The Boundary Waters was first designated as Wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964. In 1978, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area & Wilderness Act expanded the wilderness area to the nearly 1.1 million acres that it is today. The 1978 Act also established a Boundary Waters Canoe Area Mining Protection Area along the access corridors into the Wilderness and banned mineral development within the Wilderness and the Mining Protection Area.
Today the Boundary Waters is the most visited Wilderness in our nation with over 150,000 visitors seeking the amazing backcountry experience that it has to offer. The three million-acre Superior National Forest, which includes the Boundary Waters, contains 20% of all the fresh water in the entire National Forest System at 193 million acres. Downstream from the Boundary Waters are Voyageurs National Park, Rainy Lake, and Lake of the Woods, which provide some of Minnesota’s best fishing and hunting experiences. The Boundary Waters truly is a public lands and waters success story.
The Boundary Waters is currently under threat from proposed sulfide-ore copper mining at its headwaters by the Chilean mining company Antofagasta, which owns Twin Metals MN. This type of mining has a terrible track record of polluting, especially in such a water-rich environment like the Boundary Waters. Sulfide-ore copper mining on the edge of the Boundary Waters would cause irreparable damage to the very quality that makes these public lands and waters so unique.
Without the foresight of conservationists who came before us; anglers, hikers, hunters and all outdoor recreationists alike would not have the opportunity for an uninterrupted Wilderness experience that over 1,000 lakes, 2,000 campsites, and hundreds of miles of trails provide for thousands of visitors from across the world each year.
Establishing the Boundary Waters
1872: Minnesota public domain lands are withdrawn from the General Mining Law of 1872
1909: President Theodore Roosevelt establishes the Superior National Forest
1909: Boundary Waters Treaty signed by Canada and the U.S., requiring that neither country pollute boundary waters or waters that flow across the boundary
1934: President Franklin D. Roosevelt designates the Quetico-Superior Committee to work with government agencies in the conservation, preservation and use of northeast Minnesota’s Wilderness areas.
1948: Thye-Blatnik Act authorizes the federal government to acquire private land holdings within roadless areas, increasing acreage within the boundary waters roadless area
1958: The Superior Roadless Areas were renamed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA).
1964: The Wilderness Act is passed with a special revision to the BWCA, allowing some logging and motorized use within the BWCA’s boundaries.
1978: The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act is passed. This legislation eliminated logging and snowmobiling in the BWCAW, restricted mining and allowed motorboats on ¼ of the water area, specifically to BWCA border waters.
