Way back in the early 70's to early 80's there were tables located at each campsite. It gave you a spot to set your gear, eat your meal, play some cards and generally relax after a hard day on the water. I am wondering when and why did they remove them? Was it to "enhance" the wilderness experience? What are your opinions of it?

yes, same reason they removed the canoe rests on portages, the signs...

What did these tables look like? Did the Forest Service build them? Were they made out of dimensional lumber and look like furniture or were they full log like the picnic table in the photo?

I came across two of these log picnic tables at campsites on Lake Agnes earlier this month.

Zulu, your picture shows a very industrious homemade picnic table that the forest service will probably tear down.

I have been told by oldtimers that many sites on Lac la Croix had picnic tables, and I actually used one on Insula, another on Gabimichigami, and a third on Little Saganaga. Many sites did not have them. Back when the budget was cut all to pieces in the early 1980's, picnic tables, portage racks, signposts, and a lot of more important stuff, like erosion control on campsites and portages, were all ended. Their published rationale was "it's a wilderness" but the other real reason was no money to hire workers. Back in about 1995 the head trail crew ranger in the Grand Marais area told me that they cut from an 11 man crew to himself and two others back in the 1980s.

As I remember them, the picnic tables were very heavy dimensional lumber, maybe 4 to 5" in thickness, with bracing...very well made. The one on Insula had about every flat surface carved with initials and names. One carving was of three different family trips, spaced over 30 years, with father, then father/daughter, then "father"/daughter/grandson.

The picnic tables made it too much like state park camping...

I remember them on Saganaga Lake on the campsite next to the falls. I used to love the canoe rests on the long portages. No need with them now that there is Kevlar.

Thanks for the quick response and information Kevlar. It was very interesting. I would have liked to see one of those old heavy tables with all the carvings.

The picnic tables I encountered on Lake Agnes in my opinion would have been uncomfortable to sit at and kind of useless for setting things on due to the rounded logs and spaces in between.

I prefer a nice log near the firegrate that is reasonably flat to set my stove and a few other items on. A log or two seems to fit into the landscape better than the picnic tables. I was surprised to find two of them.

did they ever have bear poles in the BW?

You can see part of a sweet table on a sweet site on LLC behind the doofus in the photo. We like that table, especially for dinner. My guess is that scouts built it.

Wow, that is one wild shirt.

The tables I used were either log or very heavy lumber. I really liked them.

I heard a careless camper started a picnic table on fire in Bear Head State Park earlier this month.

quote Zulu: "I heard a careless camper started a picnic table on fire in Bear Head State Park earlier this month."

shame on her! opps, i meant shame on who ever that was!

Wild shirt? Try this one!

TomW

Excellent attire Tom, for dinner on Adams Lake!

butthead

Dreaded double post strikes again....

quote lundojam: "
You can see part of a sweet table on a sweet site on LLC behind the doofus in the photo. We like that table, especially for dinner. My guess is that scouts built it."

Is that a silk shirt you're wearing? LOL

I remember tables on sites on Lac La Croix during our trips in the late 70s. Also a raised platform for tents. I've seen dance floors with less room. One of the sites just across from the pictographs was really built up in preparation for a visit from Lynda Bird Johnson, who had been in Ely in the summer of 1965 to dedicate the Forest Service's new Voyageur Visitor Center and then took a canoe trip down the Moose River to Lac La Croix with Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman and a couple dozen other staff and Secret Service agents. Portages widened, insecticide sprayed, and a float plane standing by in Tiger Bay with supplies...

Sure wish I had taken more pictures those days. Didn't think of it because a lot of things you took for granted that they'd stay that way forever: canoe rests, signs, cedar latrine boxes... Probably only had a 12-exposure film cartridge in the Instamatic...

I wonder how many of those old tables I sawed and split up over the years and burned for firewood...

Somewhere in the Q.

Kanoes,

I have stayed at sites that had bear poles, but they were like the tables, homemade jobs, long poles lashed or nailed between two trees, throw your rope over the pole type.

