Now that the snow is flying and most of us have finished our fall canoe trips, I'm probably like many of you...I start thinking about where to go and what to see next year. I don't mind getting to my destinations efficiently, but if there are things to see along the way, I will detour to see them. I would like to start a list of places to see signs of the old logging industry...what is there and exactly where it is.

I'll start it off: 1. Next to the 5 rod portage from Jordan to Ima Lake is a little rivulet of water. A careful look will reveal logs placed as a skidway. 2. On Ima Lake itself, a campsite on the far NW side of the lake has a hole with a ringpin in it, used to attach a chain to logs and make a boom. It connected to another ringpin, now missing, but the hole is there, on the big flat slabs of rock across the bay to the north. 3. On the Lizz Lake portage into Caribou, right at the downslope into Caribou, there are deep grooves etched into the rock face, probably from something being dragged up and down the face.

portage from Jean to Conk, quetico. this hook remains, there was evidence of another broken off and more stuff laying within the log jam in the creek by the portage.
there is also a dam on Pickerel before heading to Bisk lake, not sure if that was used for logging or some hydro power...

On the portage from Swan to Vernon, there is an old cabin wall that is part of the logging camp that used to be there. Supposedly there are also remenants at the northern most campsite on Swan, but we didn't find much.

There is an old car in the woods (visible from the lake) on the Canadian side of the narrows between thursday and friday bays on crooked. It's just to the northwest of camp 1872..sorry no pic...Anyone else seen this?

there are large logs-chained and anchored on the bends of the moosecamp river north of fourtown. there were apparently placed to help float/guide logs downstream.

there are also some old logging relics in/around the small lakes that lie west of crab and burtnside lakes just west of ely. some old roads/trails to explore. there are a couple portages over there that we cleared this spring that now look like they were logged;)

tg

theres a logging ring at "the pinch" campsite (the narrows) on horse lake.

Here's a pic of the car at "Cadillac Narrows" on Crooked.

Some stuff on Angleworm -

I've seen an awful lot of logging relics over the years. Sorry to say, no pictures. Two of the most memorable are:

On Quetico Lake (I think) were some very large rusty steel gears about 2' in diameter and too heavy to lift on a beach. Looked to be from some heavy machinery.

On Mountain Lake (I think) in the b-dub back behind a campsite there is a river flowing through a deep crevasse of rocks. It's about 12' wide and 20' deep. There is a 3' diameter pine log about 12' long stuck in the crevasse. It fell in during the logging days and was never retrieved. Probably been there a 100 years.

There's crap all over the place out there.

ho ho thanks...i assume we are talking about the same place then...cadillac narrows?

Car Narrows

I've heard it called "Cadillac Narrows" although I'm told the car is not a Caddy (I sure can't tell). It is the same place you are talking about.

The one that comes immediately to mind is the site of an old logging camp on Fourtown. The main artifacts were an old truck, some bed springs, a steel barrel, steel cable, some rings mounted into granite, etc.



Also, I have been on many lakes that have submerged logs from the logging days. Often one end is sticking up out of the water. Sometimes they have a stamp on them. I can't recall specific lakes, though one of them may be Tin Can Mike on the south end.

Moosecamp river has alot of logging remnants along its whole length from Moosecamp Lake to Fourtown. Many stray logs. I kept thinking about the guy from the show Axemen who dragged the old left behind logs from the river in Oregon back to the sawmill for profit. I keep thinking how I'm going to portage one of those logs thru the Mudro portages after towing it across Fourtown. I often imagine what it would be like to be a logger in a pristine place like BW. The smell of sawdust, sweat, the noise, the camraderie on a crew etc. Very interested in logging. Thanks for sharing.

There is a old car on the portage from Beaverhouse to Quetico Lake, and another on just off Bottle Portage on the Lac La Croix side.
I have seen remnants of bridges on the #chain, and from Hudson to Fire lake. As said before...there's crap all over the place.

