The Superior National Forest Must Be Saved

Sigurd wrote the following sometime in 1929, during the debate over a bill that would forbid altering water levels and would ban shoreline logging on federal land in the canoe country of Superior National Forest. The Shipstead-Nolan Act was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on July 10, 1930. It was the first time Congress had passed a law specifically to preserve wilderness.

Olson, pictured at left in 1929, directed his statement to members of the Izaak Walton League of America, which at the time was very active in fighting for the canoe country wilderness. It is unclear, however, whether he wrote the following as notes for a speech, or as a draft of an editorial for the league's magazine. I say "draft," because it was not titled, was riddled with typos, and was written almost entirely in one paragraph. Yet it is an important document, because it is the earliest surviving record of Olson's wilderness activism. The 30-year-old teacher and canoe outfitter calls for Superior National Forest to be taken from the Forest Service and given to the National Park Service, which at the time was so touchy a subject that most conservationists did not broach the idea. And Olson's gut sentiment against any kind of logging in the wilderness is obvious throughout his statement.

What follows, then, is the complete statement, altered only in my corrections of Sigurd's spelling and punctuation.

The old battle has once more begun. Shall industry, or the wilderness, survive? Is the Superior National Forest of more importance as a timber-producing area than as one of recreation? Are the lakes and streams and the timbered shores of more value as camp sites than as spillways for logs? Is it right that a private concern, the North West lumber company of Cloquet, should have the privilege of robbing the American people of their heritage, the wilderness area of Superior National Forest?

Here as all know is the last great wilderness area of its kind on the continent. Nowhere else can such beautiful lakes be found. Nowhere else can you find them close together enough to make what is known as a canoe country, and nowhere else is there so much beauty concentrated in one spot as here. It is the last area of its kind in the country. Are we going to sacrifice it to the ogre of commercialism?

Already great inroads have been made. During the last three years two roads have been put into it, tapping some of the most attractive areas. Only through the ready intervention of the League was the road business stopped, but not before great damage had been done. During the past few years a power company has dammed up the Kawishiwi River basin and proposes to extend its interest. New resorts have gone in, and where a few years ago was a virgin wilderness the signs of civilization are creeping in.

The handwriting is on the wall. The Superior National Forest is doomed unless drastic measures are taken at once. Last session of Congress the Shipstead Newton bill was introduced, amended, and dropped until this session. Now, as the Shipstead Nolan Bill, it is again proposed to introduce it without the qualifying amendment, as it originally was. This bill in its original form is the bill the real lovers of the forest want. In this form it will limit all power development and contain the cutting of all trees along the waterways, leaving a 400-foot level.

All ardent Waltonians and those who want to see the Superior Forest kept in its natural condition should get behind it now. Local interests in this region think that the bill will stifle all industrial expansion and development. True, it will prevent wholesale slaughter of the timber of the area, and that is as it should be. What the lumber companies oppose is the idea that they cannot go ahead and make a wholesale slashing like they used to in the old days. Granted, the companies should have a right to keep going. There are a number of other areas out west, for instance, that can be secured, but only one lake region such as we have here.

It is the old battle once more. Shall the wilderness, the last of its kind on the continent, go the way of most of our other wild places? It will in twenty years look like any other logged-over area, [despite] promises of the Forest Service to observe cutting laws and shorelines. And where will be the charm of the country once the axe of the lumber jack has gone in there? The service claims that it can improve certain areas, that by cleaning up some places that the looks of the country will be improved. Whoever heard of improving on Nature? A dead stem in place is beautiful, so is a windfall-tangled shoreline. No one can improve on nature. The power companies claim the same thing, that by cleaning up the shorelines they will make a hitherto sterile area look like a park. Who wants the wilderness to look like a park? Its chief charm will be gone.

And now comes notice of the sale of 56,000 acres of the Superior National Forest known as the Kawishiwi working circle, the cut to last ten years, when another cut will be sold, and so on until the entire forest has been cut over. A pretty prospect for the Superior National. In fifty years nothing left of the beautiful stand. The forest should be considered as important to the Middle West as the Yellowstone is to the West, and time will prove the correctness of this prophecy. By that time a few fortunes will have been built up, and the American people will be the losers. It is time a halt was called and the last great wilderness that we have was at least seriously considered saving.

Every great area of its kind is waging the same battle. The Yellowstone is now having one of its greatest fights. The only force in the United States that can put the Superior National where it belongs as a national park and forever inviolate is the Izaak Walton League. Now is the time to declare ourselves and get the mass of public opinion behind us. The Superior National Forest must be saved.