camping and living near Daniel Boone National Forest. Along the way they meet Mennonites who let Grider camp on their land before he arrived to the BWCA, many of whom share stories about Grider and his time in Kentucky.

Grider gained national attention in 2018 when he was eaten by wolves near the Sioux Hustler Trail on the western side of the BWCA. Authorities believe Grider died first from an accidental injury and was later eaten by wolves.