University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Fall 2010 WISH LIST WILDERNESS ENDGAME IN THE BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST Robert Wellman Campbell Black Hills State University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the American Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, and the United States History Commons Campbell, Robert Wellman, "WISH LIST WILDERNESS ENDGAME IN THE BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST" (2010). Great Plains Quarterly. 2629. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2629 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. WISH LIST WILDERNESS ENDGAME IN THE BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST ROBERT WELLMAN CAMPBELL In January 1979 Dave Foreman loosened his the top on another Stroh's" as he brooded. The tie, propped his cowboy boots up on his desk, Forest Service had just recommended increas­ and brooded awhile on RARE II. In a second ing its Wilderness acres from 18 million to try at Roadless Area Review and Evaluation 33 million, or about a sixth of its 190 million (RARE), the u.s. Forest Service had just spent acres. Foreman wished for much more, and he two years deciding once and for all how much regretted that conservationists like himself had of its undeveloped land should be designated been moderate in their demands and tactics. Wilderness. To Foreman, a Washington execu­ By 1980 a disgusted Foreman had "loosened tive of the Wilderness Society, RARE II tasted his tie" all the way back to New Mexico, out of of bitter defeat, and he lonesomely "popped the Wilderness Society, and into Earth First!, a radical new environmental group that was best known for advocating sabotage of logging and construction projects. As Foreman told this story in his autobiography, Confessions of an Key Words: Beaver Park, Black Elk Wilderness, Eco-Warrior, RARE II was the last straw'! Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, RARE II, South Dakota, U.S. Forest Service Around the same time, South Dakota con­ gressman Jim Abdnor also held a RARE II postmortem, but in a lighter mood. Meeting Robert Wellman Campbell was born in Spearfish, SD, with environmental activists in his Rapid and earned degrees from Harvard College, Augustana City office, including Sierra Clubber Sam College, and the University of Kansas. He worked for the U.S. Geological Survey's Center for Earth Clauson, who related this story years later, the Resources Observation and Science and is currently Republican congressman lit a cigar, put his feet assistant professor of history and geography at Black up on his desk, and asked without much care, Hills State University. He is working on a book on "Now what the hell are we going to do about aerial wilderness. this wilderness thing?" The Black Hills, lying in Abdnor's "West River" district of western [GPQ 30 (Fall 2010): 287-305] South Dakota, were to get their first official 287 288 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2010 Wilderness. There was some question how to public lands. Partly for this reason, the case name it-after a military explorer, a Lakota of the Black Hills is interesting less for its holy man, or a conservationist governor-and unsurprising result-Wilderness status for the though Abdnor was not enthusiastic about an Norbeck Wildlife Preserve-than for how the Indian name, he could accept anything. RARE political game played out. II had come out satisfactorily for Abdnor, but he had bigger fish to fry as he worked toward PREGAME (1874-1977) his 1980 campaign to unseat Senator George McGovern.2 The historical background of the Black Hills Two very different reactions from two differ­ is beyond our scope, but a few points are rel­ ent perspectives. Dave Foreman, having little evant. The first is just how developed the Black to do with South Dakota, typifies the national Hills were. George Custer's 1874 invasion trig­ reaction: angry rejection from both sides. But gered a powerful, long-term transformation of the reaction in the Black Hills region was prob­ the landscape. Immigrants were busy building ably closer to Abdnor and the environmental­ mines, towns, farms, sawmills, and most impor­ ists: some interest, some controversy, but also tantly, roads for almost a quarter century before some rather cool satisfaction. This article the creation of the Black Hills Forest Reserve looks at RARE II from the latter perspective, in 1897, later renamed the Black Hills National to shed a different light on the sausage-making Forest.5 At that point the federal government of wilderness legislation.3 This illuminates two assumed control of a working forest, an "estate issues in particular. First, as a very small state in with many tenants" who certainly resented both population and in attitude, South Dakota Democrat Grover Cleveland's eleventh-hour provides a useful example of state-federal ten­ proclamation creating the reserve.6 The lands sion in environmental politics. Who would call they owned are still private inholdings today. the shots in this case, D.C. or S.D.? Second, as Federal timber sales began immediately, and a western area developed to a level more typical most of the national forest has been repeat­ of the East and of the nation as a whole, the edly logged. These "Hills," though actually Black Hills provide a view into how a postin­ old, weathered mountains, have a moderate dustrial America might think about the nature topography that makes access to timber quite in its own well-worked back yard. The question easy. And plentiful snowfall and rainfall in the is whether we believe in redemption for land­ spring and early summer make the Black Hills a whether nature heals or nature is what was natural nursery for abundant ponderosa pine. there before the wound. Do we believe our land So this was, and is, a domesticated place. can revert even to "go-back wilderness," or do And yet, like many places, it can give you a fair we see development as a one-way street?4 impression of wildness. Once off the highway RARE II was meant to settle the political the slopes block your sight, the pines hush contest that had been fought over wilderness your hearing, something hits your nose the since 1964, as the endgame to decide once right way, and there is some opportunity to get and for all the winners and losers among lost if you cooperate. A unique mix of plants federal lands. RARE II was a modified ver­ grows in the Black Hills: northern, western, sion of the process dictated by the National and eastern forest species overlap at the far Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which by ends of their ranges, blending with the short­ the time of RARE II was already a well-prac­ grass prairie that flows up the valleys from the ticed set piece within the broader politics of plains and becomes quite tallgrass in the Black environmentalism. These NEPA contests were Hills' wetter climate.7 And people did act to not just about the specific policy questions at preserve these natural qualities, most notably hand; they were also strategic, symbolic plays Peter Norbeck, South Dakota's conservationist in the never-ending contest over the nation's governor and senator. Norbeck created Custer WILDERNESS ENDGAME IN THE BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST 289 State Park, one of the largest state parks in the community of life were untrammeled by the nation, as well as what's now called Norbeck Wilderness Act of 1964, where preservation Wildlife Preserve.8 The Preserve is on national itself was a visitor who did not remain. Now, forest land and includes Harney Peak, the tall­ for almost exactly two years, the Forest Service est point east of the Rockies at 7,242 feet. would look again, in a process divided like an Since World War II the Black Hills economy athletic contest into four quarters, in this case has been an interesting contradiction of tour­ lasting six months each. This sounds like a ism and extraction. Winnebago campers and long time, but for evaluating tens of millions of logging trucks; the faces at Rushmore and acres across the continent it was an ambitious the open pit at Homestake Mine; the pretty schedule. and the prolific, tightly intertwined. These same contradictions pulled the U.S. Forest FIRST QUARTER: INVENTORY Service in opposite directions. Congress for­ (SPRING To FALL 1977) malized this tug-of-war in the Multiple Use Act of 1960 and the Wilderness Act of 1964. From late spring to fall 1977, Black Hills The Wilderness Act gave the Forest Service National Forest officials inventoried the ten years to recommend which of its wild region to determine what "road less and unde­ lands should be managed as official, "big W" veloped areas" existed. By late July, Rangers Wildernesses. (Only acts of Congress could and Supervisors were revising the list, phon­ actually create them.) The Forest Service met ing each other as they pored over maps. By this deadline with an effort called the Roadless August the Forest was soliciting public com­ Area Review and Evaluation, or RARE. But its ment through news releases and at least two results were criticized, legally challenged, and informational meetings in Sundance and ultimately discarded. Rapid City. Citizens were asked to critique Jimmy Carter, an avowed conservation­ the draft inventory and to suggest criteria for ist, took office in 1977. He appointed Rupert judging the road less areas.