Reprinted front the November 22, 1943 issue of THE NEW REPUBLIC 
 
 
4 
 
 
            A Communication 
 
 
 The Quetico-Superior Forest 
 S iR: Like the lakes of Finland, the northern border of 
     Minnesota combines beauty and tradition. Its cool 
 waterways extend far across the international boundary, 
 linking the United States and Canada in a maze of more 
 than 15,000 connected lakes. Along this route beyond 
 Lake Superior passed the early exploration and fur trade 
 of the Northwest, first up the Pigeon River for 40 miles and 
 then across a narrow divide into the vast Rainy Lake water- 
 shed that drains westward to Lake Winnipeg and thence to 
 Hudson Bay. No wonder that the Webster-Ashburton 
 treaty, more than a century ago, guaranteed the border 
 waters and their well worn portages to the free use of the 
 peoples of both countries, for this historic lakeland is blessed 
 with what Thoreau calls "the tonic of the wilderness." 
   As a measure of protection for the fast-vanishing timber 
and game, President Theodore Roosevelt in the spiing of 
1909 proclaimed Superior National Forest among the scat- 
tered federal lands on the Minnesota side of this region. 
Ontario responded by setting aside a solid block called Que- 
tico Provincial Park. Each tract was about a million acres. 
   It became more and more evident, however, that these 
outposts of conservation, covering only about one-fifth of 
the area, were inadequate. The delicate balance of nature 
was far too interdependent to survive partial protection and 
partial exploitation. Waste or defilement rapidly engulfed 
both. Timber slashing was followed by fires. Fires spread 
from the logged to the unlogged country. Dams were part 
of the logging, both for transportation and power. Dams 
not only swamped beaches, islands, rapids, waterfalls and 
wooded shores on the lakes directly affected, but upset the 
water levels on all the lakes below. Plant and animal life 
and even the fish suffered from these violent changes. 
   If anything of public value was to survive, some public 
plan for the area as a whole became indispensable. It was 
proposed therefore to extend the existing forest preserves 
on each side of the boundary to include the balance of the 
border lakeland, exclusive of lands better suited for agri- 
culture or industry. So far as possible, a single continuous 
forest would be established, reaching along the boundary 
from Rainy Lake east to Lake Superior and encompassing 
the border waters and their tributaries in both countries. 
   Without giving up sovereignty, both countries would 
agree by treaty to apply certain simple principles of con- 
servation. Lakes and streams, with all their natural fea- 
tures, would be held inviolate for the health and enjoyment 
of the public. Timber, game, fish and fur-bearers would be 
handled for maximum natural production and for regu- 
lated use on a yield basis. Natural resources, including the 
intangrible esthetic values, would be guarded against waste, 
unsightliness and depletion; and the heart of the area 
would be kept, so far as practicable, a wilderness sanctuary. 
   This so-called Quetico-Superior program was first ap- 
proved by Secretary of Agriculture Jardine in 1927. In 
 
 
1930, Congress, after a spectacular fight, passed the Ship- 
stead-Nolan bill, forbidding further dams and laying down 
a recreational policy in the Minnesota portion of the area. 
In 1934 President Roosevelt created a special five-man 
Quetico-Superior Committee, serving without compensation 
and charged with the duty of facilitating the project. 
   From the start, however, the project has been opposed by 
powerful Minnesota timber companies, all of them inter- 
ested in water power as well as timber. State officials, too, 
have repeatedly acted to obstruct the program. About ten 
years ago the Minnesota Department of Conservation 
blocked purchase by the United States Forest Service of 
vital private lands and thus held up for at least ten years 
the completion of Superior National Forest, which is the 
indispensable agency of public control on the Minnesota side. 
   Recently state officials have resumed their opposition in 
much bolder form under the plea of "states' rights." Gov- 
ernor Stassen first refused consent to a large federal pur- 
chase of private lands in the Kabetogama Purchase Unit 
of Superior National Forest, where the Forest Service has 
been operating with full state authority since 1936. His 
newly appointed Commissioner of Conservation refers to the 
purchase program for this purpose as a "mess of pottage" 
and appoints as his deputy the former commissioner, who 
was dismissed at the time of his previous obstruction of the 
Quetico-Superior program. 
   Moreover, these officials sponsored and passed in the 
 1943 session of the legislature two measures, which place 
 in their hands the power to block completion of Superior 
 National Forest, if not to disrupt what has already been 
 accomplished. The first measure reEstablishes, at opposite 
ends of Superior National Forest, where federal ownership 
is not yet complete, two conflicting state forests. The sec- 
ond requires the consent of a three-man Land Commis- 
sion, headed by the Governor, for federal purchases in any 
part of the Forest except within the "original" boundaries. 
   The choice in the border area of Minnesota is really not 
between federal forests and state but between federal for- 
ests and none. The private lands, which are the crux of 
the problem, are left wide open to waste. The state has no 
funds either to acquire or to develop them. The result-is to 
block the one logical and effective agency that can handle 
them and to play directly into the hands of selfish interests. 
As Dr.W. S. Cooper of the University of Minnesota Botany 
Department put it in a letter to Governor Stassen: "If, as 
I understand, you favor the two bills here discussed, I can- 
not avoid the unwelcome feeling that you are holding an 
isolationist attitude as far as the state is concerned and are in 
opposition to the broad policy of administering the resources 
of the nation for the benefit of the nation as a whole." 
   It seems unfortunate that state officials should have 
chosen to reverse state policies while the young men of 
the state and nation are away at war. It hardly seems the 
time to foreclose, or even impair in the slightest, their 
recreational future by damping fetters upon Superior Na- 
tional Forest. Surely the Quetico-Superior program, either 
as conservation or as a peace venture with a friendly neigh- 
bor, calls not for obstruction but for hearty collaboration. 
Minwatolis, Minn.              ERNEST C. OBERHOLTZER