I’ve been out of town for several days and just got back after a wonderful time visiting friends and family in Texas. The trip back was a bit dicey as high winds bounced us about and we landed during a tornado watch. Safely home, I was happy to take up my morning ritual with the New York Times; this morning one headline compelled me to say a few words.
“Teddy Roosevelt’s Family Urges G.O.P. to Protect Public Lands,”( New York Times, February 16, 2026) speaks to my personal experience in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota.* For nine years I paddled those pristine waters experiencing a wilderness whose beauty I am unable to describe with words. Its quiet, the sound of the ubiquitous loons, the ruggedness of a landscape of seemingly endless lakes fragilely connected by streams and portages must be experienced to appreciate. My experience must be preserved for the generations yet to come. The BWCA is a national treasure like so many others that we should have the common sense not to destroy.
I am not an overzealous activist who eschews all changes and the need for industry, mining and the use of natural resources for humans. Such posture is as dangerous and irresponsible as the unbridled development and exploitation of souless developers and greedy industrialists. Pox on both their camps.
The fight for the Boundary Waters Wilderness is repeated across the land. Here in Georgia we just defeated years of long efforts to mine the Okefenokee Swamp, North America’s largest blackwater wetland protected by the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. And this morning’s news also brings notice of an ongoing effort by the National Park Service to authorize increased tourism on Cumberland Island, the largest and arguably most beautiful, of the the Georgia barrier islands.** Doing so could very well be the “nose of the camel in the tent” for private development to follow.
Some would call my opposition as being against private enterprise or naive acceptance of government oversight; I call it common sense which is too often uncommon when faced with greed and ideological nonsense. I add my name to the Roosevelts: Ted Roosevelt, Tweed Roosevelt and Mark Roosevelt, all great grandsons of Theodore Roosevelt, and Kermit Roosevelt III, great-great grandson of the former president. Their opposition to mining the Boundary Waters is a fight against all needless exploitation of natural areas simply for the benefit of a few.
I’ll sign on when, and only when, our future as a people is undeniably dependent on mining paradise.
“Teddy Roosevelt’s Family Urges G.O.P. to Protect Public Lands.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/climate/theodore-roosevelt-family-boundary-waters.html
** “Comment period extended for Cumberland visitor plan.” https://thebrunswicknews.com/news/local_news/comment-period-extended-for-cumberland-visitor-plan/article_7e061f47-f916-4d99-9f0a-2c6d6fdea0c8.html