I have mixed feelings on the picnic tables. They are nice to have but I think it is better for the adventure to "rough it" without one.

Those shirts on the other hand, should be banned from any wilderness experience!!

Did a lot of tripping in the mid and late 70's and early to late 80's and never saw a site with a picnic table, except for a handmade one on Hatchet Lake.

Remember portage signs and canoe rests, but no tables.

quote lundojam: "
You can see part of a sweet table on a sweet site on LLC behind the doofus in the photo. We like that table, especially for dinner. My guess is that scouts built it."

Wow! Between the bright red tarp and that shirt, it looks like a Circus came to the B-dub. Very Cool Lundojam.

quote steven: "I have mixed feelings on the picnic tables. They are nice to have but I think it is better for the adventure to "rough it" without one.


Those shirts on the other hand, should be banned from any wilderness experience!!
"

So if there is a table of all natural materials at 1% of the sites, do you feel like Arctic that it's your duty to demolish them? Having learned people do feel compelled to destroy them I no longer comment. I enjoy the discovery and creativity and don't feel they are so predominant as to really impinge on anyone else's freedoms or sensibilities.

Although I had only taken four multi day loop trips during the 1980’s, I never saw a picnic table either. Like Spartan2, I only remember the signs and canoe rests.

quote BillConner01:

So if there is a table of all natural materials at 1% of the sites, do you feel like Arctic that it's your duty to demolish them? Having learned people do feel compelled to destroy them I no longer comment. I enjoy the discovery and creativity and don't feel they are so predominant as to really impinge on anyone else's freedoms or sensibilities."

The ones we destroyed years ago were commercially made tables, filthy, and loaded with inscriptions/carvings. Along with portage rests and signs, they didn't belong in a wilderness area.

As for user-made tables I suppose they are legal if live vegetation is not used and nails and string is not used in their construction. I would guess that most trippers do not want to find that kind of thing on a campsite.

One of many tables in Quetico, McKenzie Bay 1984.

butthead

Snow Bay has a couple left.

this big "fisherman's camp" table has been there since the fly-in days i assume.when i saw in in the early 80's it still had a wood top,thats been fixed up with slabs of slate and the entire thing is slowly rotting into the ground.after a week and a half of just "normal" camps i sort of went crazy with having a table and heaped my gear all over it.the photo on the left is 2009 the right 11
if your on Snow Bay and want a wilderness style site you can paddle to the other side and find this one.
while touring the bay i pulled into this one for lunch,it looks like no one has been here for years.

I remember the picnic tables and when we would stay at a campsite without one, we would go find one and use two canoes to transfer it to our campsite. Probably a no no at the time, but sure wanted one of those tables at our site. Was very handy....

I ran into one on Cherokee Lake about 10 years ago. The ranger who visited us thought we brought it in and was mad because they would have to haul it out. I can't believe she thought we would haul it in over all those portages, it was a big table.

You can still find some tables that work well!

LLC this year:

quote BillConner01: "


Somewhere in the Q."

William Lake I believe.

I'm not a fan of tables in the BW or the Q

HAHA, Wilderness...

a table out of logs does not make something "not wilderness".the latrine box and the fire grate makes the BW a park as does the fees and check in with the ranger in the Q.the only real wilderness left in North America is some remote valley in the Canadian Rocky's you would have to parachute into...which is why we like the BW/Q as "wilderness" as possible.

Just wondering, if the USFS removed all the latrines, fire grates and sitting logs from the BW camp sites, would you still go? I know I would.

Do you think it might prevent some of the "disrespectful" types from coming and trashing camp sites?

If such removals would take place, I'm sure the cost involved in maintaining camp sites would drop significantly. Likely more than enough to offset lost revenues from a drop in attendance.

quote AndySG: "Just wondering, if the USFS removed all the latrines, fire grates and sitting logs from the BW camp sites, would you still go? I know I would.


Do you think it might prevent some of the "disrespectful" types from coming and trashing camp sites?


