This July 4th called to mind a short camping trip my wife, Peg, and I enjoyed at Trails End campground at the end of the Gunflint Trail a few years ago. Here we enjoyed great weather, cool temps and constant breezes each day, just what a camper longs for in the great outdoors.
Thick foliage and mature red and white pines, birch and poplar trees constantly moving in the ever-active wind framed our campsite. Bird songs, red squirrels and chipmunks added their presence to our little enclave, and we found the comfort we longed for. We had no schedule but enjoyed the peace and quiet, allowing us to observe, think, and read at length.
Behind our site was a large, raised rock shelf covered with lichen and mosses, twigs and grasses, important natural elements for further growth to come. We sat on this some-what flat rock and surveyed our campsite and the woods around us. When we first sat there I noticed grooves across the rock face, striations caused by the grinding forces of glaciers over 10,000 years ago. These parallel grooves, facing northeast, testified to the power of glacial movement as well as the impact the glacier had in shaping the world we know today in North America.
During one of our daily walks in the campground, we watched a group of young men unload their canoes from a trip into the BWCAW. Their gear was handled quickly and no doubt they had visions of a hot shower and a good meal in mind as they went about their tasks. What disturbed me, however, was the blaring sound of rock music coming from their portable radio.
I wondered what could they have heard in the wilderness after all? Can it be that to many the wilderness or remote natural areas far removed from everyday life are just something to experience on occasion but are really not essential overall in the greater scheme of things? Do we ask ourselves why we need these natural areas and why they are important to our way of life? Have we fully grasped what these natural areas offer us?
This was a constant thought as we considered the priceless natural treasures surrounding us. And now, with the impact of what can be called a “perfect storm” pitting global economics against our natural resources, we come to a place and time in our lives where we must again decide on what to preserve or give up for the common good. Such a struggle is not new in America or in Minnesota.
Many years ago, I discovered a cartoon by Bill Mauldin, produced in 1966 and printed in the Chicago Sun-Times. In the cartoon, a businessman stands on a bridge connecting two industrial buildings. His arm is around a young boy, presumably his son. The scene is one of ugly environmental damage with smokestacks billowing black smoke, pipes discharging industrial waste into a stream, dead trees and birds, and fish skeletons floating down the stream. The man is saying…” Some day my boy, all this will be yours”. The small boy’s expression is notably one of considerable skepticism.
This image has stayed with me over the years, and the cartoon, now framed, hangs in my den as a constant reminder of the environmental challenges still facing our nation today. According to the Trust for Public Land (TPL)…”Every minute, America loses over three acres of forests, farms, historic sites, meadows and woods. That adds up to more than 4,000 acres a day, almost 1.5 million acres each year.”
Unfortunately for northeastern Minnesota, the growing calls for the exploration and mining of precious metals keyed to the growing international demand for these materials appears destined to add to the loss of our limited natural resources and especially threatens the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Fortunately, however, increasing public interest is being given to the total acres of Minnesota’s northern forests and wetlands to be destroyed if a precious metals mine is allowed to begin operations.
Near our campsite was a tall and stately mature red pine that plays host to a large nest occupied each year by a pair of bald eagles. While the pine and the eagle’s nest are profoundly important in their own right, this natural alliance speaks clearly to the need to preserve such treasures for generations of Americans to come. Will we allow our children and their children to be dismayed by false hopes because we have failed to protect what we know is critical to our, and their, survival?
The issues of politics, economic interests, employment and development are, like the glaciers that shaped our region, extremely influential, constantly moving and dramatically changing the landscape. Each of us must again ask: Can we preserve the remaining vestiges of what makes Minnesota a unique place to live and visit? What type of heritage can or should we celebrate? I believe it matters to the eagles, and it should definitely matter to all of us.
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