Hikers in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area today enjoy about 200 miles of backpacking trails. Without volunteer trail maintenance, only 80 miles would exist. Due to ever-present budget cutbacks, the USDA Forest Service relies on volunteers to maintain the hiking and backpacking trails in the BWCA. The Forest Service provides tools for several volunteer groups which in turn cut treefalls and brush each year.

"We don’t have the money for trail maintenance," says Dennis Nietzke, district ranger for the Gunflint Ranger District at Grand Marais.

Back in 1972, I hiked the Kekekabic Trail during staff training for guides in a camp on the Gunflint Trail. The trail was well maintained then, with brush cut wide. It made for a scenic hike in a deep forest.

Since then, I’ve hiked the Kek almost every year, during summer, fall and early spring. During the 1980’s, it became routine even for a seasoned backpacker to stray off onto a game trail or to get "temporarily disoriented", i.e. "lost." It was apparent that the trail was no longer maintained and if left to the tooth of time, winter storms and annual growth of brush, it would disappear within few years.

Not wanting to lose the trail that I have become attached to, I started a grassroots group of volunteers with a noble goal. It was almost Don Quixotic, to clear a 40-mile long trail with more than 3,000 treefalls, with no supply by air, nor road, and without any motorized tools. Since then, the Kekekabic Trail has been maintained by volunteers.

Fast forward to present. Last summer, while hiking back to the parking lot from a trail clearing on Brule Lake Trail, I met a small group. One of the visitors inquired whether I carried a big saw for cutting firewood. It seemed logical, but I replied no, and that we had just cleared the Brule Lake Trail. She wondered whether I was with the Forest Service. When I replied, no, we are volunteers, she said, thank you.

Those two words "thank you" made me feel really good about "doing good" for others. It is the most meaningful feedback that I can get.

Most volunteers I spoke with have visited the Boundary Waters for years and now volunteer because they want to give back to the wilderness. It is a perfect example of wilderness stewardship. Volunteering is rewarding on many levels. I have many wonderful memories of team work, people coming together, uniting behind a common cause for public good. That itself is very satisfying to me. But besides that, I have made several long time friends. And others have enriched my diet on volunteer trips with recipes I would never dream of cooking. I learned to embrace vegetarians, who being considerate, cooked half of the dish with and half without meat.

Volunteering is good for you when you do it, and for users of the forest. Thanks to volunteers, we have retained heritage resources, that otherwise, due to lack of funding, the USDA Forest Service would abandon. My hope is that you would like to give your life a sense of purpose for public good and increase your connection to people while caring for the land, your land. And next time you hike on a trail in the Superior National Forest and meet a volunteer with a big saw, remember to say "Thank you." You will make that person feel like a million bucks.