Why is Wilderness so Important?
Here in Ely, Minnesota, our backyard is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. In conjunction with Quetico Provencial Park in Canada this beautiful area is home to over 2000 lakes connected by rivers and portages that are only accessible to paddlers. It is still one of the most pristine places you can travel to and camp in. It is still one of the few places on earth where you can find water pure enough for drinking in the wild.
It is home to countless ecosystems, the biodiversity of swamps, bogs, streams, watersheds, wetlands, rivers, and lakes. It is home to the Timberwolf, Moose, Common Loon, American Bald Eagle, Beaver, Muskrat, Otter, Pine Martin, Red Squirrel, Fisher, Fox, and many more of our animal brothers. These cold northern waters provide sport and food with their vast variety of fish from the legendary Lake Trout and Northern Pike to the coveted Walleye and the spirited Bass. Panfish and Sunnies are the delight of children and adults alike. The songs of birds both seen and unseen create a symphony like none other as you walk paths taken by Native Americans a centuries past.
It is a paradise away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. It is a place to escape and get closer to things bigger than yourself. It is without a doubt the best medicine for stress relief and one of the most fantastic places you can introduce children too at a young age.
The Boundary Waters is protected and yet accessible. It is set apart and special, but everyone can visit this beautiful country.
It is both our sanity and the object of our affection.
To discover more about the legal definitions of Wilderness and do your part in Wilderness Preservation please take some time to return to this page and follow some internet portages to the Wilderness Society:
The National Wilderness Preservation System was created on September 3, 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed The Wilderness Act -- eight years after the first wilderness bill was introduced by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. The final bill passed the Senate, 73-12, on April 9, 1963, and the House of Representatives, 373-1, on July 30, 1964.
The original bill established 9.1 million acres of federally protected wilderness in national forests. The law did not increase the amount of land under federal control, nor did it mandate acquisition of additional lands.
Read the Wilderness Act.
From THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY website:
Click here for more great information and to join:
http://wilderness.org/about-usSomething will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed."
- Excerpt from The Wilderness Letter, Wallace Stegner, author and former Wilderness Society Governing Council member
Wilderness offers people solitude, inspiration, natural quiet, a place to get away. At the same time, designated wilderness protects biodiversity, the web of life.
Of 261 basic ecosystem types in the U.S., 157 are represented in the wilderness system. Without these large, complex areas of preserved landscape, species protection would be virtually impossible and our understanding of how natural systems work would be reduced to childish speculation.
Designated wilderness protects ecological values vital to all of us:
- Wilderness areas protect watersheds that provide drinking water to many cities and rural communities.
- Wilderness serves as critical habitat for wildlife threatened by extinction.
- Wilderness helps filter and improve the quality of our air.
- Wilderness areas maintain gene pools that help to protect biodiversity -- the "web of life," and provide natural laboratories for research.
- Wilderness helps meet the nation's increasing demand for outdoor recreation: hiking, hunting, fishing, bird watching, canoeing, camping, and many other activities.
- Wilderness is a haven from the pressures of our fast-paced, industrialized society, providing places where we can seek relief from the noise, haste, and crowds that too often confine us.
Contact us for more information about canoe trip outfitting and to begin planning your next canoe trip today: 1-800-223-6565
Drew Brockett or
Adam Macht