| BWCA Wilderness Act Marks 25 Years
Amidst controversy and political upheaval, President Jimmy Carter signed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act into law October 21, 1978. This momentous legislation banned logging and mining, phased-out snowmobiling, and limited motorboat use in the 1-million acre Boundary Waters.
Below are articles, editorials, and columns/essays describing recollections of the act's passage, the state of wilderness, and the future of the Boundary Waters.
Articles
Editorials
Columns
BWCAW: 25 years of nature and fighting
Published Oct. 11, 2003 in the Star Tribune, by Warren Wolfe.
For 200,000 visitors a year, it's a place to find solitude among the lakes and pines, to commune with eagles, catch walleyes and spot bears.
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness turns 25 this month, but for half a century, the 1.1 million-acre tract has been a powder keg of passionate fights over land use.
"I just wish the rabid environmentalists would settle down and accept that they essentially won this fight," said Nancy McReady of Ely, Minn., president of the Conservationists With Common Sense. "Quit filing suits and enjoy how good this area is."
Sarah Strommen, policy director of the Friends of the Boundary Waters, defends her group: "If we don't keep watch, the issues we thought had been settled tend to rear up again."
McReady is president of Conservationists With Common Sense, whose 4,000 members promote broader uses of the Boundary Waters and other wilderness tracts. She and Strommen represent opposite ends of the longstanding debates over whether there's still room in the wilderness for motorboats as well as canoes, camping as well as logging.
Mike Tincher and Steve Molter ran the rapids in the Knife River.Richard Tsong-taatariiStar TribuneFor the most part, the people of northeastern Minnesota "fought tooth and nail to keep their traditional way of life, but now they generally accept that the law was a pretty good thing," said Ely outfitter Gary Gotchnik. He counts himself among the "semi-converted."
"The outfitters have adapted, and tourism has changed," he said. "We've become known as the place to come for canoeing, for visiting a really beautiful part of America, and that's been good for Ely.'
Protecting the land
Work to protect the rugged area bordering Canada began a century ago when the federal government began to prohibit settlement in the region.
In 1938, the area was named the Superior Roadless Primitive Area. In 1964, Congress added it to the nation's wilderness protection system -- an amendment by Sen. Hubert Humphrey stated that the land should be preserved for "multiple use" -- a phrase that fueled years of intense debate, lobbying, protests and court actions.
That controversy didn't end when President Jimmy Carter signed the BWCA Wilderness Act Oct. 21, 1978. That law decreed an end to snowmobiling, mining and logging in the area.
"Nobody up here liked it when the federal government told us we couldn't use motors anymore, or live in the BWCA, or keep resorts in there," said Gotchnik, who grew up in Ely.
But growing summer tourism has offset some of the economic losses of weakened mining and timber industries, "and businesses have adjusted, even thrived," he said.
Debate intensified in 1992, when a federal court ended motorized portages, which use trucks to carry canoes and motorboats between lakes. That controversy eased a bit in 1998 when Congress allowed two portages to operate.
Back to the courts
But last winter, seven environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service for tripling to about 6,900 the number of motorboat permits on three BWCA lake chains.,
"We're not trying to eliminate the motors," said Strommen, whose group was among those that sued. The increase in permits, they say, violates the 1978 law.
Environmental groups also have proposed adding about 93,000 acres to the Boundary Waters from the Superior National Forest, from which the it was carved in 1964.
All of the advocacy groups are closely watching as the Forest Service completes a new management plan for the BWCA, due next spring.
"Nobody seems to like the preliminary plan," said Ely businessman and explorer Paul Shurke, an early proponent of a motorless BWCA. "If we follow true to pattern, that'll probably be the next issue that heads for federal court to work out."
McReady and her group also has its eye on the plan -- and on the environmental groups. "We'd love to close up shop and go home, but those people are not going to go away," she said.
Gotchnik sighs as he hears the arguments unfolding again. "Life has been a little easier for people on both sides the last couple of years," he said, "because Congress just got tired of looking at one BWCA bill after another.
"Now, if the courts would just get tired, too."
This fall the Forest Service plans no celebrations to note the 25th anniversary. Instead, it plans a major event next year to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Wilderness Act. It considers that date to be the birth of the Boundary Waters.
