It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Frank B. Hubachek, Jr. (“Bill”) on January 21, 2011. The 2010 summer issue of Wilderness News featured Hub’s Place, the Wilderness Research Center on Basswood Lake founded by Bill’s father, Frank Hubachek, in 1948. When Congress passed into law the 1964 Wilderness Act, the Research Center was moved out of the BWCAW to Fall Lake near Ely, MN. Bill took over stewardship of the Center in 1986 when Frank Sr. passed away. In recent years Bill and his surviving sister Midge turned over operation and control of the Center to the University of Minnesota. The University, with an endowment from the Hubachek family, plans to carry on the Center’s research work and study of the red and white pine forest ecology in the Quetico-Superior border region.
Born in 1923 to Frank B. and Marjorie (Mix) Hubachek, Bill attended New Trier High School and Yale University before getting his law degree from University of Chicago Law School. Bill served as a Navy fighter pilot during WWII. Bill’s legal career of 60 years began with the law firm founded by his father, Hubachek & Kelly, and finished with 28 years as a Managing Partner of Chapman and Cutler LLP. Bill’s greatest love and devotion was for his family. While Bill loved the practice of law and served his clients with an unrelenting work ethic, he also made time for his special interests—hunting, canoeing and portaging the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and the Canadian Quetico.
Memorial contributions may be made to Wilderness Research Foundation, the forestry research foundation at P. O. Box 2593, Chicago, Illinois 60690.
This article appeared in Wilderness News Summer 2011