These are the sights and sounds in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area, a 2 million-acre federal preserve in northern Minnesota that may be the best place in the lower 48 to heed the call of the wild.

Within its borders are endless forests and more than 2,000 lakes, but no roads, homes, stores, motorboats, telephone cables or power lines.

"It's nature in its purest form. There's no other place like this. It's just like it was in 1492," says Steve Piragis of Piragis Northwoods, an Ely outfitting company.

Experiencing this primeval wilderness is what brings 750,000 visitors every year to Ely (pronounced E-lee), the most convenient town from which to explore the preserve. Ely (population 3,800) is 102 miles southeast of International Falls on the Canadian border and 112 miles north of Duluth on Lake Superior. Northwest Airlines has daily service to Ely between June 1 and Aug. 31.

Young and old, summer visitors bring canoes or rent them, slip them into one of the myriad lakes here and glide soundlessly into a world as distant from America's urban cacophony as is the moon. By day they'll paddle through pristine waters, dip fishing lines in their clear, cold depths and perhaps study rock pictographs painted by American Indians 400 years ago. At night they'll make camp on rocky shores, joining the native moose, deer, wolves and bears.

So many people come here to explore the Boundary Waters that the preserve requires overnight campers to obtain permits for specific dates and entry points. The best options are usually snapped up months ahead of time, though latecomers usually can be accommodated with a less desirable permit at entry points necessitating more portaging.

But Ely is not just a jumping-off place for wilderness treks. "What's unique about Ely is that there are so many different things to do here - a viable art community, the wolf center, all sorts of adventures from canoeing and fishing to wolf howling," says Gretchen Diessner, assistant director of the International Wolf Center, a one-of-a-kind museum and research facility dedicated to the much-maligned animal.

The center tells the story of the wolf in many ways, among them a prize-winning "Wolves and Humans" exhibit that explores man's perceptions of the animal from the Big Bad Wolf of fairy tales to the legend of werewolves.

Its most popular attraction, though, is its captive wolf pack - five wolves that live in a 1.2-acre fenced wooded area behind the center. Guests can observe the animals from behind a glass partition or via a "wolf cam."

The center also sponsors field trips to abandoned dens and beaver ponds, and on certain nights takes guests into the forest to go wolf howling. There the guide shows them how to imitate a wolf's howl. If conditions are right and a wolf is nearby, he'll return the howl.

An even more unusual activity offered to guests is tracking wolves from an airplane with radio telemetry. Northern Minnesota is home to an estimated 2,000 wolves, more than in any other state except Alaska.

To serve its thousands of summer explorers, Ely is home to several dozen resorts - some rustic, some verging on the elegant - and to more than 20 outfitters. These are companies that equip clients with all the goods they'll need for a stay in the wild - canoes, tents, sleeping bags, life preservers, ponchos, flashlights, food and cooking gear.

"But the most important thing we supply," Mr. Piragis says, "is information - where to go, where to camp, what they can do, what they can't do."

Campers, he said, usually spend several days in the wild, though day trips are available without a permit. Cost of full outfitting runs about $80 a day per person. Partial outfitting - simple rental of a canoe, for instance - also is available, as are guided trips.

In winter, the action here turns to dog sledding, exploring frozen lakes and snowy trails via this age-old method of transportation. Snowmobiles are not allowed within the preserve but are permitted in adjacent areas.

Not surprisingly, this great natural expanse has attracted some noted outdoorsmen to Ely, among them Arctic explorers Will Steger and Paul Schurke. Perhaps the best known is the late Charles Kuralt, who so loved the town that he bought a radio station here.

"Ely appears to be the end of the road for people who love the wilderness, beauty and solitude," Mr. Kuralt wrote. "On the contrary, it's the center of the world."

That's a large tribute to a small town.