Editoria: BWCAW/Civility, if not peace, 25 years on
Published Oct. 19, 2003 in the Star Tribune
Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of the BWCA Wilderness Act, perhaps the most important among many birthdays that could be celebrated for the canoe-country wilderness that Minnesotans call "the Boundary Waters" for short.
Some might look back as far as 1909, when President Theodore Roosevelt established Superior National Forest. Others might prefer the U.S. Forest Service's creation of a National Roadless Primitive Area within the Superior in 1939, or that territory's renaming in 1958 as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
For its part, the Forest Service is holding its party hats for next year's 40th birthday of the Wilderness Act, in which Congress rewrote policy for managing the BWCA and other areas it had designated as wilderness.
But more than any of these actions, it was the 1978 law that is responsible for preserving the character of the Boundary Waters as today's visitors know it--with logging and snowmobiles banned, mining virtually eliminated, motor boating restricted to one-fifth of the waterways, and so on. Not insignificantly, it added "wilderness" to the name of what is now officially the BWCAW.
The law did not establish complete and lasting peace in the region, of course. In fact, it did not fully satisfy any of the partisans in the long fight over access to these treasured million acres, which had reached a peak in 1978. Nor could it put many of their arguments firmly and finally to rest.
However, the act greatly narrowed the range of argument that endures. It created compensation for those aggrieved by its restrictions. It began the economic transition for Ely and other bordering communities toward tourism-oriented enterprises and away from extractive industries that, truth to tell, look less reliable as engines of wealth and employment today than they did a quarter-century ago. Quiet, backcountry recreation, meanwhile, has proved to be a steady economic boon.
Perhaps peace is too much to expect in such a long-lived, multifaceted conflict. But the tone is far more civil today, and much of that progress, too, is attributable to the foundation established by the 1978 law.
Those gains are worth remembering as partisans wrestle with conflicts over protection or sale of state lands within the BWCAW, possible additions to the wilderness as the Superior National Forest revises its management plans, interpretation of limits on entry permits, development of adjoining lands, and so on.
The 200,000 people who visit these lakes and woodlands each year are united, however briefly, in a love of the landscape that transcends the less-than-affectionate feelings they may hold toward one another's political persuasions, conservation philosophies or recreational preferences. And however much they may differ over details of its creation or management, none who love this wilderness would really want to undo its protections -- nor rekindle the combative atmosphere of 1978.
Support of 1978 Act brought discomfort to wilderness advocate
Published Oct. 22, 2003 in the Duluth News-Tribune, by Chel Anderson. She is a Friends' member and former board member. She lives in Grand Marais, Minn.
On Oct. 21, 1978, as a result of a long and intense effort to provide meaningful protection to an area of outstanding ecological and recreational significance, President Jimmy Carter signed the BWCA Wilderness Act into law: banning logging and mining, phasing-out snowmobiling, and restricting motorboats to 26 percent of the water surface in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).
Having moved to northeastern Minnesota a few years before, the intense conflict and open hostility that were common during the debate regarding the Boundary Waters Wilderness was an eye-opening, and troubling initiation into the complex character of community life, and of human relationships with the land. My support for the Act was challenged and scrutinized in many new and uncomfortable ways, and was weighted with a daily and personal meaning unlikely to be felt living elsewhere, or more anonymously than life in a small community typically allows. Learning, reflection and self-examination demanded by each experience then, and by many local and regional land use issues during the twenty-five years since, have not diminished my support for the Act, the BWCAW, and designated wilderness.
Northeastern Minnesota has experienced many changes since the divisive debate that preceded the Act. Some natural resource dependent industries, and communities reliant on them, struggle in a changing and increasingly global economy. In contrast, besides the irreplaceable ecological services they provide, the natural features of the BWCAW remain a stable economic asset: a place of refuge from lights, noise, and roads, and of discovery and enjoyment of natural treasures drawing 200,000 visitors annually, and bringing tens of millions of dollars to local communities. The popularity of the BWCAW is accompanied by many management challenges, ranging from exotic species introductions to resisting pressure to increase use in the face of a growing population, or to get greater economic bang from this one wilderness ‘buck.’
