CG9603,

My comments pertain to getting to Atikokan (or, to other northern entry points into Quetico) & NOT so much to the BWCA.

Years ago when I did stints living in NC and NJ I gave the matter of public transportation a fair amount of consideration.  I usually ended up flying into either MSP or Duluth and taking a rental car from there for those trips.  HOWEVER, there are outfitters who will pick you up at Duluth, Hibbing, International Falls or Thunder Bay and run you over to the Atikokan area (or wherever their north side base is) for a fee.

If you can get to Ft. Frances or Thunder Bay I have to believe there must be a bus system that follows that trans-Canadian highway.  Likewise, the train tracks run right through Atikokan.  Lord knows those motels there so often seem crammed with railway workers.  I don't know how much of that business is "passenger train" oriented, however.

I suppose if you can pilot your own plane (or could hire some such person) you could become one of those rare adventurers touching down at Atikokan's Intergalactic Airport.  During the many trips when I have actually spent a night in that town - usually on the front-end of a canoe trip - I have usually driven over to the softball field to pass some time watching a game (what else is there to do?) and then over to the airfield to check it out.  Not once have I EVER seen signs of Life at that facility.  In fact, the tarmac looked like it could use some "weeding."  I suppose one could parachute in if the runway appeared unsafe....

Getting even more creative, someone truly ambitious might follow in the footsteps of the renown "Voyageurs" and simply launch their (rented?) canoe from Lake Superior & hoof it across the famous "Grand Portage" route near the Pigeon River.  Likewise, you could do the same from the Rainy River further west, I suppose.

Perhaps the most ambitious approach I have ever actually witnessed happened one of the many times I headed from Thunder Bay to Quetico on Highway 11, west of where it splits from Highway 17.  Just as I was almost completely mesmerized by the most monotonous stretch of green flora and gray rocks known to man, there comes striding straight at me along the side of the highway - in the gravel - a barefoot apparition, wearing the most brightly luminescent & billowing orange silk robe I have ever seen.  It was quite a breezy day so he kind of appeared as a something of a fruit-colored whirlwind.  I kid you not, it was a real-life honest-to-go Buddhist monk, straight out of a Kung Fu movie, doing some kind of penance & trekking his way across Canada.  He was empty-handed, too, & didn't have a pack on his shoulders.  The dude had already passed Quetico, of course.  I include him in this account, partly to illustrate one end of a broad range of (probably useless) options and, partly, because this gentleman was, well... so danged "colorful."

Later,

Jimbo   8-)