To Ernest Oberholtzer, April 23, 1935

Excerpt from a letter in which Sigurd says that the law preventing logging near shorelines in the canoe country does not go far enough, because the Forest Service is sawing blowdowns and beaver-felled trees and installing temporary dams, all in the name of "improvements." Sigurd argues that any form of logging is incompatible with wilderness, a position that went beyond Oberholtzer's ideas of wilderness management.

One other note: In the final paragraph quoted below Sigurd includes himself among those labeled "fanatics." During this stage of his life, Sigurd often was a thorn in the side of Superior National Forest officials, not only publicly disagreeing with their management of the canoe country, but in a style that was undiplomatic and self-righteous. He gradually learned how to hold true to his ideals without being an idealogue, a lesson that made him extremely effective as a national leader in wilderness preservation.

...There is nothing we can do to prevent the work of the Forest Service outside of the regions that are of no great recreational value. There they can do some good, but why in the name of all creation they must go ahead and trim up every single stand in the heart of the canoe country, is to me indicative of unforgivable shortsightedness and willful neglect of the trends of public opinion.

....I understand there will be several thousand new men (Art Russell told me last night 13,000 for the Superior [National Forest] and 600 new trucks) which will mean of course the establishment of new camps. I know that a number of camps will be put in the La Croix area to work on timber stand improvement. I venture to say that their ideal is to, if it is humanly possible while the money holds out, to trim up the biggest part of the region. Of course they are doing this in all good faith, working on their frayed premise that timber use and the wilderness idea can go hand in hand. They hold as their excuse, and justifiably so, the Shipstead Nolan Bill [which forbade logging near shorelines], and we can have no quarrel with them there, but I believe sincerely that the time has come when the Shipstead Nolan Bill will have to merit a more restrictive interpretation. It has been a tremendous safeguard but as applied to the cream of the canoe country it is not enough....

What [Superior National Forest district ranger Grant Tinker] says about clearing up the blow downs is true enough. That work is O.K. except where they clean up shorelines too effectively as was done in some places along the Insula route. What he also says about the effect of beaver is also perhaps true to a limited extent. But work of the nature he plans, the installing of temporary dams must be considered carefully before it is done. Such work is in the same category with over-improvement of portages such as has been done along the Kawishiwi, [or] improvement of camp sites such as is contemplated for Crooked Lake and La Croix. Improvement, improvement, the word dins in my ears. It most assuredly sounds the death knell of real wilderness. What such men as Tinker and [Forest Supervisor Ray] Harmon do not possess is an understanding and love for untouched wild places. They think they understand, and believe perhaps that they are doing the right thing, but as I go along in this never-ending battle, I am coming to the conclusion that the great difference in point of view is entirely dependent upon one's inherent feeling for wilderness conditions. One who has not this in his makeup can never quite understand the desperate fanaticism of those who do....