Supported by the large public land base in and outside the wilderness, the natural landscape of northeastern Minnesota also drives intense development as private land near the wilderness, on inland lakes, rivers, and Lake Superior, or embedded in state and federal forest lands that have become the focus of residential, resort, and recreational development. While bringing some benefits to our communities, this growth also is costly, as illustrated by the recently published results from a monitoring study of North Shore streams; degraded water quality in inland lakes and Lake Superior’s nearshore waters; the spread of harmful aquatic and terrestrial exotic species; habitat loss; increasing conflicts among recreational users; and numerous challenges in managing land uses, and meeting service demands of all kinds.
The price of growth is exacted from the same natural assets, and associated quality of life it is founded upon. Regional land use and resource demands are growing both from within and beyond our local communities. Managing natural resources, and present and future land use, and the growth some of our communities are experiencing are among our most difficult dilemmas, even when there is agreement on the desired outcomes.
Unlike many communities facing these challenges elsewhere, additional wilderness designation is still possible in northeastern Minnesota. A citizen effort has identified 90,000 acres of publicly-owned land that merits wilderness status. This is one proven strategy available to us in creating ways to live in and use this landscape that sustain the natural systems and features that sustain us and our communities.
The changes over the past twenty-five years have deepened my appreciation and sense of gratitude for the BWCAW and all wild lands, for all who worked for passage of the 1978 Act, and for the act of collective restraint that designated wilderness both represents, and continues to ask from us. I believe wilderness designation, and other forms of individual and collective restraint need to be among the thoughtful strategies we use to ensure that twenty-five years from now, our choices and actions will have sustained the natural assets that support us before they are gone.
Boundary Waters Remains Place of Nourishment
Published Oct. 21, 2003 in the Champlin/Dayton (Minn.) Press. By Darby Nelson, a founding officer of the Friends, who lives in Champlin, Minn.
Frost has returned to the North Country and another season of travel and adventure in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness draws to a close. Some 200,000 visitors are left with photographs and memories. Reflections on those visits are particularly timely now. October 21 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of passage of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act. This law increased protection of the Boundary Waters principally from logging and mining.
The anniversary is significant to all who value wilderness and share concerns for its future. The anniversary has personal significance to me as one of a handful of wilderness advocates who established the Friends of the BWCA organization in 1976. Our goal was federal legislation and the Friends efforts culminated in passage of that BWCAW law in 1978.
Anniversaries are times to celebrate as well as to pause and think about both the past and the future. The idea of protecting lands to preserve their natural character, where humans are visitors who do not remain, is a uniquely American idea. In the twenty- five years since President Carter signed the BWCAW Act into law the public has enthusiastically embraced wilderness preservation. Today, the BWCAW is the most heavily visited unit of the National Wilderness System.
Our two year campaign for full wilderness status for the BWCA produced memories that can never be erased. The late night trips home from meetings in Sandstone with the northern Minnesota contingent of Friends. Late nights addressing mailings to wilderness users across the country informing them of the issues and pleading for financial contributions. Trips to Washington D.C. to lobby and to testify before Congressional committees. Returning home on one late night flight I remember being the only person on the plane on the last leg in from Detroit.
As treasure of the Friends, I handled incoming contributions and got to read the handwritten notes that accompanied some of the ten and twenty dollar checks. I’ll never forget one from a supporter in Nebraska, who wrote, “I wish I could send you more. Thank you for all you guys are doing. The BWCA is the greatest place on earth!”
We sensed progress when a congressman from New Mexico asked Congressman Fraser what this Boundary Waters issue was all about, saying, “I’ve gotten fifty constituent letters urging me to support the Fraser- Vento Bill . I’ve never gotten that much mail on anything before.”
What about the future? Pressures on wilderness areas are mounting. Use of such places inexorably rises as our population increases. Yet already the BWCAW is so popular limits have been placed on visitor numbers to keeping us from smothering the place to death with our love.
Wilderness areas contain a wide rage of potential resources in addition to being places of solitude for personal renewal. Substantial amounts of copper-nickel ore are believed to lie beneath parts of the BWCAW, and an east coast mining company is attempting to pursue mineral claims there. Extractive interests have gained momentum recently and poised to exploit road less areas in the western states that had been undergoing consideration for wilderness designation.
In fact Secretary of Interior Norton has declared no more lands are to be designated as wilderness in the west, a decision sought by oil, gas, and metal extraction industries, despite strong national support for wilderness preservation.
