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FIRST FIGHT Bud Heinselman and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, 1964–65 KEVIN PROESCHOLDT innesotan Miron L. “Bud” Heinselman worked swamp black spruce on peatlands. Heinselman’s doctoral Mhis entire career for the U.S. Forest Service as a for- dissertation centered on peatlands ecology in the basin of ester and ecologist. Through his extensive research, he be- the former glacial Lake Agassiz in Minnesota; the presti- came one of the nation’s foremost experts in the separate gious scientific journal, Ecological Monographs, published fields of peatlands, forest ecology, and fire ecology. Beyond these findings in 1963. He was a careful and meticulous those quiet scientific accomplishments, Heinselman also researcher, not one to overstate his findings.2 played a very public role in leading the citizen effort from By 1960 Heinselman was living in Grand Rapids, Min- 1976 to 1978 to pass the 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area nesota, continuing research for the Forest Service’s Lake Wilderness (BWCAW) Act through Congress, providing States Forest Experiment Station. He had always been new protections for the area.1 interested in conservation and had joined several non- But a dozen years earlier, Heinselman had cut his ad- profit organizations, including the Izaak Walton League vocacy teeth on another campaign to protect the million- of America (IWLA). He became active in the “Ikes,” was acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), as it was then president of its Grand Rapids chapter in the early 1960s, known. From 1964 to 1965, largely out of the public view, and served on the IWLA Minnesota Division’s Wilderness he organized conservationists with enthusiasm and a clear Committee, chaired by his Grand Rapids friend Adolph T. vision, helped develop keen political and public- relations Anderson. Ely author and wilderness ecologist Sigurd F. strategies, injected ecological arguments for the first time Olson also served on this committee.3 into the BWCA debates, challenged and out- maneuvered his former dean at the University of Minnesota, and faced muzzling by his employer. Finally, he consistently and he IWLA Wilderness Committee, concerned over eloquently argued for the protection of this world- class Tlogging impacts on the BWCA, began discussing issues wilderness area. Those experiences, and the skills he de- with Superior National Forest Supervisor Larry Neff in veloped as a result, helped prepare him for the national about 1960. The topics included logging roads that crossed storm of controversy over the BWCA in the 1970s that led canoe- portage trails, “accidental” access points to canoe to the passage of the landmark 1978 law. routes created via these logging roads, the size and scope Born in Duluth in 1920, Bud Heinselman received his of timber sales in the BWCA, and more.4 PhD in forestry in 1961 from the University of Minnesota. Among other research, he pioneered the introduction of prescribed burning as a site- preparation technique for KEVIN PROESCHOLDT of Minneapolis is the conservation director for Wilderness Watch, a national nonprofit wilderness con- servation organization. He has written about “Untrammeled Wil- facing: Miron (Bud) Heinselman with one of the 1,595 red pines derness” (Minnesota History, 2008) and coauthored Troubled Waters: he identified in the oldest virgin forest of the Boundary Waters Canoe The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (1995). Area, about 1991 SUMMER 2014 71 From left : Heinselman, president of the local Izaak Walton League chapter, Gov. Elmer L. Andersen, who spoke to the league, and two state- level “Ike” offi cials, Grand Rapids, December 1961. But the Forest Service, long wedded to its policy that governor, 1955–61) responded in May 1964 by appointing allowed logging and motor uses in the BWCA, would not a study panel to review policies for the BWCA, headed by make the substantive changes that conservationists re- his former commissioner of conservation, George Selke. quested. This unwillingness, coupled with conservation- This Boundary Waters Canoe Area Review Committee was ists’ growing concerns over damage to the BWCA’s wild usually referred to as the Selke Committee.7 character and their recognition that the pending national Wilderness Bill would allow logging to continue there, led to the creation of Conservation Affi liates in the spring of he daY aFter Freeman aPPointed the Selke Com- 1964. This coalition of nine organizations, including the Tmittee, the President’s Quetico- Superior Committee Izaak Walton League, would publicize and focus public (created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934) convened a attention on these problems.5 forum at the University of Minnesota to discuss the issues Elsewhere across the country, other Forest Service swirling around BWCA management.8 Keynote speaker primitive areas were being reclassifi ed to wilderness Dr. Frank H. Kaufert, director of the University of Minne- status.6 This was an administrative process, essentially sota’s School of Forestry, selectively