Superior National Forest Update: August 12

Hi.  This is Tom McCann, resource information specialist on the Gunflint Ranger District, with the Superior National Forest Update - information on conditions affecting travel and recreation on the east end of the Forest. For the week of August 12th, here’s what’s going on in the Forest.
We’d like to remind people who are camping about the fact that they are sharing the woods with bears.  Black bears normally are not an animal to worry about, and tend to shy away from human contact. But once a bear learns that people, dumpsters, or portage packs are sources of food, bears can cause problems.  The best way to prevent these problems is to make sure bears don’t learn to associate people with food.  That means campers need to follow some simple guidelines of bear etiquette.  To begin with, when you are camping at a campground, store your food out of sight in a hard sided vehicle.  Some bears can break through screens on RVs, and can recognize coolers sitting on back seats.  Put your food in the car’s trunk, or cover it with a blanket in vehicles without trunks.  Garbage equals food for bears, so treat garbage like food.  Don’t store either food or garbage in your tent, ever.  Take your garbage directly to the dumpster after meals - don’t keep the garbage bag at your campsite during your visit.    After putting your garbage in the dumpster, be sure to secure the lid with bars, or use whatever system is provided.  This can be inconvenient, but it is better than letting bears get into the dumpster.  Don’t leave bags of garbage sitting outside the dumpster.  If it is full, temporarily store your garbage as you would your food, and contact the campground host or concessionaire.
Camping in backcountry or Boundary Waters sites takes some different skills.  Hang food and garbage in a pack twelve feet off the ground, six feet out from tree trunks, and four feet down from branches.  There are several different ways to rig a system to hang your pack, the best ones use a pulley to make it easier on the tree and on the person hauling up the food pack.  You can see diagrams of food hanging methods on our website in the camping section.  There are many campsites with no good tree for food hanging, particularly in post fire areas.  Campers in those spots should use a bear resistant food container.  The popular blue plastic barrels used for packing food are not bear resistant, they need to be hung just like a pack.  Bear resistant containers with food in them should be stored at night away from the campsite. 
Taking all these precautions might take a little extra effort, but will help keep our bears wild and not dependent on human food.  This will help prevent bear problems while camping, and make it less likely problem bears will have to be destroyed.
Getting to some of the campgrounds may be a little easier this week.  Paving on the Sawbill Trail and Temperance River Road has been completed.  Only a short section of the Temperance River Road was paved, primarily to eliminate the deep washboarding which happened as vehicles went up the steep hill, and to keep gravel off the bike trail. 
While the Sawbill to the Temperance River Campground is now paved, you will find some logging trucks in that area.  There are timber harvests going on near the site of the Sawbill CCC camp, and on the Grade between Sawbill and Baker Lake.  There will also be trucks in the Sawbill Landing area near Silver Island Lake and on County Road 7 near Harriet Lake.   On Gunflint, harvest is taking place off of Greenwood Road, Firebox Road, and Powers Lake Road.  Log hauling will be taking place in all these areas, so please drive carefully.
So, enjoy the new roadways on your way to the campground, and respect the bears when you arrive.  Have a great weekend, and until next week, this has been Tom McCann with the National Forest Update.