Lottery reservations for 2010 permits for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness will remain open through mid-January, and few will be more highly sought-after this year than the limited supply of motor permits available for Basswood Lake (accessed through Prairie Portage) as well as the Moose Lake chain.

Those permits for motor access into the wilderness have been difficult to obtain for a long time, and it’s been a sore point with many in the Ely area, particularly since the quota on the Moose Lake chain was effectively reduced by a court ruling a few years ago.

Information recently obtained by the Forest Service provides some insight into just how hard it really is to obtain a motor permit on these two popular routes, and the information provides some surprises. “We got information through the reservation service,” said Mark Van Every, the US Forest Service’s Kawishiwi District ranger. “It paints a pretty good picture of what’s happening.

The reservation data demonstrates the high demand for the limited number of permits, and shows that many of those who request permits through the lottery don’t get them. In fact, nearly 60 percent of those parties requesting motor permits to Basswood were unsuccessful. Users had slightly better success reserving motor permits for the Moose-Newfound-Sucker lake chain. About 58 percent of those entering the lottery were able to obtain a permit for those lakes.

Local outfitters obtained the lion’s share of those permits. In fact, of 521 permits issued for the Moose Lake chain in 2009, 440 went to outfitters, and three-quarters of those went to just one outfitter. Motor permits to Basswood were more highly sought-after by the public in 2009, but even there, a large majority went to outfitters. Of 1,502 permits issued to Basswood, outfitters received 957, compared to 545 for members of the public.

Overall, said Van Every “roughly 80 percent of the permits are going to customers of outfitters.”

Bob Olson, with Canoe Country Outfitters, said access to permits has been particularly difficult in recent years, as a result of the change in the motor quotas. While outfitters might be tempted to reserve blocks of permits, to make sure they have them available for customers, Olson said he applies to the lottery based on actual customer requests for permits.

High demand creates additional problems

The high demand for motor permits not only makes it difficult to obtain a reservation, it appears to have increased the number of reserved permits that go unused.

Van Every notes that the “no-show” rate for permit reservations for both Moose and Basswood runs about 25 percent. That’s far higher than the rate experienced on Lake Saganaga, on the east side of the wilderness, where just four percent of reserved permits go unused.

Van Every noted that the Saganaga permits are typically obtained outside the lottery system and are reserved, on average, much closer to the date on which users plan to visit. By contrast, said Van Every, “virtually all of the permits for Moose Lake and Prairie Portage (Basswood) are reserved in January.” And that gives users more time to change their plans, said Van Every.

The high no-show rate has prompted local speculation that some opponents of motorized travel in the wilderness are reserving permits they don’t intend to use. But the reservation data shows that most of the no-shows are attributable to permits reserved by outfitters, rather than the general public. In fact, for permits on the Moose Lake chain, just three outfitters accounted for 81 percent of the no-show permits. Those same three outfitters accounted for 52 percent of the no-shows for Basswood Lake permits.

Van Every said the numbers suggest that the speculation about anti-motor conspiracies may need to be re-examined. “It certainly calls that theory into question,” he said.

While the high no-show rate is frustrating for those who want motor permits, Van Every said the Forest Service typically overbooks the quota, based on the average no-show rate on any particular route. Even so, the number of permits actually used falls short largely because of no-shows. A case in point is the Moose Lake chain, where the Forest Service issued 613 reservations for a total of 538 available permits. Despite overbooking, only 453 motor permits were actually used last year. “If we didn’t have as large a no-show rate, it would make more permits available,” said Van Every.