Wilderness camps sink wooden canoes to survive wildfires

For wilderness outposts in the northern woods of Minnesota and Canada, wooden canoes are more than transportation. They are historic artifacts of a century-old paddling culture. When wildfires approach these remote sites, the boats are often too fragile or numerous to evacuate quickly. To save them from intense heat and falling embers, camp directors use a counterintuitive survival tactic: they intentionally fill the canoes with water and sink them to the bottom of the lake.