In recognition of these pressures on wilderness as well as the strong public interest in preserving such places, the Friends of the BWCAW recently suggested adding some 90,000 acres of high quality road less areas to the BWCA. Most of these land are adjacent to existing wilderness.
Developmental pressures amount unabated. One need look no farther than Champlin to see the ongoing loss of woods and green space to understand the relentless forces confronting nature.
We hear much about Homeland Security. But there is more to our “homeland” than airports, buildings, power plants, and seaport docks. For a hundred thousand generations our kind drew all its sustenance from the natural world. No wonder the human spirit is still nourished by wild places such as the BWCAW. The natural places we have set aside and will add to in the next few years are all that will ever be passed on to future generations. There will never be another chance.
Boundary Waters: A fragile treasure
Published Oct. 19, 2003 in the Star Tribune. By Don Fraser, former Minnesota Congressman who introduced legislation protecting the Boundary Waters in 1976. He lives in Minneapolis.
Twenty-five years ago, debate about the Boundary Waters embroiled Minnesota. Residents of northeast Minnesota sought to preserve motorboat use in the wilderness while environmentalists aimed to reduce logging, mining, motorboating and snowmobiling in this national treasure. After heated debate in Congress, on Oct. 21, 1978 President Carter signed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness legislation. It contained a prohibition on logging and mining, a phase-out of snowmobiling, and limitations on motorboats thus preserving the integrity of the area.
The law’s passage did not come easily. The acrimony that had brewed for years between competing interests became more intense. A year earlier at a congressional field hearing in Ely, some wilderness supporters were hung in effigy as a divided electorate struggled to find common ground. In an already complicated political season, the Boundary Waters issue played a role in several Minnesota campaigns, including those for governor and the U.S. Senate.
Despite the tumult, people understood the importance of this national attraction. The Boundary Waters is renowned for its stands of virgin forest and waterways used by the Ojibwe Indians and French Voyageurs more than 200 years ago. Now 200,000 people each year soothe their souls among the loons, bald eagles, and moose commonplace in the magnificent and unique wilderness landscape.
One thing I learned from the Boundary Waters debate is that the area stirs strong emotions and controversy. Less than nine months after President Carter’s signed the BWCA Wilderness Act, a group filed suit challenging the law and its new wilderness boundaries. Fortunately, this and several other later attempts to undermine the Boundary Waters were beaten back.
But the wilderness remains threatened. More people seek to live near the splendor of the Boundary Waters full or part-time. Increased construction of homes and roads places a tremendous burden on the region’s ecosystem. Wildlife is displaced and run-off from yards, roads, and driveways pollute the otherwise pristine lakes. And a Delaware-based mining company is trying to exercise mineral claims in the Boundary Waters. While the firm has not started hauling heavy machinery into the wilderness, the company is committed to exploring an estimated 60,000 acres of inholdings for nickel and copper. This prospect is an affront to the integrity of the wilderness and the 1978 law.
Another risk was a proposal in the Minnesota Legislature this year to auction lands in the Boundary Waters area. Such a plan would be a damaging precedent whereby the wilderness could be privately owned and developed, complete with homes and garages. Thankfully, the wisdom of the legislature prevailed and the bill died.
I have been canoeing in northern Minnesota and the Quetico since the 1930’s. I spent my honeymoon there (as did my wife!) and proved that camping on an island is no defense to a bear. My entire family has enjoyed the BWCA and Quetico. (One memorable trip involved a family argument about the best strategy for running an early rapids -- our inability to agree produced a hole in our canoe within the first hour of our trip, making us thankful once again for duct tape.) Over the years, I have seen several generations experience the wilderness for the first time, a rare opportunity for many of our citizens."
Today, the wilderness is in a critical state. As more people move to the region, and more visitors flock to the clean lakes and the towering pines of the BWCA, we need to accommodate these groups while preserving the few remaining wild lands in Minnesota. An effort is underway to protect 90,000 acres of unroaded areas near the Boundary Waters. Protection of these lands will ensure a permanent place for Minnesotans to hike, canoe, fish, and camp. Failure to protect these lands will place a greater strain on one of our nation's treasures, the BWCA.
While the Boundary Waters elicits deep passion, it is my hope that future debates about the area remain calm and civil. I recall as an example Ely’s legendary Mayor Jack Grahek, a long-time opponent of wilderness protections.