If such removals would take place, I'm sure the cost involved in maintaining camp sites would drop significantly. Likely more than enough to offset lost revenues from a drop in attendance."

I'd still go! And I'd have my fire on a big shore rock, I'd sit on the shore rock and I'd go to the bathroom on that shore rock. Right next to my fish guts!
Ah, come on, I'm just kidding.
Seriously, I'd still go and I think you are correct concerning cost and disrespectful types.

quote fitgers1: "

quote AndySG: "Just wondering, if the USFS removed all the latrines, fire grates and sitting logs from the BW camp sites, would you still go? I know I would.



Do you think it might prevent some of the "disrespectful" types from coming and trashing camp sites?



If such removals would take place, I'm sure the cost involved in maintaining camp sites would drop significantly. Likely more than enough to offset lost revenues from a drop in attendance."

I'd still go! And I'd have my fire on a big shore rock, I'd sit on the shore rock and I'd go to the bathroom on that shore rock. Right next to my fish guts!
Ah, come on, I'm just kidding.
Seriously, I'd still go and I think you are correct concerning cost and disrespectful types."

that would make it more like the Q....I prefer that

A table at a campsite ruins your wilderness experience? Wow! This site is educational. I had no idea of the fanaticism of some luddite reactionaries here. How do you tolerate seeing Kevlar canoes and high tech paddles out there?

here is a table on Long Island Lake..at least it was there a few years back

quote DayDreamin: "here is a table on Long Island Lake..at least it was there a few years back"

Looks like the time spent working on the table should have gone toward stone work around the fire area...

I think that removing the grates and latrines would make the campsites many times worse and disturbed than they are now. Think of the amount of visitors. I would hate to step anywhere. The soil is too thin and there are too many people with lazy squatting habits. You can’t compare it to Quetico. I would not go. I haven’t been back hiking at the Porcupine Mountains because of the back country paper wad blooms all over the place when I visited one fall.

quote kanoes: "

quote Zulu: "I heard a careless camper started a picnic table on fire in Bear Head State Park earlier this month."

shame on her! opps, i meant shame on who ever that was!"

I heard a different story. I heard it was just a roll of paper towels and with their quick reaction, was able to extinguish it immediately!
Kudos' to their quick reflexes! Smokey the Bear would be Proud!

I worked for the forest service about a decade ago and there were still a couple tables left. When I was there we worked out of the old service center in Ely before the new place and there actually were these old roll out blueprints for making log tables from way back. pretty cool. Anyway we did build a few tables but only on campsites outside the wilderness.

That's the shirt, man, that's the shirt. I mentioned it elsewhere on the site, but when I showed that picture to my fourth grade class one of the boys goes, "Does your wife know you took her shirt?"
ANyway, it's a table thread.

Here is one on Lake Agnes (BWCA) dated June 2, from this year. Forth night of this trip that it got down to 28*.

I see by the photos that the tables are being used so they must not be despised by all.
How about those that don't like the tables move on to a different site and those that like them can use the sites.

I think we need a thread of crazy shirts posted.

quote burntsider: "A table at a campsite ruins your wilderness experience? Wow! This site is educational. I had no idea of the fanaticism of some luddite reactionaries here. How do you tolerate seeing Kevlar canoes and high tech paddles out there?"

Sitting logs, fire grates, and latrines are fine and certainly reasonable for an area as busy as the BWCA, but picnic tables go too far. I doubt anyone is going to mess with those bulky old log tables, though.

The idea is to have a place to keep things up out of the dirt and reduce constantly bending over. After tarp and tents, arranging the stones around the fire grate to provide the perfect back wall and some flat tops is one of the first jobs on the list. The two log tables were a bonus.

Oh, and in 2007, previous campers provided us with a flat rock table supported by some logs that did a fine job, too. That same flat rock was still there last month serving its purpose for us, but was being supported by some rocks instead.

I would not build a table, but I will use it if it is already there.

quote drnatus: "I would not build a table, but I will use it if it is already there. "

x2

I do remember signs on portages circa 1973..Never saw a picnic table.

