Attorney General Keith Ellison dropped by town on Friday, July 31 as an opportunity to connect with local residents and business owners following July’s fires.
Ellison heard stories about the impacts of the fires on local residents, the threats posed by towboat litigation to resort owners and outfitters, and details on USFS’s HiLo forest preparation project.
“This is my state and I’m hearing about fires in Northern Minnesota, and I’m reading about it and I’m like, we need to go see it,” Ellison said. “We need to talk to the people who are living through it.”
Ellison said he would be in favor of a piece of legislation to help bring relief to local businesses.
“How do we live the value of one Minnesota, which means when one Minnesotan is in trouble, we figure out what to do about it,” Ellison said. “So that’s what the origin of it all was.”
Ellison spoke of the impacts statewide rippling out from BWCAW closures, with metro and other state residents facing trip cancellations and interrupted plans.
“The Boundary Waters is a national, international, world asset,” Ellison said.
Ellison joined DFL district 3A candidate Aaron Kania and Willy Vosburgh of Vosburgh’s Custom Cabin Rentals for a short boat ride on Moose Lake.
Betsy Vosburgh described lost July business at the resort.
“We’ve lost at least three weeks in prime time, when our cabins would have been full,” Betsy Vosburgh said. “We’re going to be a month short of when we normally could work.”
Vosburgh operates a towboat service to pull canoeists further into the wilderness. Vosburgh helped tow canoeists out of the wilderness the evening before Boundary Waters closures first went into effect.
However, towboat use is under legal challenge in a federal appeals court from environmental group Wilderness Watch, who believe the presence of these motored boats detracts from the Boundary Waters’ wilderness feel.
Towboats are currently allowed for permitted businesses on a select number of lakes. Proponents argue that towboats increase the accessibility of the wilderness and boost the local economy for permitted operators.
“People still have to paddle. But if they lost the towboats, I think they would probably have to come closer,” Willy Vosburgh said.
