Against all odds and corporate interests, the people came together to defend the Boundary Waters — one of the last wild sanctuaries of clean water, living memory, and sacred breath in this territory now called the United States. Yesterday, a harmful attempt to gut protections for this irreplaceable boreal heartland was stopped. And let’s be clear — that didn’t happen by accident. It happened because communities rose up. Because water protectors didn’t back down. Because love for the land is stronger than greed.
Pete Stauber’s H.R. 978 would have handed over the headwaters of the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park to the same toxic mining that’s poisoned homelands elsewhere — stripping protections, silencing judicial review, and forcing mining leases through for a Chilean-owned company with no obligation to the people or the land. All this, for less than 3% of U.S. copper needs — most of which would be shipped overseas anyway.
But the land spoke. The science spoke. The people spoke — and we were heard.
Let us not forget: the Public Land Order signed by Secretary Haaland in 2023 wasn’t just a conservation policy. It was a recognition that some places are too sacred, too vital, too interwoven with the breath of future generations to gamble away. The BWCA holds 20% of the freshwater in the entire U.S. National Forest System. That water is life — and once poisoned, it cannot be undone.
The Boundary Waters generate over $900 million annually and support more than 17,000 jobs through tourism, sustainable use, and stewardship. But their true value goes far beyond numbers. The moose, the loons, the starlit portages, the medicine plants growing silently along those shores — they belong to a deeper covenant. One that mining cannot touch.
So yes — this is a moment to celebrate. To offer tobacco with gratitude.
But also to remember: we are not done. The threat remains. And so does our duty.
Let us keep protecting. Keep praying. Keep showing up for the land that has never stopped showing up for us.
Because this isn’t just environmentalism.
It’s kinship.
It’s law — the kind written in rivers, not in Washington.
It’s a promise we make to our grandchildren: we did not let them take this one.
— Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez
Standing Bear Network
