7/7/26 — Since fireworks are banned in all National Superior Forest campgrounds, we have other ways of celebrating the 4th of July up at Sawbill. On Saturday, the crew participated in Dragon Boat Racing, our annual canoe race that took place on the canoe dock after sundown. Three teams raced to beat each other to the finish, and everyone brought great spirits to the event! 

With the reunion happening this weekend, our store will be closing early at 5pm on both Friday and Saturday evening. On Saturday morning from 8-10am, please join us for the Sawbill 70th anniversary pancake breakfast! It will be hosted on the screen porch at the store, and everyone is welcome to join. All donations from the event will go to Sawtooth Mountain Clinic’s giving tree program, which helps provide accessible and affordable healthcare to residents of Cook County. We will have plenty of food, so bring empty stomachs. We hope to see you all there!

-Olivia

Happy 4th of July! 

7/4/26 – With the holiday weekend upon us, we are getting busy up at Sawbill! This past week we have been sending out plenty of Boundary Waters trips, and welcoming visitors to the campground. Luckily, we have some incoming crew members this week to add a few helping hands to the bunch. Megan and Mike are two of our returning crew members, while Kai and Olivia are first-year crew.

In other news, a lingering haze has been hovering in the air these past few days. While it may look like smoke or dust, it is actually a sudden wave of pollen! The heavy rain, followed up by a few sunny and breezy days this past week, creates the perfect weather for pollen dispersal. As it settles, our equipment has stayed coated in a thin layer of yellow dust. Whether you are headed out on a trip or just visiting for the day, It’s not a bad idea to keep some allergy medication on hand. Luckily, we keep it stocked up in our store.

One last reminder that the Sawbill 70th reunion is happening next weekend on July 10th and 11th. If you are a former Sawbill crew member, please come and join us for the festivities! You can RSVP by sending an email to info@sawbill.com.

-Olivia

6/29/26 – Jeremy Carl recently returned from a canoe trip in one of my favorite sections of the Boundary Waters and was kind enough to pass along his trip report along with some great photos. -Jessica

“June 20-21, 2026

The four of us left Hastings, MN about 4:45 am. We made it to Sawbill Outfitters around 10:30 AM after a few stops along the way. We grabbed our permit and loaded up two canoes and headed to the Kawishiwi Lake Entry Point. We got our canoes and gear all set and hit the water just past noon. 

There was a group of 9 from a Wilderness Camp that were just getting their introduction to the canoeing world. They were also practicing swamping their canoes. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. 

Today was a long day. It was about 7.5 hours of travel, and about 19 miles total including double portaging.  

There was a lot of paddling. We did get slowed a little by a group of three canoes that clearly were on their first trip. On their first try through the portage from Kawasachong Lake to Townline Lake they left canoes and other gear scattered along the way. They also had two red coolers that I assume they somehow managed to maneuver over the portage eventually. We didn’t see them again, they were headed to Polly Lake. Otherwise the portages from Kawishiswi Lake to Amber Lake are relatively easy and straight forward.  There aren’t many elevation changes. 

We ended up on the Southern most site on Amber Lake, the one just out of the channel. We stayed here two nights. We arrived at camp around 7:30 pm. We did not feel like going in the boats again this day, so we did some fishing from camp.  The forecast had no rain for today, so naturally we didn’t set up the tarp. And of course it rained for 45 minutes to a hour. We scrambled in the rain and dark, and did get the tarp up without issue. We were the only group on Amber Lake both night we stayed. 

Sunday we fished all around River Lake(I think it’s basically just part of the Kawishiwi River). We did pretty good, we caught Walleye, Small Mouth Bass, and Northen Pike. 

At night, around 11:15 pm we were looking out on Amber Lake, and there was this weird red glowing light just above the tree line horizon. It didn’t move at first, but after a few minutes it pushed off and disappeared in the direction of Thomas and Fraser Lakes. We weren’t sure what it was, but we did think it was in Orbit and not actually very close by. 

Today was a much needed rest and fishing day, it was a good day!

Monday June 22nd

Today we moved North to the island site on Adams Lake.  After gathering wood we went for a much needed swim. We fished from mid afternoon until after dark.  We trolled and casted our way around the North half of the lake. We did ok, but Adams Lake is beautiful and we all agreed we would stay here again. We were the only group on Adams Lake tonight.  

The site had tons of micro litter around. We found all we could and packed it with us. 

