Maddie is an avid outdoors woman who adores all forms of paddling and sliding across snow. She has been a skier since age 3, and a paddler since age 4. She first came to the Boundary Waters when she was 15 on a trip through the Northern Lakes Canoe Base (NLCB), where she fell deeply in love with Canoe Country. She returned as a guide in training and guided for 5 subsequent summers.
Maddie graduated from Colorado State University in 2021 with a Bachelor’s Degree of Arts and Science in the fields of Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism, Conservation Biology, and French Language.
She moved to Ely in 2021 to work for Ely Outfitting Company. She currently serves as the Ely Office Coordinator and Regional Organizer for the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, and feeds her guiding passion as available.
Maddie is a volunteer member of St. Louis County Search and Rescue. In the off season, she enjoys the winter weather and all of the wonderful outdoor wintertime pursuits, and also enjoys a good book, video games, and film.
She loves the BWCAW because it is an integral part of her story, and because this place has helped to build who she is.
There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfaction.
-Sigurd Olson