The dummy hanging by its neck from the boom of a logging truck probably was reason enough for Sigurd Olson to turn around and go home.
It was July 8, 1977, and tensions in northeastern Minnesota had reached a fever pitch over a proposal to carve out the Boundary Waters as a national wilderness area, cut off from motorboats, snowmobiles and logging and mining industries. Environmentalists like Olson wanted it preserved, but many loggers and boaters worried the proposal would choke out their livelihood.
Olson was in Ely for a field hearing on the proposal, where more than 1,000 people packed into an auditorium. He had become a poster child for the effort to preserve the Boundary Waters, and his name was pinned on the lynched dummy’s shirt, along with that of Miron “Bud” Heinselman, another well-known environmentalist.
As he stepped up to the podium to testify, the auditorium erupted in yells and boos. The jeers went on for minutes, despite calls from then-U.S. Rep. Bruce Vento for the crowd to quiet. At one point during the yelling, Vento asked an aide if there was a way out of the auditorium in case the crowd turned into a mob.
Eventually, the audience quieted, and Olson delivered a brief statement.
“Some places should be preserved from development or exploitation for they satisfy a human need for solace, belonging and perspective. In the end we turn to nature in a frenzied chaotic world, there to find silence, oneness, wholeness, spiritual release,” Olson concluded. “Please make this statement a part of the record.”
The preservation of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness still is considered one of the most significant conservation acts in state history.
Today, the clash is frequently cited by Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton as his administration grapples with whether to grant PolyMet Mining a permit for a proposed copper-nickel mine near Hoyt Lakes. Like the 1970s Boundary Waters fight, the project has sharply divided a region desperate for jobs and environmentalists who worry the mine, situated near the Boundary Waters, could destroy the same wilderness they fought to preserve.
Dayton, who was just beginning his political career during the controversy, has said his agency’s decision on PolyMet could be “all that and worse,” likely resulting in years of litigation and political fallout. “This will be the most momentous, difficult and controversial decision I'll make as governor.”
U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey helped ignite the national debate about preserving the wild.
In 1956, Humphrey introduced the first version of what would become the Wilderness Act. After eight years and 66 rewrites, the final version of the act directed the secretary of the interior to review every roadless area of 5,000 or more acres within the National Wildlife Refuge and National Park Systems.
The act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but the exceptions for motorboats and industry carved out in the bill touched off years of debates in northeastern Minnesota.
In 1976, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar tried to resolve the ongoing disputes over the Boundary Waters by introducing a bill to create a 600,000-acre wilderness with no logging or motors and a nearly 400,000-acre recreation area. Environmentalists enlisted U.S. Rep. Don Fraser of Minneapolis to introduce a competing bill to eliminate all recreation, logging and mining from the Boundary Waters.
The move pitted Democrats against Democrats and let loose long simmering tensions in the area.
Intense lobbying went on in Minnesota and in Washington, D.C., and editorials on both sides of the issue appeared in national publications.
In order to resolve differences between the two bills, a U.S. House subcommittee held two field hearings in Minnesota in July of 1977. The first took place in St. Paul in a state Capitol hearing room, which was filled to capacity.
The second hearing in Ely, where Olson and others were hung in effigy, is still talked about in the community today.
“Many threats have plagued the area over the years, road programs, power dams, airplane and fly-in resort developments, the acquisition of private land, logging and mining and I realize now that had any of these issues been lost there would be no wilderness in the BWCA today,” Olson testified.
Debate on the two bills deadlocked, so a new proposal was drafted, this time sponsored by California Rep. Phillip Burton and Vento, a Democrat representing the St. Paul area. This version called for complete elimination of logging from the wilderness area, with some motor use. It took negotiations between Ely City Attorney Ron Walls and environmental attorney Chuck Dayton to reach a final deal, which eliminated logging and snowmobiling, restricted mining, and allowed motorboats on only one-fourth of the water area.
The bill was signed on Oct. 21, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter, but hard feelings lingered long after the ink dried.
And even before the bill was signed, the fight had political ramifications. In the 1978 election, Fraser attempted to move from the U.S. House into the Senate. He won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s endorsement, but he had a well-financed primary opponent in Bob Short, a businessman who had owned several sports teams.
Short eked out a narrow primary victory before Republican David Durenberger won the general election.
Today, some Democrats worry about a similar political blowback from PolyMet. Last fall, Republican candidates - including gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson and congressional candidate Stewart Mills - tried to make inroads in the 8th District by declaring their support for mining.
Those arguments didn’t go far, though. Johnson and Mills both failed to take out incumbent Democrats last fall. And while Republicans in the Legislature made inroads in rural Minnesota, most of their victories weren’t in northeastern Minnesota.
In one intra-party battle, well-funded Democrat Matt Entenza tried to defeat incumbent DFL State Auditor Rebecca Otto, partially by criticizing her in the 8th District over a vote against approving several mine leases. Otto decisively defeated Entenza.
“In political terms, the [Iron] Range doesn’t have the influence that it had in 1978,” said Nathanson, who pointed out that the population is dwindling in old mining towns. “If PolyMet is not permitted, quite a few people up on the Range are going to be very upset. But there are relatively few number of jobs that are being proposed.”
PolyMet says the new copper-nickel mine would create several hundred jobs in the area, but environmentalists worry that the toxins created in the process could spill into nearby watersheds and linger for hundreds of years.
For Dayton, the comparison with the 1970s boils down to emotion. He regularly recalls the arguments surrounding the creation of the BWCA and the firm convictions on both sides of the issue.
He feels those same emotions surrounding PolyMet.
“I’ve seen the kind of extreme passions it arouses,” Dayton said. “If it’s not approved, the folks who are advocates will be pushing for it. And if it is approved, those who are opposed to it are going to take it to court and do everything they can to defeat it. It’s going to be with us for at least the next several years.”
This story is from MinnPost.com, a Twin Cities-based online newspaper
