November 1957: Getting the Quetico-Superior Committee on Board

In the spring of 1957, conservationists for and against the creation of a national wilderness preservation system began a new round of debate in Congress. The summer and fall of 1957 became very difficult for Sigurd in his hometown, where most residents strongly opposed the idea, fearing it would destroy the local economy and take away their freedom to use the wilderness they loved in the ways they had used it for decades. In September 1957 Sigurd proposed changes to the July 22 draft of the wilderness bill that would make clear that the bill was not eliminating outboard motors or proposing an expansion of the size of the canoe country wilderness. (At the time, this wilderness, known today as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, was called the Superior Roadless Areas.) . To see those changes, read Working on the Wilderness Bill.

The proposed new language in the bill was essential to a successful public meeting in Ely that became the turning point of the campaign in northern Minnesota. (For more details on that, read this set of correspondence.) And as the correspondence below shows, it was also essential to gain the support of the President's Quetico-Superior Committee, an advisory group established in 1934 by President Franklin Roosevelt to work toward a treaty with Canada for managing the Rainy Lake watershed and preserving the canoe country wilderness. Other correspondence (see here and here) shows the reservation of the QSC's leaders. If they had publicly opposed the bill, the bad publicity that would have resulted would have made it very hard for the bill's advocates.

For more complete background, read Sigurd Olson and the Wilderness Act: 1956 and 1957.

November 1, 1957

The Honorable Hubert Humphrey
Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Dear Senator Humphrey:

This responds to your invitation to the Committee for the Quetico-Superior area appointed by the President to comment concerning the Wilderness Bill now pending in Congress of which you are a co-author. Our Committee has been meeting today and this letter has received its approval.

This Committee is non-partisan in character and it considers the Wilderness Bill to be non-partisan also. Further, this Committee was created solely to deal with questions related to areas in Minnesota to which the Quetico-Superior program applies. We have no competence to comment on any feature of your Bill except as it relates to this area. Finally, two members of this Committee are appointed by the Secretaries of Agriculture and of the Interior, each of which Departments have taken a public position on your Bill. Any comment by this Committee must take that situation into account.

We whole heartedly endorse the objective implicit in the Wilderness Bill that the Congress should declare a national policiy in favor of wilderness preservation for the public benefit. Definite public advantage will accrue from the support which public administrators would receive from such a declaration of policy in resisting the efforts of those who seek to explit wilderness areas for private benefit.

The wilderness character of the canoeing waters of Minnesota have been successively subjected to the threat of destruction by flooding, by the building of roads into the interior of the wilderness, by the use of airplanes flying into the interior of the wilderness, and by resorts built on private lands located in the interior wilderness lakes. As each threat developed, a regulation to prevent that damage has been worked out. In most cases this has involved a pioneer effort. These protective measures have included the enactment of the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act to prevent flooding and to insure the protection of shore lines and the creation by the Executive Order of the Secretary of Agriculture of roadless areas which included the wilderness zones of Superior National Forest. The airplane threat was disposed of by the Presidential Order creating an air space over the roadless zone. The threat posed by private lands located on the interior of the wilderness is being met by a purchase program. The appropriation of funds for this purpose has been authorized by Congress and we are indebted to you for your active help in this. There is enclosed a copy of our latest report to the President. In the center is a chronology of important events relating to the preservation of this wilderness area which enlarges upon the foregoing.

The provision of your Bill as originally drafted providing for a Wilderness Preservation Council could reduce the existing administrative flexibility in solving new problems affecting wilderness preservation. Such a result would be most unfortunate. We suggest that it might be desirable to confine the functions of such a Council to exchange of information and experience and the preparation of recommendations aimed at improving the plan of administration for the preservation of the wilderness and possibly to being custodian of records identifying areas in the various departments which are classified as wilderness areas.

Of necessity the language of your Bill must provide for general principles which would be applicable through the United States. A conscious effort has been made to minimize the conflict between these general principles and the more precise, tailor-made regulations which have been worked out for the wilderness areas in Minnesota. Nevertheless as your Bill is first drafted, exceptions like that contained in the last sentence of paragraph 3(c)(1) declares that such exceptions constitute used which do not conform to the principles of your Bill. This type of declaration has threatened to alienate the support of important groups who have actively endorsed the Quetico-Superior program. Wherever an exception is created great care should be used to make clear that the exception is not in conflict with the principles of the act.

Finally, we suggest that those conservation groups who have actively supported the first draft of your Bill and representatives of the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior be urged to go as far as possible in achieving agreement among themselves on amendments which they could all support. By that means we believe that most and probably all of the suggestions and reservations expressed in this letter would be dealt with.

I will gladly respond to any further inquiries concerning ideas expressed in this letter. We are anxious not to express any ideas which would tend to discourage you in supporting enactment of legislation designed to bring about wilderness preservation in the public interest.

Sincerely yours,
Charles S. Kelly

Howard Zahniser to Sigurd Olson, November 20, 1957

November 20, 1957

Mr. Sigurd F. Olson
Ely,
Minnesota

Dear Sig:

Here is another temporary working copy of the Wilderness Bill, incorporating all the recently suggested changes which have survived review checks so far.

I wish you would take a look at it on receipt, if this is not asking too much, and let me have a copy just as soon as possible, or comment by telephone or wire.

The paragraph (3) at the top of page 7 is just about as suggested by Charlie Kelly of the President's Committee, as you know, plus the insertion about the motor boats, which, as I understand, Senator Humphrey considers necessary.

Howard Zahniser to Howard Haugerud, November 22, 1957