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by Joe Friedrichs
paddleandportage.com
Reprinted with permission
The ability for people to use motorized boats in select areas of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness will be the focus of a hearing set for later this month in a federal courtroom in Minneapolis. What is being called “the final hearing” on towboats will take place Monday, April 28 at 4 p.m. in room 13W in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. At stake are how many motorized boats the U.S. Forest Service should allow select businesses to operate in the BWCA Wilderness.
Motorized boats and commercial tows inside the wilderness line are a significant issue as the Forest Service revisits the plan it uses to manage the BWCA Wilderness. In 2023, a court ruling denied a request from the environmental group Wilderness Watch to immediately stop motorized towboat usage in the BWCA.
The June 2023 ruling came about two months after the news of a court case that put in jeopardy the longstanding practice of using motorized towboats to help Boundary Waters visitors get started on their wilderness trips. The idea behind tows, in part, is that the Forest Service allows the use of towboats to assist canoeists starting their journey, dispersing visitors deeper into the million-acre BWCA Wilderness. It also helps paddlers get a jump start to travel faster across Moose Lake near Ely, and other lakes including Newfound and Sucker, as they approach the Prairie Portage Ranger Station into Quetico. Some outfitters at the end of the Gunflint also use the towboat service on Saganaga Lake to help paddlers reach Quetico Provincial Park via the Cache Bay Ranger Station.
On the west side of the wilderness, shutting down tows or reducing the tow capacity would impact Williams and Hall, LaTourell’s, and Spirit of the Wilderness, among other outfitters. On the eastern side of the wilderness, altering how many or shutting down commercial tows would impact Tuscarora Lodge and Outfitters, Seagull Outfitters, and Voyageur Canoe Outfitters most prominently. The ruling would have a much larger impact on the Ely area, where many canoeists receive a tow across Moose Lake each season, as well as other lakes in the Ely area.
In 2023, Judge Nancy Brasel said that halting the tow services would impact the ability for “older visitors and visitors with limited mobility” to experience the BWCA. Brasel will preside over the hearing April 28 in Minneapolis.
Wilderness Watch, one of the groups at the forefront of the charge to change motorized use in the BWCA Wilderness, claims that the Forest Service is not upholding its self-imposed restrictions and limitations on towboat services. The environmental organization is filing the case in court against the Forest Service, saying, essentially, that the federal organization is not following its own rules. The Forest Service’s most recent figures showed that in 2019 there were 4,164 tows made in the BWCA Wilderness. The year prior there were 4,011 tows. These figures amount to nearly “tripling the level that the Forest Service pledged that it would limit the total to,” according to officials from Wilderness Watch.
In a statement sent to Paddle and Portage April 18 from Kevin Proescholdt, the conservation director for Wilderness Watch, he said the organization is “looking forward to the hearing” April 28 in Minneapolis.
“We hope the court will agree with us that the Forest Service must curtail commercial towboat use in the BWCAW to the levels required by the 1978 BWCAW Act and the agency’s own earlier pledge to the federal courts,” he said, “as well as conduct the detailed commercial needs assessment for towboats as required by the 1964 Wilderness Act.”
Paddle and Por tage reached out to the Forest Service April 3 to comment for this story. Joy Vandrie, a spokesperson for Superior National Forest, said in a statement sent April 9, “Due to the fact that this is currently in litigation, we will not be able to provide a comment at this time. For questions pertaining to this case, please contact the U.S. Department of Justice, who represents the Forest Service (and other federal agencies) in cases such as these.”
The Forest Service has not taken a clear stance publicly on the number of towboats that operate in the BWCA Wilderness. However, in a broader statement he made last spring about the wilderness of the Boundary Waters, Tom Hall, the forest supervisor for Superior National Forest, said changes to the agency’s forest plan directive can better position the Forest Service to restore and preserve wilderness character and meet the purposes of wilderness described in the 1964 Wilderness Act and subsequent BWCA Wilderness Act from 1978.
“Our implementation and monitoring over the past 30 years, and changes to national wilderness management policy and guidance, have highlighted several issues affecting wilderness character in the BWCAW and the wilderness experience for visitors,” Hall said.
