In this episode of the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast, host Hal Herring is joined by Lukas Leaf and Matthew Schultz of Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters to unpack what’s really at stake. From the personal experiences that bind people to the Boundary Waters to the complex web of policy, permits, and public process governing its future, this conversation makes one thing clear: after today, none of us can say we didn’t know.

Welcome to the January 2026 edition of BHA's State Policy Spotter – a high-level scan of state policy and legislation impacting our wild public lands, waters and wildlife across North America.

Nine decades of weather and work, triumph and tragedy, wildlife and even wilder people, family, camps, crashed planes, and horse wrecks—a life writ large in some of the finest and most remote country left on Earth.