Portaging to the Boundary Waters
21 May
If you’ve spent any time paddling in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — or its Canadian companion Quetico Provincial Park — you’re aware there’s a fair amount of portaging that comes with any trip.
For Ladysmith, Wisconsin’s Jim Kurz, however, there’s apparently not enough portaging for his tastes. He’s taken it upon himself, according to THIS Duluth News-Tribune story, to portage the 200-some miles to the BWCAW.
The newspaper caught up with Kurz, 63, as he was pushing his wheeled canoe toward Two Harbors, Minnesota en route the boat landing at Greenwood Lake in the Superior National Forest. There, he plans to push off for the Boundary Waters and Quetico. He’d already paddled and portaged (and hitched a ride with an outfitter) to make it the 100 miles from his home to Duluth.
Kurz, according to the story, isn’t a novice to this sort of adventure. In 2005, he hiked to the headwaters of the Missouri River in similar fashion.
Kurz’s style reminds us of the late mountaineer Goran Kropp of Sweden. In 1996, Kropp rode his bicycle 8,000 miles from Sweden to Nepal, summited Mount Everest, and then rode the bike back home. He told the story of the adventure in the book Ultimate High.
Kurz’s sights are set a little lower than Kropp’s were — he told reporter Will Ashenmacher he simply wants to, “have fun and eat walleyes.”
