To Ray Harmon, April 9, 1935

This is one of Sigurd's early wilderness-related letters, in which he continues a running disagreement with Superior National Forest Supervisor Ray Harmon.

Dear Ray:

Your letter of the 4th is received.

No, I didn't receive a "bum steer" as you intimated regarding my understanding of primitive area restrictions. I have been watching Forest Service policies and thinking Forest Service terminology for so many years, that I think I've mastered it. As you perhaps remember, when you were in the office here, we discussed the pros and cons of this thing time and again at Commercial Club and Izaak Walton League meetings. It doesn't make a particle of difference where the idea of primitive areas originated just so the end result is the same.

You and I can never agree, it seems, on the definition of primitive areas. Your last paragraph in which you say "everything we do is with the idea in mind of maintaining the wilderness area and yet utilizing the product as much as possible," is exactly where you and I do not hitch and it is precisely on that point where I have my quarrel with Forest Service Policy regarding the canoe areas proper. I shall always maintain that a true wilderness never can be tampered with or improved if it is to retain its character and that applies even within absolutely restricted areas to portage and camp site improvement beyond the bounds of bare necessity. The idea of multiple use can work splendidly in some parts of the Superior, but not where it touches vitally country that some day and not in the very far future is destined to have as its "highest land use" recreation and that solely.

There is a group of men in Washington organized recently as "The Wilderness Society" including names high in conservation circles, men who strangely enough hold the same identical viewpoint as I do and realize that it is time to revise some of the old policies where those policies in the light of modern public tendencies seem no longer to be generally applicable, so don't think I stand alone and am entirely cracked.

I sincerely hope Oberholzer's Quetico-Superior Program goes through so both areas can receive a uniform treatment. You are perhaps aware of the state's objection to the federal acquisition of Grand Portage and Kabetogama areas. It may interest you to know that I have refused to write two different articles on the preservation of wilderness areas and have been instrumental in withholding from publication several others written by different individuals for fear they might be grasped by the state as arguments for non-acquisition by the federal government. I hope that the Forest Service will succeed in taking over these two blocks which will unify the entire area and make it possible to complete treaty negotiations with Canada.