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Interview with Professor Frederick Witzig

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Interview with Professor Frederick Witzig Interview with Professor Frederick Witzig Interviewed by Margaret Robertson Minnesota Historical Society Interviewed on February 23, 1987,ath the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus Fred Witzig - FW M. Robertson - MR MR: Are you a native of Minnesota? Project FW: No, I'm not. MR: You grew up where? History FW: I grew up in Illinois and studied geography at the University of Illinois. Then I got my first full-time job -- a temporary one year appointment --Oral at UMD which turned out to be a career. I've been here thirty-three years now at Duluth, and so I fell in love with the natural things up here -- especially in northeastern Minnesota. So beingSociety interested in Voyageurs Park was logical step. Issues MR: How did you become interested in Voyageurs in particular and at what point in the process did you become involved? Historical FW: I saw something in the newspaper about Voyageurs Park. The National Park Service had done a study (this would be in the early sixties -- maybe 1963 or 1964), and there was an announcement in the newspaper that a meeting would be held at the YMCA in Duluth for those that might be interested in learning more about Voyageurs National Park. That's when I became interestedEnvironmental in it -- after listening to the then superintendent of the Grand Portage National MonumentMinnesota who spoke that evening and also listening to several other people who had an interest. I think one person from the state division of parks was also there. That night there was an opportunity to put your name down on a mailing list. That's really where it all started. Eventually then within a year or so the Voyageurs National Park Association was formed. Then a little bit later, a Citizen's Committee for Voyageurs NationalMinnesota Park was established, and Dave Zentner and I were the co-chair for the Duluth chapter. MR: Was there a lot of interest in Duluth for the park? I know there's a lot of activity in the Twin Cities. FW: There was a lot of interest in the park, but it was generally negative at that time. People who would be vocal about their support were very, very few in number. A lot of individuals I think were for the park, but did not wish to speak out and would privately say that they liked what was going on, but they -- for a variety or reasons -- couldn't say very much. I was always sorry to hear that sort of thing, but some people would actually have been disadvantaged in their jobs had they been open supporters of the park. MR: Was it a very politicized issue here in Duluth? FW: I don't think it was political in the sense of Democrat and Republican. Not at all. In fact I think if anything the Voyageurs National Park was probably pushed harder by Republicans if you want to look at that. I don't think that's quite fair, but if you did chose it up that way I think you would find that some very prominent Republicans in Minnesota really put the park over. Notably Elmer Andersen, but there were many others.Project I think probably in the mid- sixties it was maybe environmentalists versus the other types with a more economic orientation. I don't think it was political in the traditional sense. MR: What were some of the arguments you heard against the parkHistory at that time? FW: I think the one that you heard most often was that thisOral was simply another ploy on that part of the federal government to take over land. It was a land grant. They were going to lock it up. Many people who made those comments were absolutelySociety certain that this was merely an extension of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. That was really the most common objection to the park. You would hear that, "ThereIssues is already plenty of federal land in Minnesota -- we don't need more. Why should we spend tax money to buy private lands to establish a national park?" That kind of thing. That was really the most frequent. For some they were being just visceral in their own positionHistorical to that. That's not uncommon. I mean that's not uncommon in Minnesota history certainly, and in the west it's very common. It springs from a nineteenth century attitude that the government really has no business being involved in owning and managing land. The tradition has been for the government to divest itself of property -- to give it to the people and allow it to be developed economically in the so- called traditional way.Environmental So I think people were dredging that up. Others had had experiences -- probably personalMinnesota experiences -- with government involvement and interference and red tape. That was certainly the most common reference. MR: Do you think some of the bad feelings about what had happened in the Boundary Waters spilled over on the Voyageurs park proposal? Minnesota FW: I think that was true. I think that held back the establishment of the park. In fact during the sixties -- probably the last half of the sixties -- then Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman made a decision that the Boundary Waters no-cut area would be extended. He took the advice of his committees and made that decision. That was right about the time that we were trying to promote the park. So that certainly didn't help our cause. People always had that association -- that this was an extension, that it was going to be the same kind of thing. We will be closed out, we won't have access to it in the way that we have now, and so on. If we were pushed when we made talks or visits with people concerning the park, we were always told to be very careful to note the differences between the management policies of the National Park Service with Voyageurs as opposed to a wilderness management policy which the Forest Service was using in the BWCA. MR: Was there a misunderstanding about what the Park Service did versus what the Forest Service did? They are really two agencies that are often on opposing sides. Was there a misconception about that? FW: Yes, I don't believe that the public saw that. I don't believe that the general public saw Park Service and Forest Service as being very different. They are very different in their management philosophies. Their mission is different -- absolutely. But I don'tProject think the general public really picks up on that. I don't think they really understand those differences. They are not really very subtle differences, but I don't think people bother with that. But certainly within the agencies there's a very, very clear cut distinction between what they're up to. The Forest Service and the Park Service went over their differencesHistory through polite memos and some not quite so polite over a period of three or four years. But the public was really not aware of that -- I think -- of the inter-agency squabbles.Oral The public couldn't have been because this was all done through inter-departmental communications. I think some of the more knowledgeable people in the border country and especiallySociety in the Falls knew clearly the distinction between the single-use management of the Park Service and the multiple-use management of the Forest Service.Issues But the people who could articulate those contrasts were relatively few in number, I think. I don't know that the public at large ever debated this. Basically when people hear about a national park, they are sympathetic. Not that they've been to parks so much, but the nationalHistorical parks like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite have a nice ring to them. The Park Service has an excellent reputation for managing those. So I don't think that people ever had it in for the Park Service. A few did, but I don't think so. I think many people thought, "Hey, we ought to have a park." I think the further away you got from Duluth and northeastern Minnesota, the more support the park had. I'm sure that's theEnvironmental case. Minnesota MR: It was less threatening to people in the Twin Cities than for people in Duluth. FW: In this area the media never supported the park. In fairness to them though, they never really crusaded against it either -- except the newspaper. I think the newspaper editorialized againstMinnesota the park. MR: The Duluth paper? FW: Right. The television people were sort of neutral. They would report the results of opinion polls, but unfortunately they never came out in strong support of the park. Normally when we heard about the park it was the "controversial Voyageurs National Park." In fact, you still can pick that up. "Another controversy in Voyageurs National Park." I would say for at least six years before the park was established, and for a decade or more later -- I guess even to the present time -- you pick up some controversies about Voyageurs National Park. But I think that the controversy is going to end. I think when the visitor's center is there and people begin to see what the Park Service does with a resource like that -- the interpretation of the natural resources and the cultural resources of that area -- they're going to change their mind. They're going to find out about the things in this area that they never dreamed existed here.
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