This week we remember and honor Don Fraser – Former U.S. Representative and Minneapolis Mayor, and champion for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
In a divisive state-wide debate, and though it threatened to ruin his political career, DFL Congressman Don Fraser held fast to his belief that the landscape of the Boundary Waters should be protected — by law. In 1978, after years in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Minneapolis native was aiming for the Senate, but simultaneously, the issue of the Boundary Waters was heating up across Minnesota. An increasingly conservative political climate got even tougher for Fraser after he agreed to sponsor the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) Wilderness Act – which called for strict limits on motorboats, phased out snowmobiling and prohibited logging and mining within the boundaries of the designated ‘wilderness area’.
While he is often called the ‘quiet crusader’, Don Fraser’s work for the BWCAW was in turn a ‘crusade for quiet’ as he battled Rep. James Oberstar’s bill – which promoted compromises over restrictions, and reduced the size of the protected area. The Fraser-Vento-Nolan bill won the day.
“He was not your prototypical politician. He persuaded people by the power of his argument, not the volume of his speech.” Tom Fraser, his son, shared with the Star Tribune.
The battle over the Boundary Waters did cost him the Senate, but helped propel him into city governance, and he served with impact as the mayor of Minneapolis from 1980 to 1994.
On the anniversary of the BWCAW legislation in 2003, Fraser wrote a piece for the Star Tribune, saying that attempts to undermine the BWCAW law had been beaten back, yet “…the wilderness remains threatened. More people seek to live near the splendor of the Boundary Waters full or part time. Increased construction of homes and roads places a tremendous burden on the region’s ecosystem. Wildlife is displaced, and runoff from yards, roads and driveways pollutes the otherwise pristine lakes….While the Boundary Waters elicits deep passion, it is my hope that future debates about the area remain calm and civil.”
Today we dip our canoe paddles into the same unpolluted waters that Don and his wife Arvonne paddled, thanks to the determination and deftness of Don Fraser and many others, it a legacy that is now in our hands.
More about Don Fraser and his legacy:
A Minnesota politician for four decades, Don Fraser dies at 95, Star Tribune
Don Fraser Remembered as ‘Epitome of a Public Servant’, HUMPHREY SCHOOL NEWS
How the specter of the decades-long fight over the BWCA hangs over PolyMet