Boundary Waters reservations open soon: What to know about snagging a permit for 2025

U.S. Forest Service officials who oversee the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) are once again pleading with visitors not to stockpile and hoard entry permits as the annual feeding frenzy for those reservations is set to go live next week.

“Please reserve only what you need,” said Joy Liptak VanDrie, a Forest Service spokeswoman. “We’re showing a high percentage of cancellations and no-shows.”

On average, 150,000 to 160,000 people visit the Boundary Waters each year. This year’s bookings begin on Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 9 a.m. That’s when tens of thousands of people in Minnesota and across the country will be on their computers to snag reservations for the season that runs May 1 to Sept. 30. Permits for BWCAW canoe travel never sell out, but most permits for high-demand entry points and popular vacation dates get snapped up quickly — in some cases within 15 minutes of the opening bell. All reservations are made online via recreation.gov, or by calling 1-877-444-6777, on a first-come, first-served basis.

“It’s a race is what it is,” said Steve Nelson, an owner and guide at Ely-based outfitter Spirit of the Wilderness. “We’re all anxious to see how it goes.”

Nelson and Willy Vosburgh, owner of Vosburgh’s Custom Cabin Rentals on the edge of the BWCAW, said the reservation system gets bombarded early by people who reserve more permits than they can use. In theory, they’re building options for themselves. But many of those buyers don’t cancel permits they won’t use, or cancel them too late for others to know they’re available, they said. It takes about 24 hours for a canceled permit to show up for resale in the reservation system.

“We ask people not to reserve more permits than they actually will use,” Nelson said. “If you are not going to use a permit, cancel it sooner than later to give someone else a chance.”

VanDrie said BWCAW permit cancellations have more than doubled in the past six years. Last year, more than 11,000 permits were canceled, an all-time high. She said 58% of those canceled reservations were made during the late-January onset of booking. The total number of permits drawn last year was around 26,000, VanDrie said. The number of visitors wasn’t yet available. Historically, the average group size has been four or five people. Nine group members is the maximum allowed per permit.

VanDrie said the Forest Service doesn’t want to change the reservation system unless it becomes necessary. One alternative receiving preliminary consideration, she said, is a staggered rollout of permits rather than the current system of making 100% of them available on the first day. The staggered option is in discussion by the Boundary Waters Collaborative, a group of individuals and organizations that have an interest in the BWCAW but have no decision-making authority.

“It’ll probably be several years in the making but it is something that we are looking at,” VanDrie said.

VanDrie said access to the Boundary Waters hasn’t changed since the Forest Service reduced the number of entry permits by 13% in 2022. The reduction was designed to curtail crowding and address natural resource damage brought on by an onslaught of BWCAW newcomers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said Forest Service rangers are still seeing such damage. They are once again urging paddlers to disperse farther into the wilderness rather than camping in one spot a short distance from their entry point.

For people planning to join Wednesday’s fray of early bookings, here are some tips from the Forest Service: