MARQUETTE — The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced on Monday that it has canceled this winter’s ‘Becoming an Outdoors Woman’ (BOW) weekend event in response to rising COVID-19 case numbers in the Upper Peninsula.

“Regretfully, we have decided to cancel the very popular winter BOW weekend we had planned for February in Big Bay,” said program coordinator Michelle Zellar in a statement included in the DNR’s announcement.

The 21st annual BOW event had been scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 25-27 in Marquette County, where coronavirus cases have climbed to an average of 2,211 per 100,000 residents over the past week according to the CDC.

Elevated case numbers are not isolated to Marquette. Exacerbated by the rapid spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, coronavirus cases have reached pandemic highs across the western U.P.

Public health experts anticipate that a statewide surge in COVID cases will continue through February and into March.

“The health and safety of participants, instructors and volunteers is the DNR BOW program’s top priority,” the Monday announcement stated.

“We don’t feel that we can responsibly house and feed participants in close quarters with this latest coronavirus rise in cases,” added John Pepin, co-administrator of the BOW program in the DNR’s Executive Division.

BOW programs provide experience and “hands-on” instruction for women who want to get involved in outdoor sports and recreation.

The winter weekend program would have offered attendees the opportunity to learn about and participate in a variety of winter activities including cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, winter biking, archery, ice fishing, fly tying, wilderness first aid, wood burning, and winter camping and shelter building.

Although the winter weekend event has been canceled, other upcoming BOW events including a sunrise snowshoe hike and a spring turkey hunt are still on schedule.

The DNR is in the process of determining the date and location of the next BOW weekend gathering, which is expected to take place in late summer or early fall.

More information on BOW programming is available online at Michigan.gov/BOW.