Also found a similar uninsulated steel (?) wire.  Most of it was on the ground, but in places was strung in trees with ceramic insulators.  Found this on the eastern shore of Yeh, and ran into likely the other end of it along the Yeh/Lonely portage.  telegraph wire perhaps?

The occasional logging-era artifact.  

A few years back, we found an old stashed canoe in one of the BWCA PMA areas.  We pointed it out to a ranger on our return - he asked why we didn't bring it out, then we showed him its location on the map - in the middle of a 3 mile PMA bushwack.

Amazing inner peace - but I guess that's not all that unusual, is it ?