“The local battles of the Superior National roadless area go merrily on. Those of you who haven’t seen this area should visit it. There’s nothing like it, and all the effort that has gone into preserving its primitive character, and will still be required, is more than justified.”

–Galen Pike, in a 1954 Christmas letter to friends and family shortly before his death

SUPERIOR NATIONAL FOREST – Wildfire and rescue missions are expected hazards of working in a national forest. Yet, a pair of protagonists involved in assembling today’s uninterrupted expanse of Boundary Waters paid an unexpected price. They strived toward an ideal that valued preserving a roadless fragment on the edge of the nation and a living memory of vanished American wilds.

Galen Pike endured 10 tumultuous years as the Superior National Forest supervisor. He repeatedly implemented controversial management practices that would maintain, and even reclaim, the primeval state of the Boundary Waters. Pike had recently enforced an airplane ban over the border lakes that enraged a pair of resort owners. To access their backcountry resorts, they illegally bulldozed a road through the roadless area (a precursor to federal wilderness), threatened Pike’s rangers with violence, and followed up by suing Pike.