The Quetico Superior Foundation was excited to participate in the Trust for Public Land’s purchase of Long Island on Burntside Lake located northwest of Ely, Minnesota. According to the foundation, Burntside Lake has a special place in the American and Minnesota conservation history. It was from its shores – in view of Long Island – more than half a century ago that famed conservationist and author Sigurd Olson wrote of the value of wilderness to the human soul.
Learning from the U.S. Forest Service of the island’s imminent development, the Trust for Public Land acted quickly with its Northwoods Land Protection Fund, securing the island to ensure the public opportunity would not be lost. Because it can take the Forest Service years to acquire money from Congress for such purchases, and because the land was about to be subdivided for expensive summer homes, trust officials quickly agreed to step in. “The south half of the island already had been surveyed to be split up into lots and was initially listed with a real estate agent last fall. It was that close to being developed,” said Shaun Hamilton, director of the trust’s Northwoods Initiative.
For landowners Jeff and Sharon Rome, the decision to sell their 43-acre Long Island in the middle of Burntside Lake came down to protecting something they loved. Their choice will allow future generations to visit the island’s natural sandy beach and listen to one of the lake’s many nesting loons. “It’s such an extraordinary piece of property, where it is on the lake and the view around there, that we thought it should stay that way,” Jeff Rome said from his cabin on the mainland of Burntside Lake. Rome, a Rochester physician, and his wife Sharon owned the northern half of the island, and his sister owned the southern half. His sister began exploring development options prompting Jeff and Sharon to suggest selling for conservation.
Public acquisition of the Long Island property will ensure that the attributes of the Northwoods region so treasured by its many visitors – the solitary sound of the common loon, the serenity of an evening paddle, the call of the wild – will be protected in perpetuity.
This article appeared in Wilderness News Fall/Winter 2004