In July 1977, as part of a congressional field hearing, I joined two colleagues, U.S. Reps. Bruce Vento and Jim Oberstar for a flyover of the wilderness and its string of placid lakes and swaths of virgin forest. Upon landing, we were driven to the home of Grahek, who graciously invited us to a wonderful dinner and relaxing conversation. It was a calming end to a stressful day. More importantly, it illustrated that people of different perspectives could share in each other’s company. Such civility can promote the thoughtful consideration needed in future debates over this unique wilderness area so important to the people of Minnesota and the nation.
Boundary Waters protection is 25 years old
Published Oct. 11, 2003 in the Mound (Minn.) Pioneer. By Wever Weed, a Friends' board member who lives in Medina, Minn.
October 21st is the 25th anniversary of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) Act. The federal statute protects 1,000,000 acres of our northern boundary waters and lands against the surprising rate of loss of our nation’s and state’s wild and natural places.
Because of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act, nearly 1,100 lakes and the surrounding land have been protected, so far, as one of our country’s wilderness places: a sanctuary to over 200,000 annually visitors, to many more who think about it, to countless others who will. A reminder of our wilderness heritage.
We who have lived here in the western suburbs long enough know about loss of place. The rate of loss is increasing. Minnesota loses 60 acres of open space every day to our population’s development pressures. According to the State Demographic Center, Minnesota's population is expected to grow from 4.9 million today to 6.2 million by 2030.
The BWCAW Act protects just 2% of Minnesota’s 51 million acres.
Only 4.7% of our nation’s landmass, including Alaska, is statutorily protected as wilderness, our nation’s highest land protection status. That amounts to 106 million acres among 662 places in 44 states. Fortunately, Minnesota is one of those states.
Because of the foresight of people who, long before the BWCAW Act was signed, understood loss of place and the need of future generations (that would be us) to experience, think about and learn from our wilderness heritage, we have this place, this respite from the shrill of civilization.
By 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s medium projections, the country’s population will increase nearly 40% to 400 million, from 288 million in 2002. (Worldwide we are currently adding 210,000 people, births over deaths, every day!) The U.S. lost 3.2 million acres of forest, wetland and open places to urban uses per year between 1992 and 1997 (an area twice the size of Delaware), or 8,700 acres per day – double the rate of the previous decade, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
And by 2050, when today’s toddlers are middle-aged, the U.S. will have lost, at the rate of the 1990s, an additional 150 million acres to development, larger than the combined areas of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.
The BWCAW Act was and still is contentious. By attempting to protect, preserve and restore the wilderness character of those million acres, the Act banned logging, mining, snowmobiling, planes, all structures and, from most lakes, motorboats. The BWCAW is a place for all people but not for all uses, like a place of worship.
I was born in 1947 and have lived most of my life right here. Suddenly, 56 years later, there is less natural shoreline on nearly every lake and pond that could have been developed. There is less silence nearly everywhere, anytime of year, day or night. There is less open land, less roadless forest, less clean water, less clean air, less wildlife habitat, less quiet places.
The 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act was not much of a balance against the pressure from future population and development. Today, it is only a thin barrier against the tsunami of population to come. But it is also a place for all of us to take refuge in mind, body or spirit. It is a delicate solution to our nation’s loss of place.
Tomorrow, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act will demonstrate to future generations our respect for their rights, because it has stopped the loss in that place.
Boundary Waters should be on back of Minnesota quarter
Published Oct. 8, 2003 in Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin, by Friends' member Steve Erickson.
I heard on the radio the other day that a panel has been commissioned to solicit ideas on what the Minnesota quarter should look like. Each state will have a chance to put its design on the back of a United States quarter. To date, each state that has designed a quarter has put on it something that epitomizes the importance of that state. What will Minnesota’s be? Paul Bunyan? The Mayo Clinic?
As a boy growing up on the dry, treeless plains of Nebraska, Minnesota in my imagination was the Land of 10,000 Lakes; the Land of Sky Blue Waters. That beautiful image was forever imprinted on my mind by 10,000 beer commercials. I longed to experience Minnesota life.
So did a lot of other people. Lakeside property sold like funnel cakes at the State Fair. Cabins and summer homes cropped up like a hatch of mosquitos. Motor boats ruled the lakes. What to me was the spirit of Minnesota was in peril of being lost to greed and development.
