We’re excited to introduce the Best of the Northern Wilds Reader’s Choice Awards. You’ll find the Official Ballot on Page 39 or go directly to www.surveymonkey.com/s/T9QTYSP. Enter your picks for the best park, scenic overlook, waterfall, canoe route, fall color trip and more. If you dare, you can even name your favorite fishing hole! However, you don’t have to vote in every category to send in the ballot

Everyone who fills out an official ballot has a chance to win $500 in class credits at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, an Adventure Tour Package with Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply, a $50 gift certificate to your favorite outdoor store and other great prizes. We’ll continue adding more prizes during the summer, so become our friend on Facebook or bookmark our website to keep posted on prize offerings. The voting for the 2012 Reader’s Choice Adventure Awards goes through September 30 so our summer and fall readers have an opportunity to cast a ballot.

Sit back with this issue and start thinking. If you were introducing someone to the North Shore and the canoe country for the first time, where would you take them? What’s on your “don’t miss” list? What places or events draw you back time after time? Do wild blueberries or walleyes make your mouth water? When autumn foliage is in its full glory, where do you go for a drive?

Better yet, get out this summer and enjoy what the Northern Wilds has to offer. Attend a festival, visit a lighthouse, stand up and paddle or just go fish. You can do it all in the Northern Wilds. So have fun and don’t forget to vote for your wild favorites.