Two local canoe outfitters expressed concerns with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area permitting system, which often sees thousands of no-shows and permit cancellations annually, leaving many open spots that often remain unfilled.
“What we’ve noticed is a lot of permits on the system that are reserved, and people don’t come and pick them up. So it’s called a no-show permit,” said Ginny Nelson of Spirit of the Wilderness Outfitters, “So basically it means those permits can’t be used by anybody, because they’re not canceled in time to go back in the system.”
“It’s a little bit sad to see, because it means people can’t come on trips, and we’ve had to turn some groups away because there’s no permits to be had,” Nelson said. “I don’t think anybody’s doing it to be mean, but I don’t think they realize how big a deal it is.”
John Schiefelbein of North Country Canoe Outfitters said that last year’s permit cancellations totaled about 10,000 across the Boundary Waters. The problem starts in January when bookings open all at once at 9 a.m. on the last Wednesday.
“Boom, the gun goes off, and everybody’s sitting there hovering over their date, over their entry. At (9 a.m.) and one second they push enter, they’ve got 15 minutes to put all the information in. That’s great if you’re doing one permit,” Schiefelbein said, adding that some outfitters must book up to 200 permits that morning.
“We’re going just as fast as we can,” Schiefelbein continued, “Everybody thinks that we screw the system and that we have advantages. We don’t. We go on the same system that everyone else does.”
Outfitters aren’t the only ones who risk losing out on the very first day.
“A guy is working at 9 a.m. in the morning. He can’t get on the system. Someone’s computer crashes. He can’t get on the system. Ely has a power outage or the internet goes down. Now, nobody in Ely can book a permit, including outfitters. If we can’t book that first day, literally, some of us would be out of business,” said Schiefelbein.
This frantic system encourages visitors to reserve as many permits as they can, even if they may not use all of them. Schiefelbein signed up for alerts from Paddle Planner, a service that monitors permit cancellations and notifies those on their email list. He says that cancellations spike in the few days before any given date, especially before highly-sought-after holiday weekends.
“As we got closer and closer to Memorial Day,” Schiefelbein said, “I’m getting alerts regularly. There’s a bunch of permits coming back. Remember, all these were gone on the 29th of January. Everything.”
Although some are “legitimate cancellations,” he said, many individuals book multiple permits without intending to use them all — a practice which faces almost no repercussions on the booking website, Recreation.gov. The $16 permit cost is refundable all the way up until 48 hours before trip launch, and buyers only risk the $6 non-refundable booking fee.
Nelson says the problem has “an effect on the whole area.”
“If we don’t do outfitting, then there’s not people in the area stopping at the gas stations and the grocery store and the restaurants,” Nelson said, “Of course, it impacts the outfitters, because that means there are less trips that we can outfit and send.”
Many visitors, too, are at a disadvantage by the current permitting system, especially those who don’t have the flexibility to book travel or take time off work on a whim if a last-minute cancellation creates a permit availability.
Potential solutions range from fee increases to a rolling booking system.
“If they raise that $6 (nonrefundable fee) to, arbitrarily, say $50,” said Schiefelbein, people will be less likely to book multiple permits and decide later where and when they want to go. He also suggests shifting the refund cutoff for permit fees to at least 30 days before travel, so — if a permit holder needs to cancel — they are incentivized to do so earlier on.
“Quetico has a cancellation fee. You get more money back the earlier you cancel, and the closer to your trip you cancel, the less money you get back,” said Nelson.
Schiefelbein also cited Quetico’s policies as more successful, where they run a rolling reservation system. If the Boundary Waters were to implement something similar, permits for May 1 could be issued on Jan. 1, permits for May 2 on Jan. 2, and so on.
“So you got that five month window in advance, and it rolls,” Schiefelbein said, “That will take (away) that crunch.”
“For the guy that just wants to get one permit, it’s not going to change. He’s got the same probability of getting that,” Schiefelbein continued, “But the guy that wants 2 or 10 or 100, it spreads it out.”
Ginny Nelson emphasizes that permitting reform would serve everyone’s best interests.
“We don’t want to outprice the Boundary Waters. We still want it to be an affordable vacation, which it surely is. But we also don’t want those no-shows to happen, and we want people to cancel if they’re not going to use (their permit) and allow other people to use it.”
