To Ernest Oberholtzer, September 9, 1935

In the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, there may not be a lake of more strategic importance for management issues than Basswood. It is an immense lake that straddles the border, but more important than size or international status is the fact that the canoe country wilderness is physically shaped somewhat like a funnel, and Basswood Lake is the tip. There's no other lake in the canoe country that provides the kind of access to other parts of the wilderness that Basswood provides. There were several attempts before World War II to build a road to Basswood Lake on the American side. In the letter below, Sigurd reports on how it was stopped on one occasion.

Dear Ober:

Your letter of the 6th at hand and am glad to report that the road is officially dead for this year. I figured that inasmuch as I didn't hear from you that you must be out on a trip. I got up a petition against it which all the resort and outfitting people signed with very few exceptions and a number of other property owners. Then we got Arnold of Mpls., Warren of Mpls, Selover, and several others who are interested in keeping things as they are and pulled a number of local strings. The federal Forest Service stepped in and said that in view of the fact that they have options on much of that land which the road might cross, that they must have a complete description of all properties said road might cross and in view of potential federal ownership, they would have to secure federal permission provided there was any land of theirs involved. All in all, we got them so entangled that the town board decided not even to hold a public hearing.

For a while it looked bad, but I think now it will not come up again for some time if ever. As you know if Basswood is reached by a road the entire eastern boundary country is threatened. From that road will go a road to Knife and another to Cacaquabic [Kekekabic], still another to Ensign, Thomas and Frazer and then it would be only a matter of time before the threat of hooking up with the Gunflint Trail would be a real possibility. I believe it is the greatest threat to that region that has yet presented itself not mentioning of course the Backus battle [over waterpower development] and it is one we will have to watch closely.

I can just imagine how beautiful it must be up on your island in Rainy [Lake] these gorgeous fall days.

Kindest personal regards.