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Wilderness Giant: Stewart “Brandy” Brandborg Moves on at 93 by KEVIN PROESCHOLDT

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Wilderness Giant: Stewart “Brandy” Brandborg Moves on at 93 by KEVIN PROESCHOLDT SOUL OF THE WILDERNESS Wilderness Giant: Stewart “Brandy” Brandborg Moves on at 93 by KEVIN PROESCHOLDT Steward Brandborg was a phenomenal wilderness champion, the last wilderness advocate with ties to most of the founders of the modern wilderness movement, as well as the last surviving architect of the landmark 1964 Wilderness Act, a leader of The Wilderness Society during its period of greatest contribution to wilderness preservation. “Brandy” met Bob Marshall at the age of 12, for example, when Marshall stayed at the Brandborg home after hiking through the Selway- Bitterroot Wilderness. Brandy led The Wilderness Society from 1956 to 1976, first on the Governing Council, then on the staff, and for 12 years as the executive director. Brandy had a 20-year run of leadership with Figure 1 – The Wilderness Society Governing Council in 1959 at Alpine, Arizona at the edge of the Blue Range Primitive Area. Back row, left to right: Olaus Murie, Howard Zahniser, Robert Cooney. Middle row: Jim Marshall, George Marshall, Ernest Griffith. Front Wilderness Watch as well, from 1998 to 2018. His contributions to the row: Sigurd F. Olson, Dick Leonard, Harvey Broome, Stewart M. Brandborg. wilderness movement, and to the National Wilderness Preservation System he helped create and expand, are immeasurable. Now that a few months have passed since his departure, here are some reflections on Brandy’s significance to wilderness. Governing Council in 1956, the same year that (older brother of Bob Marshall) and Dick Zahniser drafted the first version of the Wilder- Leonard (head of the Sierra Club), constantly ness Act, so Brandy was in on the ground floor badgered and second-guessed Zahniser and On April 14, wilderness legend Stewart M. “Brandy” Brandborg of the eight-year push to pass this landmark Brandy on their strategies and efforts. Worried broke camp one last time from his home in Hamilton, Montana, bill (Figure 1). In 1960, Zahniser hired Brandy to that the organization might lose its nonprofit and headed over the Divide. He was 93. join the staff of the Wilderness Society, where tax-exempt status, they even suggested that Brandy was a giant in the wilderness movement, and the last he worked alongside Zahniser, David Brower The Wilderness Society abandon its effort to surviving architect of the 1964 Wilderness Act. A wildlife biologist of the Sierra Club, and others to pass the bill pass the Wilderness Act. As the organization’s by training, Brandy conducted groundbreaking field studies of through Congress. executive director, Zahniser took the brunt of mountain goats in Idaho and Montana in the late 1940s and early Not only were there external interests their criticisms and badgering. 1950s. That work led to a job with the National Wildlife Federation (such as timber, mining, and ranching) to One such point was reached in 1959. But in the Washington, DC, area in 1954. He quickly came to the atten- overcome, but internal challenges as well. it was the young, eloquent firebrand on the tion of Howard Zahniser, executive director of The Wilderness Some members of The Wilderness Society Governing Council who rallied the group to Society. Zahniser recruited Brandy to join the Wilderness Society’s Governing Council, such as Jim Marshall stay the course and push ahead toward final 8 International Journal of Wilderness | December 2018 | Volume 24, Number 3 December 2018 | Volume 24, Number 3 | International Journal of Wilderness 9 passage. On October 27, Brandy wrote an impassioned nine-page letter to the Governing Coun- Part of Brandy’s genius turned this seeming cil. “Our organization has become a major force in the conservation movement,” Brandy wrote. defeat into an incredibly powerful tool to He continued, build and expand and activate the wilderness movement all across the nation. Brandy This is because we stand for something that people need. We have had the finest kind of progressive leadership through the years from Olaus and Zahnie. Now we face a real test and great opportunity to embarked on a years-long process of identify- establish a law that will recognize and provide a satisfactory procedure for protecting wilderness. I hope ing local wilderness supporters, organizing we do not turn our backs on it because of a preoccupation with our organization’s status and financial them, training them on the Wilderness