Quetico Provincial Park is a large wilderness park in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, known for its excellent canoeing and fishing. The park shares its southern border with Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is part of the larger Superior National Forest. These large wilderness parks are often collectively referred to as the Boundary Waters or the Quetico-Superior Country. Geography The park includes over 2000 unofficial, unimproved wilderness campsites spread throughout more than 600 lakes. Canoeists require permit reservations and in-season may enter the Quetico only via six Ranger Stations, which serve 21 specific entry points. Visitors may drive to three of these ranger stations: Dawson Trail, Atikokan, and Lac La Croix. Beaverhouse can be reached only by portage and paddle; visitors may paddle or take a tow from an outfitter to reach Cache Bay or Prairie Portage stations. Drive-in camping is available only at the Dawson Trail campground; log cabins are also available to rent. Most of the southern half of the Park is a region known historically as "Hunter Island" (not a real island). History The north country was inhabited by the Paleo-Indian culture circa 8000 BC. Limited artifacts have been found in the park from that era and the subsequent Archaic period circa 6000 years ago. Among these is rock art, such as a canoe pictograph at Agnes Lake. Artifacts from the Early Woodland Era (circa 1300 years ago) have not been found there, but pottery and clay pipes from the Later Woodland Indians have been found there. In 1909, an Order in Council by the Government of Ontario established the Quetico Forest Reserve. Early the same year, the United States federal government established the adjacent Superior National Forest and Superior Game Refuge, part of which would eventually be designated and protected as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Quetico Provincial Park was created in 1913 through passage of the Provincial Parks Act. Road access was not constructed until 1954. Ontario's creation of the park created a conflict with the Lac La Croix First Nation, who had a reserve located within the park boundaries. In 1915, the province cancelled the band's right to Reserve 24C and relocated the people, also effectively cancelling their treaty rights from the reserve. The grievances of the band were not addressed until 1991, when the Minister of Natural Resources, Bud Wildman, made a landmark, formal apology in the legislature for these actions. Wildman