quoted a 1963 report, unrelated to the Wilderness Bill that was nearing the end “Wildlife Management in the National Parks,” by the Leop- of its eight- year traverse through Congress. Conservation old Committee, a blue- ribbon panel of ecologists that Inte- Affi liates pushed to reclassify the BWCA, too, as a wilder- rior Secretary Stewart Udall had appointed, “even though ness. The organization produced several glossy brochures doing so may endanger my implied position of neutrality depicting logging damage in the BWCA and wrote for on issues.” His selections included “Management may help to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman, to at times call for the use of the tractor, chainsaw, rifl e, or whom the Forest Service reported. Freeman (Minnesota’s fl ame- thrower but the signs and sounds of such activity 72 MINNESOTA HISTORY Heinselman . for the first time in the BWCA debates, raised the ecological and scientific values of saving the remaining virgin forest from logging. should be hidden from visitors in- sofar as possible.” He concluded by dismissing the value of the BWCA’s forests because, he claimed, the “present forests . are second growth stands that are approaching maturity and bear little resemblance to the vir- gin forests of the area.” He defended logging as a management tool for the area.9 Three weeks later, a contrary viewpoint made the news. A chapter of the Society of American Foresters (SAF), a professional association, met in Grand Rapids to discuss the pro- posed reclassification of the BWCA. One speaker, a forester and research ecologist for the Forest Service, went way out on a limb, calling for an end to logging in the Boundary Waters. That forester was Bud Heinselman. Heinselman described the area’s wilderness values, estimated that it retained at least 400,000 acres of vir- gin forest— in direct contradiction to Kaufert’s recent declaration— and, for the first time in the BWCA debates, raised the ecological and scientific values of saving the remaining virgin forest from logging. So startling was it for a professional forester to break with the forestry community over logging in the BWCA that the story ran in newspapers with statewide circulation.10 A few days after his talk, Heinsel- man wrote to Sigurd Olson, urging him to support wilderness reclassifi- cation for the BWCA at the upcoming national IWLA convention. “What is needed desperately, in my opinion, is a bold new policy that affirms once Majestic red pine in the virgin forest SUMMER 2014 73 and for all that the American people mean to keep this When one gets to Rocky L. even the most demanding unique area a Wilderness!” Olson did so, and the IWLA wilderness lover must recognize that this is what he voted for reclassification. The convention also authorized seeks. The loggers ax and saw have never been here, a $10,000 grant from the IWLA’s endowment to Conserva- the campsite on our island is clean and primitive, the tion Affiliates for its BWCA campaign.11 unscarred cliffs rise up on all sides, the rocks are heavily laden with the mosses, duff, and fallen timbers of the centuries, no man- made dams have changed the lake oon, the Selke Committee began holding hearings level, and the portages are still simple ungraded trails. Saround the state and accepting comments from the public. Heinselman wrote two statements— main and He then proceeded to spell out his factual arguments for supplemental— for the Izaak Walton League’s Wilderness preserving and maintaining the BWCA’s virgin forests, Committee, both under the name of his Grand Rapids making the case he had presented to the SAF.13 friend and committee chair, Adolph Anderson. Anderson Heinselman certainly caught the collective eye of the presented them to the Selke Committee at the St. Paul Selke Committee. His arguments for preserving the area’s hearing on July 21, 1964. The main statement called for virgin forests, so at odds with the approach of the forest reclassification of the BWCA as wilderness, and the sup- industry and academic foresters like Kaufert, deserved a plement focused on saving and perpetuating its virgin second look. The committee invited both Heinselman and forests.12 Kaufert to present their views at a closed- door session on In addition, Heinselman wrote a personal statement September 17, 1964. The Forest Service allowed Heinselman for the Selke Committee but, because of his employment, to participate— on the condition that he work only through went through official Forest Service channels to have it ap- official agency channels on the BWCA controversy, at least proved. This statement, like his SAF presentation, focused until the Selke Committee had issued its report. Not only on “the values of our remaining virgin forests, and possi- did Heinselman have to oppose Kaufert (his former dean ble approaches to their maintenance.” He began with an and a member of his doctoral committee) face- to- face, but unusually personal and descriptive introduction, written he also had to craft his comments carefully, as his Forest from Rocky Lake within the BWCA.

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