[leadin]Adventurers Dave and Amy Freeman are spending a full year in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, living in the wilderness and testing gear as a part of their daily existence. In this column, Dave looks at the geographically-appropriate Northern Wear Boundary Waters Windshirt after a two-month test and review.[/leadin]
Knowing the mercury would likely drop into the single digits overnight, we worked to fill our canoe with dead, downed, dry logs. A fire had burned this area a mile from the Canadian border and in the heart of the Boundary Waters several years before. We knew Knife Lake could begin freezing any day and we needed to gather enough firewood to see us through freeze up.
I stripped down to my long underwear while sheltered from the wind and worked hard to cut and haul several hundred pounds of firewood and load it into our canoe. With the canoe filled past the gunwales, we prepared to head back to camp. Before beginning our paddle into the wind down Knife Lake to our campsite, I slipped my Boundary Waters Windshirt over my head.