Minnesota Wilderness (with wolf encounter)

In an age when most of the "woods" have been replaced by degraded second-growth, we are very lucky in Minnesota to have over a million acres of contiguous pristine public lands. From forest floor to the canopy, and in the waters between, the Boundary Waters and surrounding Great North Woods are truly intact ecosystems.

The Gunflint Trail (look closely at the center of the picture below) runs through the heart of this wilderness, from Grand Marais on the north shore of Lake Superior all the way to the Canadian border.

Of course, no trip to this area is complete without some canoeing. Here is an early-morning picture taken on Poplar Lake.
For comparison, here's a picture taken while dogsledding on nearby Gunflint Lake during our March 2008 trip. Then as now, we were overwhelmed with the scale and beauty of this area. We also did some back-country skiing on that occasion, and saw lots of moose tracks.

And although it's a little early for the Fall migration, birds are still plentiful. Here's a pair of yellow-bellied sapsuckers working over a birch tree along the Meads Lake portage.

And here's a gray jay checking us out (look at the center of the picture below). Other sightings included the red crossbill, belted kingfisher, sharp-shinned hawk, red-breasted nuthatch, ruby-crowned kinglet, brown creeper, white-throated sparrows and a variety of warblers. Driving home along the North Shore, we stopped to check out a large group of juvenile mergansers.
On Wednesday evening, we took a hike to South Lake on the Canadian border. After pushing through miles of dense undergrowth (and feasting on wild blueberries and raspberries) on what was little more than a deer track, we finally came to the end of the trail, an old voyageur portage site.
As we stepped up onto the small clearing to get a better look at the lake (where, incidentally, a magnificent loon was cruising the shallows), we heard a heavy rustling from the forest to our left and saw a flash of gray come out from the trees and move towards us, parting the high grass in its wake. Then, just 10 meters away from where we stood, a massive Timber Wolf appeared on the edge of our clearing. When he saw us, he stood stock still and fixed us for a few seconds with an emotionless, calculating stare. I think one of us said, "umm, that's a wolf . . . a big wolf." He then turned and padded back into the forest, leaving us both in absolute awe.