Tuesday June 23rd, Wednesday June 24th. 

Today was another long travel day, it took us about 6 hours to get to Little Saganaga Lake, then another hour or so to find a suitable site for the possible pending storms that the weather radio told us were heading our way. We did find an awesome site.  Although it felt like we were the only group on Little Sag both nights, it’s hard to believe that we were since we only seen about a quarter of the lake. 

The day today was a lot of portaging. The portage from the small pond after Boulder Lake up to Ledge Lake had a T intersection, we needed to turn right.  Ledge into Vee Lake portage was a challenge but nothing crazy. There still weren’t many elevation changes, but this stretch was mostly overgrown and did have some mud, but nothing as muddy or overgrown as the stretch from Trail Lake to Wine Lake that we experienced last year.  We never did find the actual portage from Vee to Fee Lakes, but we made it work. 

Elton Lake has a burn from I think the John Elk Fire?  It seemed much more in the early stages of regrowth than we seen on Little Sag and the Square Lake areas. I think all three of these burned areas are from different fires?!

We stayed at the site at the end of the peninsula about mid way up the West side of the Little Saganaga Lake. It was elevated and protected for the most part in all directions.  We checked 4-5 other sites and although some were nice, none seemed like they work for us to be at for any kind of stormy weather. This ended up being an awesome site. We fished for a while but only caught one Northern Pike. 

We stayed here for two nights. The storms did come a little bit overnight on Tuesday, otherwise we just got a little rain Wednesday morning. 

We fished on and off throughout the day on Wednesday, but all the Lake Trout eluded us for now. Little Sag is a big lake, lots of water with deep holes, we didn’t travel far but we did put in a good amount of time. In the end we just got one fish on Little Sag.  Our group of four has never had much fishing luck on big water. 

Thursday June 25th

We packed up our gear and had a nice easy travel day down to Makwa Lake.  It took us about a hour and a half. The portages were straight forward as we did these same three portages on Tuesday on the way to Little Sag. 

Makwa is a beautiful lake. The cliffs are amazing. We even paddled past a loons nest just out of the water on the shore line of an island. She just watched us paddle by as we steered away not to put any additional stress on her. 

We stayed on the rocky cliff site on the far west end of the lake. We had perfect weather for this site, it’s very exposed up on the cliff but that gave us 360 degree views of the night sky and area. We did take the short path up to the top of a 50 foot sheer cliff. It was was an awesome view.  

We swam here after afternoon fishing. We all agreed this was a sweet site but no where to be for a storm.  We did get a random 20-30 minutes of gusty wind but we managed without issue. We also had a very hard time finding fire wood on Makwa, but we did. 

We ended up catching six Lake Trout total, we cooked one over the fire.  Three of the four of us caught at least one Laker meaning for the second year in a row three of us hit the BWCA grand slam, all four of us did it in 2025. Sorry Mason, we will get you next year!  

Friday June 26th

We fished one more time for about an hour this morning but had no luck. We went back to camp and packed up for the moving day. 

Today we had our eyes on a site somewhere between Kivaniva Lake and Malberg. We aren’t yet ready for the zoo Polly Lake can be. 

After about three to three and half hours we ended up on Malberg Lake. We took the site on the point as you enter the bigger part of the lake from the North East arm. It’s a nice site. It gets quite a bit of use. Two of us had stayed here back in 2020. It’s pretty much just how I remember it. We swam today as it was very sunny and warm.  We fished from shore some and hung out in the afternoon.  

We fished in the evening one last time and had decent success, but not as well as we had done in the past on Malberg.

Saturday June 27th

Today was what everyone who goes on a trip experiences, the last day and the paddle out. I wasn’t ready to go. It took us about four hours to get back to the parking lot at Kawishiwi Lake. We 1.5 portaged rather than double portaged as we had done the whole trip until now.  I think it probably saved us about a hour or so. We met people traveling in both directions, all were very friendly and well organized for the most part. To our surprise, Polly Lake was pretty much empty from what we seen.  Just proves you never know what you might find at the other end of the portage. 

From the time we left Amber Lake Monday morning, until Friday afternoon on Malberg Lake, the only contact we had with others was a friendly solo paddler that let us know the island site on Adams Lake was all ours.  We did see three canoes in the distance on Little Sag while we were fishing, and we had a group of 3 canoes stay at the far Northeast corner of Makwa the same night we were on the West end of the lake. We also seen them leaving in the morning just before us, but they were single portaging and we never had contact. But on Malberg as expected, we watched the boat parade go by off in the distance of the middle of the lake. 