Lake Three logging camp is marked on map, lots of buildings,you can kind of seewere they used to be.

We'd be remiss if we didn't list the old railbed connecting Basswood to Fall Lake which is now called 'Four Mile Portage'. After the rails were removed it became a truck portage for many years servicing the resorts on Basswood.

Today, it's just a strangely wide and flat portage, slowing being reclaimed by the forest.

There was a large box (a crib?) made out of logs along the rapids of the 2nd portage going west from Lake One. Not sure if it's still there, don't remember seeing it my last time through. We also had a bit of a discussion about the remnants of old piers on Fall Lake and also on Ella Hall on the Ella Hall thread in the trip planning forum.

JD

Vance lake (Brule Lake area) used to have a large logging camp with 24 buildings. Unfortunately not much is left there anymore. I believe the buildings were burned. A lot of the history in the boundary waters has been destroyed to make it more of a "wilderness area".

I like History and hate to see it destroyed on purpose but with that being said I would suggest a trip where you can look around Vance and Swan lakes.

The old railroad bridge submerged under gunflint, but I think that was part of mining, not logging.

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Not quite sure what this is, maybe a bracket for a skid or something but I'm sure its some sort of logging relic. These are on the campsite on Moosecamp lake nearest the exit of the river.


There is some tin behind the northern most campsite (where the Moosecamp river flows in) on Fourtown as well.

On the island campsite on Gabro there is hole a couple inches in diameter bored into the rock. May have been enough to hold one of those rinpins at some point.

This is the ring on Horse that Kanoes mentioned.

There are a bunch of very old stumps along the shores of Jordan Lake. I'm guessing they are leftovers from the logging days.

just below the small falls where the Tuck River enters Moose Bay below the Wheelbarrow Falls you can find the remains of a log flume,above the falls at a cabin site the end of a heavy cable has grown into a tree.
at the Chatterton Rapids and falls in the Q you can still see cut logs left from the log jam that wasted some 8,000 Red and White pine.the Mathieu company walked away from the jam rather than try and clear what was the last of the old growth in that area now stuck on the rocks.the best history of the Q i have found is in Shirley Peruniak's
"quetico provincial park,an illustrated history"..

On Crooked Lake, while paddling this year to our campsite, we were looking at the shore line and found a good size cable still wrapped around a tree near the shore. It was a good dicussion piece as we paddled by it everyday to go fishing. Quite a ways up there on the lake for a logging company!

It sure would be interesting to find some web-sites or history written somewhere as to the logging day up in the Ely area.

Crooked was cut right to the waters edge and "logging raids" were made across into Canada.

the best stories i have found are in "a wonderful country" the stories of Bill Magie as told to David Olesen.they are the tape recordings made of Magie's adventures and work in the BW area going back to 1909.Magie died in 1982 and did it all..find this book and read it!

Old logging/trapping hut on Lake Three.

Thiel, the Lake Three logging camp, as marked on one of the maps, is inaccurate. It is actually the site of one of the very first CCC camps in the area. The Boundary Waters Journal had a good article about four or five years ago.

On the west end of the Kekekabic Trail, at the entrance to the Drumstick Lake campsite there is a large band saw blade and other artifacts.
I told a woman I used to work with that I was going to hike the Pow Wow Trail. She said that she used to live up there. I said, "In Isabella?" She replied, "No on the Pow Wow Trail." When she was younger, in the 1950's, her father ran a logging camp up there and she lived in the camp. I'm not sure if it was the Forest Center or some other location.

We just spotten a pin and ring in the stone just west of Campsite 944 on Brule Lake. Sad that I didn't bring my camera on this ride.

Evidence of human activity can make for interesting traveling.

Swan Lake





Near Sock Lake





Old Pines hiking trail near Disappointment Lake

The Isabella locals told me that this building used to be at Sawbill Landing, site of a small town about 10 miles north of Isabella during the logging days.