Boundary Dispute Motors Vs. Paddles: Minnesota Wilderness Lovers Face Off Over Who Controls Use Of Federal Lands

Motorboats and snowmobiles in northern Minnesota’s wilderness have become weapons in a growing national battle over who should control federal lands.

On one side are the region’s anglers, snowmobilers and resorters, who have gained a potentially powerful ally: the “wise-use” movement.

The local dissidents fume that the federal government has restricted their access to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and nearby Voyageurs National Park, which comprise more than a million acres of spectacular north woods lakes and forests along the Canadian border.

The wise-use movement - a loose coalition of off-road motorists, ranchers, loggers and miners that wants to protect and expand their access to public lands - showed their support for the northern Minnesota rebels at congressional hearings this month on the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs.

Legislation to loosen restrictions in these two areas is stalled, but supporters and opponents agree it could set an important precedent by increasing local influence over federal policies.

“A beachhead in winning the War On the West has been established in Minnesota. Multiple use advocates need to help northern Minnesotans win this battle,” Blue Ribbon Magazine, an Idaho-based publication of the wise-use group, said in an article before the hearings.

On the other side are canoeists, backpackers and wilderness lovers, joined by national environmental organizations. They are fighting to keep motors out of these pristine areas.

The environmentalists warn that “anti-wilderness forces” would use the Voyageurs and Boundary Waters legislation to launch a national campaign to dismantle public lands.

“These bills would take the ‘national’ out of Voyageurs National Park,” said Paul Pritchard, president of the National Parks and Conservation Association.

That isn’t what Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., and Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., had in mind when they introduced their bills.

“This is not a national crusade,” Oberstar insisted at a congressional hearing last week.

The two lawmakers started with relatively modest goals. Created in 1978, the 1.3 million-acre Boundary Waters area, the nation’s only large-scale wilderness east of the Rockies, has 1,175 lakes, including 22 on the periphery that are open partly or entirely to motorboats. The rest are “paddle only” and used primarily by canoeists.

Grams and Oberstar proposed allowing motorboats to use more of the lakes where they are now partially permitted, and they called for reopening three truck portages that were closed by an environmental lawsuit in 1992.

In 218,000-acre Voyageurs - a wild park established in 1972 to preserve the wildlife and scenery that the French-Canadian voyageurs encountered on their historic trade routes two centuries ago - the two lawmakers hoped to prevent the National Park Service from making parts of the park off limits to motorboats and snowmobiles.

Those are local issues.

What sparked the interest of national groups was the lawmakers’ proposal to give local residents a say in managing the two areas. The bills called for creating 11-member management councils composed of national, state and local elected officials but dominated by local interests.

The councils would set policies deciding who gets access to these federal lands and how that access is permitted. The policies would be subject to the approval of the U.S. agriculture secretary in the case of the wilderness area, and by the U.S. interior secretary in matters pertaining to the park.

The two lawmakers accused the National Park and Forest services of ignoring the needs and wishes of local residents and said the management councils would give those residents a voice.

Environmentalists contended the councils would set a dangerous precedent that would let local whims and desires determine how parks and wilderness areas run.

The Clinton administration agreed. “We believe this bill is a first step toward” transferring parks out of the national park system, George Frampton Jr., assistant interior secretary, testified at one of the hearings. If the bill passes, Frampton said, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt will recommend that President Clinton veto it.

Dozens of Minnesotans flocked to the Capitol to testify on both sides of the issue.

Each side had its moving stories. Steelworker Mike Madden from Virginia, Minn., whose family had fished Trout Lake in the Boundary Waters for generations, told how his father can no longer get to the lake because he has circulatory problems and can’t walk what used to be a motorized portage.

On the other side, Maggie Wille, a paraplegic from Plymouth, Minn., whipped her wheelchair up to a microphone to tell a House subcommittee how the beauty, quiet and wonders of the wilderness refreshes not only her body but also her soul.

“Do not alter the wilderness to fit you,” she pleaded. “Alter yourself to fit the wilderness.”