We had three meals of Walleye, and we cooked the one Laker. We had fires all seven nights.  All 5 of our campsites were outstanding!  We didn’t see a ton of wildlife, we didn’t even see a bald eagle until the second to last day. We did see lots of Beavers, Painter Turtles, Loons, and Mergansers. 

We couldn’t of asked for better weather. We had minimal rain. Everyday day seemed to have highs in low to mid 70s, and lows in the upper 40s. The winds were not a factor, never more than 5-10 mph when we were on the water. 

I can’t speak for all four of us, but for me the BWCA is my favorite place in the world. This time, it left me wanting more. 

Overall it was 42-44 portages, 8-10 beaver dams and about 90 miles including double and 1.5 portaging and some fishing.  The actual route was about 50-55 miles.  

We caught Huge Bluegills, some of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Perch, Northern Pike, Smallmouth Bass, Lake Trout, and Walleye. The biggest Walleye were 22, 24.5, 25.5, and 27 inches.”

6/17/2026 – This past Sunday we had a busy day of canoe rental returns! Sundays are typically a bigger return day as folks round out their trips and get ready to return to work. On this recent Sunday, it was quite windy so there was a convergence of people on our return area all at about the same time early in the day. Some enterprising customers decided to use the support posts of our recently re-built return sign to stash their life jackets. We had 25 groups return on the 14th, many of them with multiple canoes! It was a fun all hands on deck getting everyone checked back in.

– Dan

6/16/26 – Sawbill’s own Damon “D-Dawg” Hennessy just completed a wonderful week of fly fishing in the Sawbill vicinity. He was generous enough write up a trip report to share herewith a few tips and tricks for early season fly fishing in the Boundary Waters.

In early Sept 2025 I had a permit and a fly fishing focused trip planned with a buddy flying in
from Portland OR. Sadly my obsessive watching of the weather in the days leading to our trip
did nothing to halt a brutal drop in temps and 45MPH winds from the north on the very day we
were to shove off. With no real flexibility in our schedules and seemingly no let up in the winds
for many days we made to tough decision to bail entirely. Bummer. So when permits for 2026
came online I jumped on one for early June. We are both fairly obsessed with catching
smallmouth bass and pike on fly rods, especially on the surface, and early June is the prime
time to do this.

Lo and behold, this time the weather cooperated, the airlines cooperated, and when the day
finally came we shoved off with our fly rods ready to chase fish.

I love canoeing the BWCA, but let’s face it, if you’ve ever had the pleasure of fishing from a
sparkly bass boat, or even a decent fishing specific kayak, you know that fishing from a canoe
is less than optimal. There’s the wind… the instability… the constant hassle of paddling back
to retrieve snags. Now imagine all that plus fly fishing. It can be downright ugly. Like that
episode of “I Love Lucy” when Lucy and Ethel work the assembly line at the chocolate factory.
Trust me, look it up on YouTube, it’s a classic.

To avoid such comedy my partner and I agreed on a plan: paddler in the back, caster in the
front. Switch when it seems fair. We talked strategies beforehand and agreed on a few basics.
Mostly how to position the nose of the canoe in a place where the guy in the back doesn’t run
the risk of catching a hook in the back of the head. We are both righties so this meant casting
towards shore at roughly the 11 o’clock position.

We were only going a few lakes in and base camping so we could focus on figuring out the
lake we were on and a few surrounding lake day trips. The base camp lake we chose had lots
of spots to get out of wind and was big enough to give us a variety of spots to work.

OK, onto the fishing! I think the biggest surprise for both of us was how much we enjoyed the
paddler part of the fishing. It was way more of a team effort than either of us could have
predicted. As paddler all your senses have to be fully engaged as you are watching the water
for likely hiding places behind trees and rocks, noticing subtle wind shifts and listening for fish
along the bank that are actively chasing food. You’re also constantly tweaking the canoe
position and trying to maintain position and angle in the wind. We caught fish along rocky
banks (think bowling ball sized rocks) that had deep water adjacent, but also some fish in soft
bottom areas and some in expansive flats. And of course they were in the classic spots, behind
bigger rocks, in wood piles and near areas of wind blown current. The most fun part was sight
fishing for bass. We caught plenty of fish who tipped off their location with an aggressive swirl
as we were quietly approaching an area. Then we’d glide into place knowing you only had one
real shot to drop your fly in the right spot. The teamwork that went into these moments made it
super fun. Gear wise we had a 6 weight rod with floating line and an 8 weight rod with a
floating line and a sink tip line. Mostly we used the 6 weight and as far as flies we caught 98
percent of the fish on top water flies, either a Boogle Bug or Mr. Wiggly. (I don’t name these
things, I just fish em). At some point on day two we decided to smash the barbs on all the flies
to make releasing faster, we may have had few fish shake off after that policy change but I feel
like it’s the thing to do for catch and release fishing.

