A Century of Wilderness for the Boundary Waters
One hundred years ago, on Sept. 17, 1926, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture William Jardine provided the first wilderness designation for the area that would later be named the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest. While a significant landmark in the region’s history, more remains to be done to fulfill the dream of a fully and permanently protected canoe country wilderness.
Jardine’s new policy sought to resolve a national controversy over the future of the Superior. The U.S. Forest Service and local boosters, in conjunction with the national “Good Roads” movement, sought to build roads throughout the Superior. Conservationists, led by the recently-formed Izaak Walton League of America and the Superior National Forest Recreation Association, pushed to protect the Superior as a wilderness, citing Aldo Leopold’s 1924 success to administratively establish the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico.
Jardine’s decision settled the road battle in a typical compromise. The Echo Trail, Fernberg Road, and Gunflint Trail extension could proceed, but the most damaging road proposal—from Lake One east across the heart of the current BWCAW to the Gunflint Trail—was blocked by Jardine’s decision, as were other proposed spur roads from the Echo Trail north to Loon Lake and Lac La Croix and south to Trout Lake. Jardine promised that 1,000 square miles of the Superior National Forest (640,000 acres) would be protected “as wilderness” without “roads of any character.” His decision established only the second administratively-designated wilderness in the nation, and the only one established by an official as high as a cabinet secretary.
By today’s standards, Jardine’s decision was fairly weak and without strong direction. But coming as it did at the beginning of the national wilderness movement, his policy charted a path toward wilderness protection that continues to this day.
In 1930, Congress passed the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act to block a dam-building proposal inside the Superior wilderness and to protect shoreline forests from logging. In 1948, Congress passed the Thye-Blatnik Act to provide funds to purchase private lands and developments, and the following year President Truman created an unprecedented airspace reservation above the wilderness to block low-level flights and the landing of float planes. Congress included the BWCA in the 1964 Wilderness Act, which established the National Wilderness Preservation System, but included language singling out the BWCA to allow logging and motorboats to continue. Finally in 1978, Congress passed the BWCAW Act, which ended logging, reduced motorboat use, essentially prohibited mining inside the wilderness, eliminated snowmobiles, and added about 68,000 acres to the current 1.1 million-acre BWCAW in key additions along its periphery.
Given this long history of wilderness conservation, what else remains to be done to reach full, permanent wilderness protection?
Sulfide Mining. Proposals continue for copper-nickel sulfide mines in the watershed of the BWCAW, which pose enormous threats to the BWCAW’s water quality from acid mine drainage.
Motorboat Traffic. Motorboats still travel on about 21 percent of the BWCAW’s water surface area, and commercial towboats that ferry canoe parties add to the noise and disruption without adequate regulation.
Visitation Levels. As the most visited wilderness in the entire National Wilderness Preservation System, the BWCAW continues to attract visitors from around the world. Yet the Wilderness Act promises “outstanding opportunities for solitude,” and too many visitors at the same time and place can make this challenging to provide.
Motorized Portages. Several commercial motorized portage services remain inside the BWCAW and should eventually be eliminated.
School Trust Lands. About 80,000 acres of state-owned school trust lands remain inside the BWCAW. A current sound proposal calls for the federal government to purchase those lands, with the proceeds deposited in Minnesota’s Permanent School Fund.
Human Meddling. Wildernesses must remain unmanipulated if they are to remain wild; the Wilderness Act actually defines wilderness in part as “untrammeled” or unmanipulated. We should resist the calls for manipulating the BWCAW’s forest with manager-ignited fire, as well as calls to plant and shape the forests to satisfy human desires, not nature’s, even if couched as responses to climate change.
The dream of a fully and permanently protected BWCAW, begun over a century ago and legitimized by William Jardine’s 1926 policy decision, remains within our grasp. Let’s work to make that dream a reality.
Kevin Proescholdt is the conservation director for Wilderness Watch, a national wilderness conservation organization. He guided canoe trips for 10 years in the BWCAW, helped pass the 1978 BWCAW Act through Congress, and co-authored the definitive history of that struggle, Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
