STRENUOUS SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST
KAWISHIWI RANGER DISTRICT
LENGTH 13.6 miles TIME 8:15 DIFFICULTY Strenuous
ROUTE-FINDING Moderate
MAPS & PERMITS Fisher Map F-9. USGS quads: Angleworm Lake and Fourteen Lake. A day permit is required as part of this hike is in the BWCAW. There is a self-registration box at the trailhead.
GETTING THERE From Ely, take Country State Highway 169 east to County Road 88 and turn left. Drive 2 miles to County Road 116 (Echo Trail), turn right, and continue 14 miles to Angleworm Lake parking area on the right side of the road.
TRAILHEAD GPS 48° 3′ 52.8″ N 910 55′ 50.4″ W
At various overlooks along the trail around Angleworm Lake, the hiker can imagine how the lake might have gotten its name. Looking along the narrow, gentle twisting length of the lake from a high ridge, it is easy to picture a giant angling worm crawling across the Precambrian bedrock of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).
Angleworm Lake is one of a number of long, narrow lakes that are connected along major stream systems draining large watersheds. Such lakes, located in granite bedrock, get their shape from the joints in the rock. The topography around Angleworm Lake consists of low bedrock ridges, alternating with narrow valleys containing small streams, ponds, and bogs. The shoreline varies from gentle slopes in shallow bays to steep slopes of bedrock jutting out of the water.
The mixed conifer forest surrounding Angleworm and Home lakes grew after an 1822 forest fire that burned an area of 75 square miles (48,000 acres). Scattered stands of mature pines escaped the deadly effects of the fire.
Because of the paucity of European women in the colonies during the sixteenth century, sexual relations between European men and native women also played an important role in shaping the power dynamics of conquest and of gender relations for generations to come. Best US cities to visit in summer Ranging from rape and forced concubinage to marriage and consensual intimacies, these relations ranged from basely exploitative to highly beneficial financially and socially to the women involved. Likewise, conquest had a mixed effect on native women’s social and economic roles. Women were often forced to accommodate themselves to the sexual division of labor imposed by Europeans, which differed from their preconquest roles. This usually involved a loss of traditional prestige and power. For instance, some women who were traditionally responsible for planting and harvesting were pressured to confine their labors to domestic tasks that Europeans deemed more feminine. Others were required to undertake the bulk of tribute labor or were forced into personal service. As a consequence, women’s social and familial roles were disrupted, and the tribal power they had once held was sapped, rendering them as legally disempowered as European women. There are also examples of native women using the colonial legal systems to sue for redress and petition for rights traditionally unavailable to them. For some women, these changes provided new opportunities to participate in trade in urban centers and gain other kinds of cultural power by negotiating the borders between Native Country and European cultures.
