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Update

Location: [Sunday Lake, Home] Update

The Forest Service has begun accepting bids for commercial portage services at Trout and Prairie Portage. This action was authorized by the recent amendment to transportation bill last year. While the Forest Service announced they would consider non-motorized proposals, all proposals received were for motorized operations. Operations will begin next spring. The result of over two years of legislation, mediation and strife will be that motorized portages will return to two of three portages, the motor restrictions on portions of Seagull Lake will take effect as scheduled in 1999 and two lakes Canoe and Alder will be closed to motor traffic.

While there is likely to be a period of relative calm. Wilderness protection for this area has been debated since the late 1950's and provisions of the 1978 BWCA Wilderness Act remain controversial today. Proponents of increased wilderness protection and proponents of motorized access have active memberships, associations and organizational structures in response to this latest round of legislative activity. I don't anticipate they will sit idle for long. We can only hope that in the next round activists will maintain their objectivity and willingness to debate the real issues of managing the most heavily used wilderness ecosystem in the system.

Last years statistics (1997) report 27,319 overnight groups entered the Boundary Waters Wilderness. The most heavily used entry point was Moose Lake, followed by Lake One, Sawbill, Saganaga, Fall, Seagull and Snowbank.

The Forest Service is in the process of revising the management plan for the Superior National Forest likely to be approved in 1999 or 2000. The plan will guide the management of the forest for recreation and timber. The Audubon Society and the Sierra club have both submitted plans that would establish a "buffer zone" around the BWCA Wilderness.

Comments may be sent to:

Mr. Duane Lula
Planning Team Leader
Superior National Forest
8901 Grand Avenue Place
Duluth, MN. 55808

The Friends of Quetico Park are preparing "The Plants of Quetico and the Ontario Shield" by Shan Walshe for reprinting. The Illustrated History of Quetico Park by Shirley Peruniak is expected to be available some time this year. I will try to have both of these books available in the bookstore. Http://www.sundaylake.com/books.htm

The Friends of Quetico Park may be contacted at box 1959, Atikokan Ontario P0T ICO

Comments to Forest Due January 15, 1999
from the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness

The Superior National Forest released an Environmental Assessment (EA) for public comment shortly before Christmas on Prairie and Trout Portages within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) of northeastern Minnesota, the most heavily visited unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The EA analyzes whether the Forest Plan should be amended to allow trucks and jeeps to haul boats across the two portage trails inside the wilderness. Your comments are needed to prevent this unnecessary motorized intrusion.

BACKGROUND:

In June 1998, Congress passed an unrelated rider to the federal transportation bill (ISTEA) that directs the U.S. Forest Service to consider the use of motorized vehicles to transport motorboats across the two portage trails. THE AMENDMENT, HOWEVER, DOES *NOT* REQUIRE OR MANDATE MOTOR VEHICLES.

Neither motorized means nor a commercial concessionaire are needed within the wilderness at these two sites. Hundreds of motorboat parties cross each year over Trout Portage without motorized means or a concessionaire; thousands of parties have crossed Prairie Portage in recent years with a non-motorized concessionaire. In 1997, for example, a combined total of 902 day-use and overnight motorboat parties crossed Trout Portage; at Prairie Portage that year, 1,503 day-use motorboat parties (more than 100% of the legal quota) successfully crossed without motorized means.

POINTS TO MAKE:

1. THE FOREST PLAN SHOULD *NOT* BE AMENDED TO ALLOW MOTORIZED USE. The new amendment does NOT require motor vehicles, motorized uses are inconsistent with wilderness, and the Forest Service should not unnecessarily degrade wilderness by allowing motorized uses.

2. NO NEED EXISTS FOR MOTORIZED USES. Hundreds of motorboat parties cross the portages each year now without trucks or jeeps. These boats will continue to cross the portages without motor vehicles. The EA fails to analyze this need, or lack of need.

3. NO NEED EXISTS FOR COMMERCIAL CONCESSIONAIRES. Commercial concessions are inconsistent with the 1964 Wilderness Act. No concessionaire has operated at Trout Portage in recent years, and hundreds of parties still successfully cross the portage each year. The same would happen at Prairie Portage. The EA also fails to analyze the need, or lack thereof, for commercial concessionaires.

EMAIL, FAX, OR WRITE, INCLUDE YOUR ADDRESS, BEFORE JANUARY 15 TO:

Forest Supervisor James Sanders -- Attention: Portages
Superior National Forest
8901 Grand Ave. Pl.
Duluth, MN 55808
sduffy/r9_superior@fs.fed.us
Phone: 218-626-4300
FAX (218)626-4398

UPDATES from 1998 UPDATES from 1997