In the late 1970s, a small group of visionaries worked to stop the loss of some of our treasured lands by introducing federal legislation to protect the Boundary Waters. Their efforts culminated on October 21, 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act into law. The law protected the Boundary Waters, allowing the area to remain wilderness for us and those who follow.
Opponents of the law, however, were vocal. There would be no tax base, they said; no jobs, no economy in northeast Minnesota. Without development, opponents said, the area was doomed.
The area was not doomed. In fact it has become America’s most visited wilderness. One visit by me and I was hooked. My boyhood dreams became a tangible reality. Since then I have paddled many miles by canoe and kayak and added a few more on cross country skis. I even volunteered to work with the US Forest Service to clear trails and rehabilitate campsites. It is a land where everything feels right. Nature and humans are in harmony. My busy city life can be temporarily forgotten. It refreshes my soul.
Make no mistake. The voices of opposition still speak. Some call to build roads to harvest blown down timber, as if a rotting log were a mistake by our Creator. Others want to sell state-owned lands in the Boundary Waters to prop up the state’s budget. Still others covet the mineral deposits found there.
But this land set apart has survived, and I take great pleasure in wishing the Boundary Waters, a happy 25th birthday! I can’t think of a finer present for the Boundary Waters or a more fitting logo for Minnesota than to inscribe a tiny piece of the Land of Sky Blue Waters on the Minnesota quarter. If you agree with me, send your comments to www.quarter.state.mn.us.
BWCA continues inspiring Minnesotans to act
Published Sept. 25, 2003 in St. Paul Pioneer Press, by Larry Romans
'BWCA Wilderness" brings to mind a vacation, vibrant forests reflected in blue water and the tranquility of a canoe gliding over open water with an eagle soaring overhead.
It has been 25 years since the passage of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act, and, like many others, I have fond remembrances of Minnesota's special treasure. But my memories are not of sitting around a campfire. Instead, I remember 25 years ago, when, as a staff member for Rep. Bruce Vento, I worked on the BWCA legislation. I remember late nights in Washington, D.C., tense negotiations, a last-minute victory and some very special people who made this landmark law possible.
In 1977, the debate over the BWCA was already being waged in the federal courts, in Congress and among the people of Minnesota. A broad spectrum of Minnesotans argued that the Boundary Waters was of national significance, a place where people sought solitude free of motorboats, snowmobiles and chainsaws. They argued that the continued exploitation of the resource would ultimately destroy this special place. Others argued that motorized use in the BWCA was a way of life and that continued logging in the wilderness was essential for the local economy.
The debate crystallized in 1975-'76 with the introduction of two competing bills on the BWCA. Under one, the BWCA was to be managed as wilderness with logging, mining, snowmobiles and motorboats prohibited. The competing bill reduced the size of the BWCA, allowed snowmobiles and motorboats in the wilderness and permitted logging in the area.
First-term Congressman Vento was thrust into the middle of that conflict. A member of the committee that dealt with wilderness, Vento would play a key role in passing legislation to protect the BWCA.
It was an exciting time, with emotional hearings in Minnesota, extensive floor debates and negotiations and an outcome that was not determined until virtually the last minute of the last day of Congress. Only then did the House finally approve the BWCA Wilderness Act. This bill, signed into law on Oct. 21, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter, established the BWCA Wilderness as we know it today — safeguarding the area's rich forest, vast lakes and wildlife.
What I remember most were the people fighting to protect the BWCA. Vento's commitment and tenacity to protecting the BWCA was unmatched. It was during those last days of Congress that he literally camped outside the office of House Speaker Tip O'Neill to ensure that the BWCA bill would come to the House floor. O'Neill finally told Vento that he had dreamt about him the night before and that Minnesota would get its bill.
Many Minnesotans were equally committed to ensuring the legislation's passage, volunteering their time and putting their lives on hold. I remember Bud and Fran Heinselman moving to Washington to be a constant voice for the wilderness. They were joined by countless others, who came to visit congressional offices with the latest information on the BWCA. These people's hard work made the difference in passing the bill.
