In my recent trip to Basswood we saw a couple of campsites with pretty elaborate rock walls at the landing. Did anyone know the history of these? Are they some of the old resorts from before the wilderness designation? Are they logging camps? They certainly couldn't have been made by paddlers.

This particular site has a lot of basswood trees growing at it. I haven't noticed at other sites in the BWCA. My assumption was those were planted at the resort due to the name of the lake, and they aren't traditionally native to the area?

The site pictured there is 1607 right outside Pipestone falls, and 1562 has a similar wall.

They don't seem to be marked on the cover photo of the historic basswood FB page

There were family cabins and homesteads on Basswood as well, could be that.

The Summer 2022 edition of the BWJ has a great article about the Fosse family cabin on Norway Island.

I've been to that 1607campsite several times and always thought that the stone work looked to be pretty recent, not from pre wilderness days. Incidentally, on one trip my partner and I were sitting near the fire pit at that campsite when we heard some scratching sounds coming from the direction of the water. To our surprise the head of a large snapping turtle appeared over the top of the wall. It had climbed clear up the nearly straight wall, apparently to find a place to lay eggs. This happened several times and a couple of times the turtle didn't quite make it to the top before it fell back down landing on its back. We turned the turtle over onto its belly and it usually went back to work.

I assumed the rock work was from pre wilderness days because each of those rocks must weigh hundreds of pounds. That amount of work had to take heavy equipment of some sort, didn't it?

Good point. You may be right, but it just never looked very old to me; no moss, or lichens or high water lines etc.

THe old Basswood Lodge campsite near Good Lake is an incredible campsite!