Veterans Day, Whitetails, And Public Lands
On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, I’ll be hunting whitetails in northern Minnesota amongst a vast expanse of protected public lands. This includes places like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and surrounding Superior National Forest, the Chippewa National Forest, state parks and wildlife refuges, wildlife management areas, scientific and natural areas, aquatic management areas, national wild and scenic rivers, and more.
Unfortunately, today our public lands in Minnesota and across the country are being put at risk by the Trump administration and Congress. From sweeping executive orders promoting “energy dominance” to secretive agency directives expanding oil and gas leasing, we’re in the midst of a wholesale attack on public land protections nationwide. The “multiple use” doctrine has been weaponized to mean one thing: corporate use.
Copper-nickel mining destroys watersheds
In Minnesota, a foreign-owned mining company, Antofagasta, of Chile, doing business as Twin Metals, is looking to build a copper-ore sulfide mine upstream from the BWCAW near Ely. Twin Metals—with its foreign ownership, questionable economics, and essentially guaranteed watershed-ruining runoff (acid mine drainage)—threatens the long-term economic wealth of northern Minnesota.
It’s common knowledge that sulfide mining “destroys watersheds,” I emphasized in an October 2024 Duluth News Tribune opinion piece. “Two years ago, the Biden administration banned mining on a quarter million acres outside the Boundary Waters … The U.S. Forest Service … said mining here would ‘inevitably’ pollute the Boundary Waters,” Chris Hrapsky wrote in an October 2025 KARE 11 news story.
In fact, there are no examples of sulfide mines in water-rich areas that have not been polluted.
Veterans, perhaps better than most, understand that our public lands and waters are inextricably linked to our freedom and democracy. Lose one or the other, and we’ll likely lose both. Since our great nation was formed, public lands have been jointly owned by every citizen. They would not be ours, nor in such relatively good health, if not for the sacrifices and commitment of our servicemen and women and many other American patriots from all walks of life.
Over the years, tens of millions of Americans have worn the uniform of our nation’s armed forces, including some 16 million during World War II. When my grandfather, John Boyce, was discharged from the Navy (in 1945), he went deer hunting on public lands in northern Wisconsin to take his mind off the war and ease back into civilian life. Similarly, WWII Navy veteran Bill Rom opened Canoe Country Outfitters in Ely (in 1946) and became a leader in the fight for the federal Wilderness Act.
“Nothing created by man has come close to captivating me like a big whitetail buck. Such is the power of these deer,” Stu Osthoff wrote in the Boundary Waters Journal. Ultimately, the rationale for protecting and perpetuating Minnesota’s public lands and deer hunting legacy can be boiled down to Stu’s words of wisdom. “Deer hunting is not really about venison in the freezer or antlers on the wall,” he said. “It is about a timeless and priceless love of the wild.”
Public lands for everyone matter.
Thanks to a TRIPLE match from the Manitou Fund, every dollar you give for Give to the Max Day will be TRIPLED to protect the Boundary Waters during early giving.
And, thank you to all Veterans for standing with us and making your TRIPLE-matched gift to defend the Boundary Waters today.
For the wilderness,
David A. Lien, Author, former Air Force missile launch officer
