Kekekabic Lookout
Angleworm Lookout
Slim: Unlike Angleworm or Kekekabic, other towers have very little impact on the average recreationalist, but their history is equally fascinating. When most of us think of fire towers, we imagine these soaring steel structures with a small, enclosed cab on top, and many of our local towers were built this way during the CCC era. These towers were actually just the newest generation in a series of towers with some made of steel and others which stood on timbers. The Slim Tower was a graceful if not rudimentary structure with a small “crows nest” type platform perched atop of a slender steel tower. This old tower was made obsolete by larger towers built during the CCC era and, as such, little remains of it. But, as with most manmade structures, a few remnants may be found such as footings and some cabling. And today as folks drive down Van Vac Rd to enter at Slim Lake or explore the north arm ski trails, they pass by this now-empty hill where rangers once dutifully kept watch.
Slim Lake Lookout
In these stories of the old fire towers, though the forest is quickly reclaiming its own, we are reminded that this land has a history. And even if the average canoe tripper or backpacker today is completely unaware of it, the signs and stories of the past are still there for the finding. It’s amazing how much our Boundary Waters experience was shaped by the fire tower and ranger cabin network so that even today, fifty years after the the towers began to close, we are still following the same trails and portages cut by the rangers who used them. This little glimpse of history is, itself, a reminder that in every portage and footpath here we follow in the footsteps of the past. Whether these trails were crossed by voyageurs or native peoples, by legendary figures whose names are familiar to us or people lost to history, in venturing here we share in a piece of their legacy. Think of them on your next canoe trip. You never know what stories lay hidden just around the corner.
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