I spent the weekend at the Midwest Mountaineering Expo. I was there for fun, not as an exhibitor (maybe next year). One of the sessions on Saturday was the BWCA Game Show put on by Bear Paulsen of Northstar Canoes. The object of the game was to name the lake based on the outline on a map. First Bear would show us the "zoomed in" close up view where all you could see was the lake. If no one got it with that picture, he zoomed out a bit to show some of the surrounding lakes. If no one guessed it there, he zoomed out a bit more and then showed portages. Other than the portages on the last picture, there were no other identifying features on the map like roads, campsites, or boundaries.

I had caught wind of this contest a few weeks prior. I thought, "I spend hours looking at BWCA maps - I should be good at this." The advantage of owning this website is that I can make the interactive map do whatever I want.  To practice, I turned off all of the features on the map except the lake info (so I could click on the lake to see if I was correct). Then I temporarily put in a button that would zoom in to a random lake so I could try to guess it. At first, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It was very hard to identify lakes just by the shape. For me, taking off the campsites was the hardest part. I'm very used to seeing the campsite dots; without those, I had to almost relearn all of the lakes. Eventually, little by little, I improved.

I was actually very nervous before the game started. Did I know them well enough? Surprisingly, there weren't many people there. I was expecting a lot. There was supposed to be a qualifying round where Bear would show sixteen different lakes. The sixteen people that identified the lakes would then compete for seven prizes. However, we had about sixteen people in the room, so Bear said that everybody qualified for the prize round, and the qualifying round would just be practice.

For me, the practice round was a lot of fun. Of the sixteen, I only missed one. I got the 15 others on the first slide (the "zoomed in" view) without needing to see the surrounding area. Then we moved onto the prize round. I got the first lake on the first slide - Ge-be-on-e-quet. I had earned my prize, so I now got to sit back and relax and watch everyone else. For the other six, I was able to identify all of the lakes but one on the first slide.

My wife was there with me. I was hoping she would get one of the lakes so we could get two prizes. The one that she had a chance on was Pine Lake (by Trout and Vermilion) since we have been there twice. However, she didn't practice as much as me, and it is really difficult to identify the lakes without any other features and without practicing (as I think everyone else found out).

I got first place and first pick of the prizes. I won a CCS 1.9 oz 8'x10' Tundra Tarp!