If you’re new to fly fishing and would like to try it don’t expect to learn it on a week long canoe
trip. Get a rod and practice casting in your yard, then catch some bluegill off a dock
somewhere. Once you can throw bigger flies with some accuracy you are ready. Bass are
willing but you need to be a pretty good caster to get the fly in a place where you can catch
fish. And make sure you’ve got a good paddling partner in the back!

D-Dawg

6/10/26 – The Forest Service has announced that the campfire restriction within the BWCA Wilderness is going to be lifted beginning on June 12. Therefore, as of the morning of June 12, there will be no burning restrictions inside the Wilderness (nor anywhere on the Superior National Forest).

We’ve been enjoying some rain showers and higher humidity resulting in a lot of green up recently and lots of signs of summer. Our lilac bush is finally blooming and many other early summer ephemerals are out and about. Also, there has been a big dragonfly hatch in recent days, putting a dent in the pesky bugs. The robin’s nest visible right out our second floor window is active with three hatchlings that are growing every day. It is very fun to see the excited beaks rising up and opening for a food delivery. There is even an industrious robin that started building a nest on a little container mounted on the exterior of the workshop.

-Dan

6/6/26 – Calling all former Sawbill Crew members! We are about a month out from our 70th (that’s right, 70!) reunion party on July 10 and 11th. If you hadn’t heard about it yet, consider this your invite and put it on your calendar! If you are still connected with other former Crew Members, please reach out to them and let them know. With 70 years worth of Crew, we need help spreading the word! Bill’s old rolodex doesn’t have everyone’s number in it.

Please send an email to info@sawbill.com to let us know you are coming and to get more details about the event.

We hope to see many of you soon!

– Dan

6/5/26 – The Forest Service announced a fire ban effective June 6th for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This means that within the Wilderness boundary, no campfires nor any burning device that lacks an ‘on-off’ switch are allowed. Propane camp stoves ect, that can be turned on and off will continue to be allowed.

The order is in effect from June 6 through June 30 unless rescinded sooner or extended.

Areas outside of the Wilderness such as the Sawbill Lake National Forest Campground and the Crescent Lake National Forest Campground are not currently under a restriction, so campfires and charcoal grills remain allowed.

Of course with the dry and warm weather in the forecast, additional caution and diligence when maintaining a fire is a must.

We’ll continue to provide updates when and if things change.

-Dan

6/3/26 – This passed weekend former Sawbill Crew member (ca 2015 – 2018), Meg Price, came to visit and brought her son Adam up for the first time (future Sawbill Crew 2041). Adam, Meg and her Dad, Brian, capitalized on a perfect day to go for a nice paddle. They were also thoroughly entertained by Kit and Sig and their kickball!

Since leaving the Sawbill Crew, Meg has become an educator in southern Minnesota, where she serves in the high demand roll of speech and language pathologist. Meg follows in her Dad’s footsteps who is just rounding out a long career as a school psychologist.

It was so great to see Meg again and to meet her son.

-Dan

6/1/26 – Recently the Forest Service published their BWCA Permit and Use Visitor report for 2025 (https://www.fs.usda.gov/r09/superior/passes/permit-and-visitor-use-report), and one issue that is continuing the catch our eye are the number of cancellations and no-shows. In recent years, we have seen a tendency towards people booking permits on the annual “Go-Live” day, the day in January when all of the permits become available for the season. In the broader history, the behavior was different, but for a handful of years now, the trend has clearly changed. Along with this change has come a dramatic increase in permit cancellations and no-shows. The end result is many potential permits go unused and hopeful visitors get left on the sidelines.

This recent Minnesota Star Tribune report by Bob Timmons dives into the issue, including several insights from our own Clare Shirley.

https://www.startribune.com/why-are-cancellations-in-the-boundary-waters-on-the-rise-its-complicated/601843425

-Dan