Back to the future for the Boundary Waters 

As luck would have it, I would later spend my summers during college working for the Superior National Forest in the Boundary Waters, swatting mosquitoes, digging latrines, clearing portage trails and going on week-long canoe patrols in America’s most visited wilderness area. It was hard, physical work and long, exhausting days. But twilight lingers in the north country, leaving time most evenings to live out my childhood dreams catching scores of wilderness bass, just as Jerry and Bobby had done.

A promise to the future 

Having spent decades guiding sportsmen and women in northern Minnesota’s canoe country, Olson knew these lands and waters as well as anyone, capturing his adventures and reflections in Listening Point, The Singing Wilderness and other required reading for outdoor enthusiasts.  

Olson also studied geology in graduate school and knew well the need for minerals and mining’s benefits to society. In 1969, he wrote this about mineral exploration occurring near the Boundary Waters area, saying, 

“The world needs metals and men need work, but they also must have wilderness and beauty, and in the years to come will need it even more.” 

A dangerous precedent 

Today, these words continue to ring true as the U.S. Senate considers a vote to revoke a 20-year mineral withdrawal established to prevent sulfide-ore copper mining upstream of the wilderness area. The vote comes in the form of something called the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a rarely used legislative maneuver used to overturn rules promulgated by the executive branch. Never before has a mineral withdrawal such as this been considered a “rule” subject to the CRA, setting a dangerous precedent that would undermine mineral withdrawals and other public land orders throughout the country.  

Hunters and anglers know just how important critical minerals are and that domestic mining is necessary to help meet supply chain challenges (see report Critical Minerals: A Hunting and Fishing Perspective). We also know all too well the impacts of irresponsible mining. A 2018 report by Montana Trout Unlimited found that water quality predictions for 11 of Montana’s 12 major, modern hardrock mines were wrong, leading to major pollution problems that contaminated drinking water and destroyed fish and wildlife habitat.  

This is the reality of mining: mistakes can happen. As noted by the U.S. Forest Service in the water and aquatic species report included in the environmental analysis prepared for the Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal, “Hardrock mines are large industrial facilities that handle large volumes of hazardous and toxic materials that inevitably experience some accidents and failures with varying circumstances, locations, magnitudes.” 

Not a place for dish washing nor mining 

When I worked for the Forest Service in the Boundary Waters, part of the job for wilderness rangers included talking to campers about ‘leave no trace’ camping etiquette, including avoiding washing dishes in the lakes. This is an area so pristine that simply doing dishes in the lake could upset the delicate ecosystem and taint water supplies. And now, the U.S. Senate is considering if this same watershed is appropriate for mining.  

Certainly, there are locations where risk calculations support the construction of mines that, in Olson’s words, provides the jobs and minerals society needs.  

The Boundary Waters is not one of these places.