Act, security…. If we fail to meet the wilderness challenge, will others also? and turning them loose on their state’s Brandy’s eloquent entreaty fortunately carried the day. congressional delegations to push for new After Zahniser’s untimely death in May of 1964, Brandy was selected to succeed Zahniser as areas to be added to the Wilderness System. executive director of The Wilderness Society. Brandy helped push the Wilderness Act across the Brandy was quite ecumenical in his outreach, finish line when President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law on the September 3. not caring if an activist was a member of the One of the defeats within the Wilderness Act was a requirement that Congress must pass a Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, or The new law to add each new area to the National Wilderness Preservation System. This provision Wilderness Society. Brandy embraced them was insisted upon by the powerful House committee chair, Rep. Wayne Aspinall, no doubt to all. Educator Joe Fontaine of California, for Figure 3 – Stewart Brandborg around 1988, limit the number of new wildernesses added to the system. Little could Aspinall have anticipated example, now a past president of both Wilder- Montana Environmental Information Center. Photo courtesy of the Brandborg family. what he had unleashed. ness Watch and the national Sierra Club, was one of those activists recruited and trained by Brandy. Brandy’s efforts paid dividends for decades, worked with the National Park Service during long after his departure from The Wilderness the Carter administration where he continued Society in 1976, and long after The Wilderness to organize training for activists. Brandy always Society abandoned its grassroots focus. By believed that organizing people provided the time Brandy left that organization, he had benefits not only for wilderness conservation seen the Wilderness System grow by 70 new but also for society as a whole. “Building the Wildernesses in 31 states. But the momentum circles” of people enriched the social fabric he generated and the wilderness movement of the nation, Brandy believed, in addition to he built continued long after 1976, as that finding and organizing activists for wilderness wilderness movement convinced Congress to conservation or local planning. continue adding new wildernesses throughout Brandy and his wife, Anna Vee, returned to the 1980s and 1990s. Today we see some the Bitterroot Valley in Montana in 1986. He 765 wildernesses in the National Wilderness never really retired but instead continued his Preservation System covering 110 million acres wilderness activism for another three decades. (44,515,420 ha.) in 44 states, a testament to the He joined the board of directors of Wilder- strength of Brandy’s vision and the movement ness Watch in 1998, where he served with he inspired. other such wilderness luminaries as Stewart After he was ousted by The Wilderness Figure 2 – Brandy (second from right) and other environmentalists meeting with President Richard Nixon (fourth from right). Udall, Orville Freeman, Joe Fontaine, Michael Society’s Governing Council in 1976, Brandy Frome, and Bill Worf. Brandy served on the 10 International Journal of Wilderness | December 2018 | Volume 24, Number 3 December 2018 | Volume 24, Number 3 | International Journal of Wilderness 11 board, and later as Wilderness Watch’s senior advisor, for a 20-year run from 1998 until his final journey in April. With each visit and phone call, Brandy would ask for the latest updates from the wilderness field, and then hand out our assignments to save all the remaining wilderness with no compromise and no collaboration. Dedicated and feisty to the end, he gave a final speech to a full house of activists in Hamilton a few weeks before he died. Figure 4 – Wilderness Watch leaders received their next assignments Figure 5 – Brandy and Anna Vee at their home in May from Brandy in October 2016. Photo by Kevin Proescholdt. 2013. Photo by Kevin Proescholdt. All of us at Wilderness Watch extend our condolences to the Brandborg family, and our thanks to them for sharing Brandy with us for so many years. Brandy will continue to inspire the wilder- ness movement and Wilderness Watch far into the future, and we fully expect to receive our next assignments from him in short order. KEVIN PROESCHOLDT is the conservation director for Wilderness Watch; email: [email protected]. 12 International Journal of Wilderness | December 2018 | Volume 24, Number 3 December 2018 | Volume 24, Number 3 | International Journal of Wilderness 13.
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