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If they can increase revenue w/o messing up the thrill I share with others - more power to em.

Good point.

Running Quetico takes money. It has to come from somewhere. When paddling use is down, and expenses are up, that pressure is particularly acute.

So, I guess I agree, if a few changes in an area I typically just paddle through solves a problem, that's a good thing.

But ... as always, the anxiety stems from the unknown -- what happens a few years down the road, if money is again tight, or if pressure from certain recreational-use advocates escalate? Would park officials propose further expansion of uses, or intrusion of those uses further into the park?

Who knows.

All would be well, I guess, if everybody shared an ironclad belief in the need to protect and preserve pristine areas like Quetico, and that belief trumped all.

Just don't want the pinhole in the d**e to become a gushing break.

That same anxiety address the campsite designations, as well. The more you designate, and regulate, and put up signs and restrict, the less it feels like a blank spot on a map where you can escape and try to get in touch with all that Olson, Thoreau, Abbey and others spoke of.

And I must admit, my first glimpse of the Pickerel to Bisk dam shocked me (it just seemed so out of place), but if it keeps water levels where they need to be, then so be it.

-- kypaddler