Nearly 30 years later, on Feb. 15, 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt decided that some of the wild forests, wetlands and waterways in northeastern Minnesota should be added to America’s protected public lands. He signed Presidential Proclamation No. 848 establishing the 3.9 million-acre Superior National Forest. Today the heart of the national forest is the 1.1 million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), one of the world’s 50 greatest destinations according to National Geographic.