It’s been more than a year since Gene Doherty went missing near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Doherty – a man in his early 40s – has been missing since July 1, 2025. He was last seen leaving his mother’s house in Silver Bay, Minn. Doherty’s vehicle was found 10 days later near the intersection of Brule Lake Road and a Forest Service road known commonly as “The Grade,” which is traveled frequently by visitors and locals recreating on Superior National Forest and in the nearby BWCA Wilderness. The Grade offers access to Brule Lake, a popular lake in the BWCA, and Eagle Mountain, the highest point of elevation in Minnesota. Both places were bustling with tourists and outdoor recreationists over the recent Labor Day weekend.
Another man, Wayne Storch, went missing last September up the Gunflint Trail. Storch, a 74-year-old man from New Richmond, Wisc., likely entered the woods along the Gunflint somewhere in the vicinity of Pine Mountain Lake, a small trout lake used most commonly in winter by ice anglers. Storch was reported missing Sept. 18, 2025. The Cook County Sheriff’s Office located his vehicle parked on the side of the Gunflint Trail at the Pine Mountain Lake trailhead Sept. 24 after a local photographer and business owner, Katie Slanga, reported it to the authorities.
Cook County Search and Rescue, the St. Louis County Rescue Squad, the U.S. Forest Service, and other assisting agencies spent time in late September looking for him. They looked near Pine Mountain Lake and nearby Pickerel Lake, which is close to Elbow Lake. They combed ridgelines and bogs and remote timber. Nothing turned up despite the extensive searches.
Last October, and then again in December, search and recovery expert Michael Neiger arrived in Grand Marais to search for the missing men near the Boundary Waters. A 26-year veteran detective with the Michigan State Police, Neiger is currently the lead investigator with Michigan Backcountry Search and Rescue, a grassroots organization that assists families and law enforcement agencies with long-term missing-person cases and cold-case homicide investigations in the remote landscape between the Great Lakes region and the Arctic Ocean in Canada. Despite multiple searches across Superior National Forest, Neiger was unable to find the missing men.
Signs that share information about Storch being a missing person continue to hang at the George Washington Pines trailhead off the Gunflint Trail, along with numerous other kiosks and parking areas in the area. Paddle & Portage media contacted family members and other close contacts of Storch and Doherty, with minimal information coming back in terms of updates. Both men remain officially missing, according to local law enforcement. Anyone with information about Doherty or Storch can call (218) 387-3030 to speak with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
In reviewing the history of search and rescue in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and other similar cases across Superior National Forest, we find these stories unfolding both ways. Sometimes the people are found. In other cases, they are not. There are several instances where people have never been found after they go missing in the Boundary Waters region. Take the case of Lloyd Skelton, for example. In 2005, Skelton set off near Ely to hike the Angleworm Trail. Skelton has never been found. He vanished, though his shoes and some of his clothing were found near Whisky Jack Lake, a remote body of water found off the Angleworm Trail near Ely.
