Helium Discovered Near the Boundary Waters in Minnesota 

In late February, a team working for Pulsar Helium tapped into a concentration of helium in Lake County near the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Helium was first discovered accidentally near the BWCA in 2011 by a team of researchers looking for precious metals such as copper and nickel.
The site where the helium was found is near Highway 1 and Lake County Highway 2, not far from the small community of Isabella and the center of the 2021 Greenwood Fire that led, in part, to the closure of the BWCA in 2021. Pulsar is calling the site “The Topaz Project.” The company reports that “Topaz has been drilled with helium contents identified of up to 13.8%, making it one of the highest-grade discoveries in history.”
Thomas Abraham-James is the president and CEO of Pulsar Helium. He spoke with Joe from Paddle and Portage about the discovery of helium near the Boundary Waters and how his company plans to extract it from the earth.