Heck now where I go I am thankful for an old fire ring.Usually its grass filled.

quote AndySG: "Just wondering, if the USFS removed all the latrines, fire grates and sitting logs from the BW camp sites, would you still go? I know I would."

I think I would...however, I would be concerned about not having a latrine. Not that I wouldn't go because I'd be going in the woods all the time, but because of the amount of visitors that the BW gets. I think it just gets too many to support not having a latrine. Popular campsites in the Q have this problem, or so I have heard, and I think with many more users, the BW would just be worse...and all that crap lying around in the woods would definitely ruin it for me. Otherwise...whatever. ;-)

Snakecharmer, what is that? A canoe rest?

I thought it "INSANE" that the USFS was forced to REMOVE the old picnic tables and canoe rests! Fine, don't rebuild or replace any, but I thought it idiotic to have to waste valuable time and money to REMOVE them. Why not remove latrines and fire grates too? O.K., I'll step off the soap box now.

You wanted to see a picture of one of the picnic tables? Here you go, look to the left of the pic. Probably late '80's and this was Seagull or Alpine. They were just weathered, commercial-type run of the mill tables. Didn't detract anything from MY early trips to the BWCAW.

quote snakecharmer: " "

Thanks, snakecharmer, for the canoe rest pic. Been looking for a good example to show the guys. (google image searches come up surprisingly empty)

I recall the first time on a long-ish portage during one of my first trips after they started to disappear. Walking along and looking for it... waiting for it... never saw one so stuck the bow into a V in a couple of trees. Then couldn't get it back out alone before falling and dumping the thing on the ground. Now, I just try to man up and hump it through to the end...

quote kanoes: "did they ever have bear poles in the BW?"

There was one on Caribou (by Pine) a few years back (8-10 years?) that a buddy and I used when we were there for fishing opener. A ranger visited our camp and teased us about using it. I had just purchased one of those insulated food packs (long since abandoned) and had enough food in it to feed the entire East Coast for a month. We could literally only get the thing as high as we could lift it (had no pulley system), and the ranger joked that it was not even cat proof, let alone safe from bears. Wish I had a picture...

quote ozarkpaddler: "I thought it "INSANE" that the USFS was forced to REMOVE the old picnic tables and canoe rests! Fine, don't rebuild or replace any, but I thought it idiotic to have to waste valuable time and money to REMOVE them. Why not remove latrines and fire grates too? O.K., I'll step off the soap box now.


You wanted to see a picture of one of the picnic tables? Here you go, look to the left of the pic. Probably late '80's and this was Seagull or Alpine. They were just weathered, commercial-type run of the mill tables. Didn't detract anything from MY early trips to the BWCAW.
"

Although I don't have a picure to share, back in July 1996 we camped on Long Island Lake on an island campsite with a picnic table. It was the same type of table as in ozarkpaddler's picture. Never saw another table since then.

this ruined my wilderness experience. :)

Came across another one. This was on Seagull. TW

quote arctic: "

quote burntsider: "A table at a campsite ruins your wilderness experience? Wow! This site is educational. I had no idea of the fanaticism of some luddite reactionaries here. How do you tolerate seeing Kevlar canoes and high tech paddles out there?"

Sitting logs, fire grates, and latrines are fine and certainly reasonable for an area as busy as the BWCA, but picnic tables go too far. I doubt anyone is going to mess with those bulky old log tables, though."

As busy as the BWCA? Are you being ironic? There are 250,000 visitors to the BWCA annually. Let's say they're spaced roughly evenly over 150 days. That puts fewer than 1700 people in an area three times the size of Hennepin County -- or about one person every square mile! OK, say the busiest day is twice the average -- that's still over 300 acres per person. Get off the kick that the BWCA is crowded or over-used. It's not even close. Accommodations, like picnic tables, signs, canoe rests, portage wheels, sails, maintained trails should be there to allow more people to enjoy this area. Selfish restrictions like banning picnic tables are intended to exclude people. The BWCA is grossly under-utilized both in numbers of visitors and permitted activities.