Why Boulder Junction is the perfect place for outdoor adventures
April 26, 2024
Meet the people who make Boulder Junction a great place to live, play, and stay. “I Am Boulder Junction” highlights the stories and personalities of our local business owners and community members and the welcoming spirit and boundless enthusiasm for the Northwoods you’ll find on your next visit here.
Visitors to Boulder Junction know that this corner of Wisconsin’s Northwoods is the perfect place to get out and play, whether you’re paddling or fishing on one of hundreds of scenic lakes or hitting the trails on a bike (or just your own two feet). But what exactly makes it such a great spot for these kinds of outdoor adventures? We asked some of our local experts.
Why is Boulder Junction a great place for outdoor adventures?
- Jennifer Avery, owner, Camp Holiday Campground: I would say the amount of outdoor activities we have up here in Boulder Junction—there’s basically an unlimited amount of things to do.
- Sara Smith, owner, Acorn Lodge: It’s such a beautiful location. There’s so many great parks and hiking trails to go to and all of the lakes to go fishing and swimming and just have a great day.
- Bob Bertch, owner, Bob’s Manitowish Guide Service: Because we are in the middle of a national forest and because of all our lakes—I mean 194 lakes around Boulder Junction, within a 10-mile radius, are you kidding me? A woman asked me, ‘Do you have any roads that are straight?’ I said ‘No, because they all go around lakes.’ And that makes it awesome. I mean, people can enjoy a different lake every time they come fishing with me.”
- Matt Prochaska, owner, Outdoorsman Restaurant: “It’s a four seasons destination. In the summer you have plenty of hiking, biking, fishing, and then you get to fall, and you see the beautiful leaves change and you can still do all those same activities. You get to winter, you’ve go snowmobiling, ice fishing, skiing—it’s just the ultimate place to be if you want to be outdoors.”
- Janny Thomas, owner, Boulder Junction Trading Company: “It’s just full of nature. And these bike trails go on and on and on. I love biking, so I could be gone all day and come back and enjoy the rest of the day just sitting by the lake or enjoying the sunset. It’s just a beautiful place to be.”
- Dylan Schutt, owner, Boulder Junction Coffee Company: “I never knew that there was a big enough population to just attract people from other states to come here for our deer. You see some amazing photos of deer. In fact, somebody that we know, they took a photo of two bucks at the same time—completely white, not a brown speckle, not a spot, nothing on them. And where else in the world are you going to find two albino deer that are bucks like that?
- Catherine Egelhoff, owner, The Egel Haus: “The wildlife is absolutely amazing, and one of the things we love to watch in the winter are the otters. … When the ice isn’t fully frozen, they’ll pull crappies up from the bottom and sit on the ice and chew the crappies up and have a ball.”
- Lois Smith, owner, Violets & Lace: “We love e-biking. The trail just begins right at our driveway, and we go every night when I close the store at 4, we go 12 to 20 miles.”
- Marty Clauson, owner, Marty Clauson Fishing Adventures: “We have pristine lakes, we have clean air, the scenery is amazing. All the trees and the lakes and the wildlife up here, I mean we’re blessed. … We’re totally and truly blessed up here, we really are. It’s an amazing place.”
- Stephen Coon, owner, Coontail Adventures: “I think it’s just the vast opportunity, whether it be the state forests around here, the amount of water we have—lakes, rivers, flowages, the Heart of Vilas bike trail, the mountain biking. There’s just so many different things to do outside that you can really choose something different every day.”
- Jeff Long, Century 21 Real Estate: “Boulder Junction holds on to a little piece of Norman Rockwell America and it continues to show the world that family recreation together is still one of the more important things you can do.”
See more “I Am Boulder Junction” articles and videos here.