MINNESOTA – It’s not just here. It’s beyond the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it,” said President Lyndon B. Johnson as he signed The Wilderness Act.

That signing took place Sept. 3, 1964.

Sixty years later, we can look to places like the BWCA and other wilderness areas across the country and observe some of the finest paddling destinations are indeed protected by this landmark conservation bill. The South Fork of the Flathead in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. The Salmon in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Closer to Minnesota, there’s the Sylvania Wilderness in Michigan. The list goes on.

The Wilderness Act created what’s known as “the National Wilderness Preservation System.” The bill placed more than 50 areas into the “system.” The BWCA was among those in the initial placement. These days, the National Wilderness Preservation System is a network of over 111 million acres – more area than the state of California – of public land comprised of more than 800 wilderness areas administered for the American people by the federal government, according to the U.S. Forest Service. As of this month, there are wilderness areas in 44 states.

A list of Minnesotans were involved in shaping and eventually drafting the landmark policy. Among them are Ernest Oberholtzer, Sigurd Olson, Hubert Humphrey, and Orville Freeman. These towering figures in conservation helped protect areas like the BWCA and other paddling destinations across the country.

That said, wilderness designations and the concept of keeping public land set aside from development, mining, logging, and other types of extraction are not without critics. Non-motorized use agitates some user groups. Tribal nations will speak of restricted “access” for band members in terms of usufructuary rights. Indeed, wilderness and the notion of “protection” for some means limitations to others.

Paddle and Portage will be featuring more on the Wilderness Act of 1964 in the September issue of the magazine. 

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