Today, most Minnesotans recognize that we are fortunate to have such a special place and understand that increased pressures from mismanagement, urban sprawl and overuse continue to threaten wild areas around the BWCA. These concerns have inspired Minnesotans to act.
More than 31,000 Minnesotans have written in support of protecting our remaining roadless forest areas. This spring, a massive public outcry blocked a proposal to sell state lands in the BWCA to the highest bidders. And now, a group of committed individuals, following in the footsteps of the first Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, have proposed protecting the remaining 90,000 acres of unroaded areas near the Boundary Waters as wilderness. These lands, many of which are adjacent to the wilderness, provide outstanding opportunities for hiking, canoeing, fishing, camping and the solitude that we appreciate.
Throughout his career, Bruce Vento fought for protecting our nation's special places like the BWCA. He talked of the moral responsibility that each generation has to pass on to future generations our lands in as good a condition or better as we inherited them. I hope that 25 years from now we will be celebrating not only the BWCA and the special people who made that legislation possible but also our current leaders and their efforts to protect the nearly 90,000 acres of wild lands adjacent to the BWCA. This is a legacy Vento would be proud of.
BWCA Wilderness Act at 25: Lessons and Opportunities
by Betsy Schmiesing, a Friends' board member. She lives in Minneapolis.
This October marks the 25th anniversary of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act, which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on Oct. 21, 1978.
My family made an annual journey to Ely, Minn., from Ohio and later Illinois, from 1971 through 1982. After graduating from college in the late 1980s, I chose to relocate to Minnesota because I figured that the state that contained the Boundary Waters -- clean and crisp piney air, breathtaking night skies, lakes and lakes and lakes, wildlife, and, if you were willing to paddle out of the motorized zone, quiet – had to be the best possible place to live. Although other states in the Great Lakes region have their own natural havens, the Boundary Waters stands apart both for its natural beauty and for its luxurious expanses of water and natural life.
During the time that the BWCAW Act was under consideration, I was a young adult and a tourist, and thus largely oblivious to the controversy and to the hard work of the people committed to protecting and preserving the BWCAW. Twenty-five years later, now is the time both to reflect on the fruits of those efforts and to assess the work ahead.
Looking back, we learned that we can reduce the number of motors in the Boundary Waters and eliminate motors on some lakes without the world ending. People still visit the Boundary Waters, and in fact, in far greater numbers than before the 1978 legislation became law. People still fish the Boundary Waters, even though they might now be doing it from a canoe. People in northern Minnesota still have jobs, and a number of outfitters have survived the transition from outfitting only motor parties in search of prize walleye to outfitting paddlers. I’m no economist, but I see thriving businesses, including some that were around when I was five, in Ely’s business district. (I’ve also had the less-than-relaxing experience of running around Grand Marais at dinnertime with two hungry, cranky toddlers trying to find a restaurant with less than a forty-five minute wait, but that’s another story).
Our past experiences lead us to recognize that more is possible. In fact, more is necessary. As our population increases and our lives become more hectic and demanding, the value of pristine, primitive and quiet places will undoubtedly increase. We can enhance the value of the Boundary Waters by requiring that it be managed in full conformity with wilderness principles by eliminating all of the motors within its boundaries. The Boundary Waters, more than lutefisk or even the Mall of America, sets Minnesota apart. As Minnesotans, we should celebrate this anniversary by supporting the work of protection and preservation that was begun more than twenty-five years ago.
Remembering a fight for the Boundary Waters
Published Nov. 13, 2003 in the Wayzata, Orono, Long Lake (Minn.) Sun Sailor, by Richard Flint, a founding member of the Friends and current board member. He lives in Wayzata, Minn.
October 21 of this year marks the 25th Anniversary of the passage of Public Law 95-495, which, while far from perfect, greatly expanded federal protection of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It protects the BWCAW from logging, mining and most motorized travel. To me, this anniversary brings back memories of environmental heroes, many of whom are no longer with us, who gave of their hearts, their time and their talents to achieve one more victory in a political struggle that extends back to the onset of the Twentieth Century.
I recall Sigurd Olson in July, 1974 at Listening Point, his cabin on Burntside Lake, speaking to a small group of national, regional, and local environmental leaders. Sig’s cabin had no electricity, no plumbing, and no road to it, just a narrow path that we followed to the cabin. Sig sat in his rocking chair with a fire from the large stone fireplace illuminating his craggy face. The rest of us sat on the floor like pupils taking their lessons at the foot of the master. Sig talked about the long history of efforts to save the BWCA, the unique nature of this lakeland wilderness and the privilege that we all had in taking part at this historic point in time.
