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We continue to celebrate winter in the third issue of the Paddle and Portage digital magazine. The third issue of the magazine is now available to P&P members.

This was a winter that never flexed its muscles. For some, that’s okay. Others, including the team at Paddle and Portage, yearned for the deep cold and the hard work of managing and moving snow. Not this year, Bub. Winter, or this version of it, is over.

Before we turn the page on winter, writer Pam Wright shares a journey she took earlier in the season into Quetico Provincial Park. Pam and her crew started their trip in the BWCA and traveled fast, far, and deep into the wilds of Quetico. It was a year where hot tents were not as essential as they typically are, as Pam shares with us in the second story of this issue of the magazine.

Before Pam’s story we learn more about a tool carried in many portage packs across the Boundary Waters: the Sven-Saw. A Minnesota original, the origins of the collapsible saw go back to a portage trail in the BWCA in the 1960s. The founder of the Sven-Saw shares the story of the canoe-country original with us in this issue’s business feature.

Our fishing columnist, Jessica Berg-Collman, is back with more expert advice on catching Boundary Waters walleye. She turns her attention to the upcoming open-water season in this issue, including how to land large walleye just after the spring spawn. Jessica is still out on the ice chasing lake trout until the end of March, but like many of us, she’s starting to shift into spring fishing mode.

In our main feature this issue, John Gebretatose, a Minnesota theater director, radio host, and now BWCA paddler, shares a piece about traveling and connection to the wilderness. Last summer, John and several of his friends from the Twin Cities made their first trip to the canoe-country wilderness. The trip was transformative for John, he says, connecting him with the land and water in a way he simply wasn’t expecting coming into the trip.

Minnesota artist and birder Tanya Piatz takes us to the trees in the BWCA with her essay about the winged creatures that inhabit these woods. Tanya, a resident of the St. Cloud area, comes to the Gunflint Trail every year to listen. And draw. She explains why birding in the Boundary Waters is about more than checking off birds on a list. It’s about connection.

We finish the episode by traveling west. Accomplished journalist and outdoor writer Chelsea DeWeese provides the paddling destination feature with a report on the Yellowstone River. The iconic river and its tributaries straddling the nation’s first national park are Chelsea’s hometown waters. Chelsea shares with us the best way to travel the swift current of the Yellowstone River, while including stunning photographs of the West.

March was a busy month for the Paddle and Portage team, including our first visit to Canoecopia. Our mission of sharing stories from and about the Boundary Waters is reaching every corner of the nation, as we learned before and during the expo. Supporters like you are the reason this mission is succeeding. And while we celebrate our early success, we pause and say with confidence: Wait until you see where we’re going. One story at a time.

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