I remember also the dedication and self-sacrifice of Bud and Fran Heinselman. Bud, a retired forest ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, intimately knew the forest ecology, but he also loved the intangible value of a place where nature was in control and men and women were merely visitors. Congressman Phillip Burton of California, chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the U.S. House of Representatives Interior Committee, described Bud Heinselman as one of those few individuals “who had both the head and the heart” for wilderness. I had the privilege of being present at a meeting of a group of wilderness supporters on May 7, 1976 at Tobies Café in Hinckley where we formed the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness and elected Bud Heinselman its first chair.
Bud and Fran had devoted much of their time and talents to BWCA issues even before the formation of the Friends, but upon formation of that organization, they became full-time employees, without pay. In 1976, they rented a small room in a residential hotel near the U.S. Capitol where they lived and worked until passage of the BWCA legislation two years later. Each morning Bud sallied forth from this small room, tube of maps in hand, to talk to whatever elected official, staffer or executive branch employee would listen to his great knowledge of the BWCAW and his fervent plea for protecting the wilderness. One evening, after meetings with Minnesota’s Senators and Representatives, as well as private strategy sessions with Representative Burton, Fran Heinselman invited several of the Minnesota wilderness warriors to dinner in their hotel room. With a hot plate and a small one burner stove, Fran fixed an excellent, if simple, dinner for the four of us.
I remember the night of Saturday, October 14 and the morning of October 15, 1978. We were camped out in Congressman Bruce Vento’s Washington office, as the clock ticked off the final hours of the 95th Congress. Our fear was that Congress would adjourn before the Conference Committee bill could be voted on by the House and Senate. Even though the bill had passed both Houses of the Congress in different forms, the Conference Committee had been delayed by the bill’s opponents from meeting until Wednesday, October 11.
At that first meeting, Representative Burton moved that the House accept the Senate version, thus avoiding a lengthy series of Conference Committee meetings where the House and Senate worked out their differences. But Congressman Oberstar had delayed consideration of the Conference Committee’s version until Saturday night, and the Congress was scheduled to adjourn that night or the next morning. Finally, after an all night session, the BWCA debate began on the House Floor at 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
Representative Oberstar argued that the September, 1978 primary election in which Bob Short had defeated Don Fraser for the DFL Senate nomination amounted to a referendum on the BWCA bill, that the political situation in Minnesota was “supercharged” and that the whole matter should be laid over until a new Congress had time to consider the matter in the next session.. Congressman Don Fraser made the last speech of his Congressional career in favor of the BWCA legislation. He argued that the BWCA was a national resource, not a state or local resource, that it was Federal property we were talking about, and that the matter should be resolved by the Representatives of all of the people of the United States and not by local politics in Minnesota. Representative Burton called for a roll call vote, and bleary-eyed Representatives returned to the Chamber to pass the legislation on a vote of 248 to 114. The legislation passed the Senate later that day and was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 21.
Sig Olson, Bud Heinselman, Phil Burton and Bruce Vento have passed away and Congressman Fraser is no longer in office, but the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness survives. It survives because of these five and many others who have fought wisely and well to protect it. It is the most used wilderness system in the lower forty-eight states of the United States.
As the wilderness warriors of the 1970’s age and die, others step up to carry on the work. The United States Forest Service currently is involved in the planning process to plan for the Superior National Forest over the next fifteen to twenty years. The Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, invigorated by a new young staff, new directors and increased membership, has proposed that an additional 89,000 acres of federal land within the three million acre Superior National Forest be set aside as wilderness to serve our increasing population and their ever increasing desire for outdoor recreation. This land, consisting of 24 different segments, is de facto wilderness at the present time, and the Friends are asking that it be managed in a way to preserve it as such – no mining, no timber cutting, no roads and no motors.
Moreover, the political situation in northern Minnesota has changed. There are many more people who recognize not only the esthetic values of wilderness but the economic benefits which have been brought to the region by the BWCAW. Perhaps this time the wilderness goal can be realized without the divisive political battles which so divided the state in the 1970’s.
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