Commentary
Court's decision to allow cell tower makes the wilderness a little smaller
By Steve Piragis
Steve Piragis is proprietor of Piragis Northwoods Co. in Ely.
On a clear, moonless night in December last year, I was alone in the middle of Gabbro Lake. The ice was clear and the wind was still; only the rumble of expanding ice broke the silence.
Out of range of all manmade light, the stars seemed to almost hum in the sky. As I walked along, awake and alive in the moment, a new light appeared between low hills on the northeastern horizon: a red, blinking light.
What was pure wilderness, like no other that a person can find in Minnesota, suddenly was interrupted. The Lookout Ridge tower is miles away from Gabbro by Snowbank Lake, yet on a clear night in winter the red strobe demanded my attention and disrupted what Ely advertising calls "the last great pure experience."
Is this experience becoming less pure as more towers and more lights are allowed to infringe on wilderness?
Winter or summer, the Boundary Waters is an escape from the modern world. It's where I go to find a pace of life that is natural. Where my mind can fix on one task or one view at a time. It's really why I love wild places. The gyrations of the mind settle down for a while and we see life in the present.
The sights are subtle here but no less impressive than the Grand Canyon or Yosemite. In summer it's the call of the loons, wings slapping the water as they struggle to lift their airframes off the lake. In fall it can be the glow of golden birches and poplar set ablaze in the late afternoon light and the sting of frost on the gunwales in morning. Winter is the quiet season, when I usually find the Boundary Waters mostly to myself. It takes only one short portage to a lake like Gabbro to find pure solitude. Booms of expanding ice break the silence, but overhead the silence of space seems close. In my mind it's as close as I can get to God, alone, walking on a frozen lake.
If we go to wilderness to find peace, quiet and solitude, do we need to bring with us the devices of our lives we sought to escape? On a calm evening in summer, camped on a wilderness lake, wouldn't it be annoying to hear a fellow camper talking on his cell phone? Do we need our iPads every night to have fun? Is it really the last pure experience if we have towers piercing the horizon with red strobes, reminding us of the jobs and responsibilities we left behind? Won't some of us start to think that maybe we need to find a more pure wilderness?
The profit motive may have made our country great, but now it threatens to impair wilderness like the Boundary Waters as huge corporations like AT&T struggle to compete and look to fill in big gulps of land on their coverage maps. Compromise on the issue of cell towers wasn't good enough. A 200-foot tower with 87 percent coverage wasn't good enough. Any budget for legal fees was OK as long as the corporation won in the end and its right to light up the night sky with red strobes was upheld.
The loons will still call and the fish will still bite and the stars will glow on moonless nights. But to escape the flashing strobes we'll have to paddle or snowshoe a little farther, and the wilderness will be a little smaller.
Comments (10)
Such places far from all modern machines are always relaxing and peaceful.So I toodidnt like the idea of compromising on the issue of cell towers.
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This is sad news; I travel 1,500 miles to get off the grid and into the peace and solitude of the BWCA. Very sad.
This is very disappointing. I was in BWCA for the first time three weeks ago. You can read about it and see pictures, but you can't understand until you're there. Once I was on Boulder Bay of Lac La Croix in the middle of the wilderness it was stunning. There's *nothing* there, no indication of human impact anywhere on the horizon - no cell towers, no power lines, no distant cut in the wilderness for a distant highway, nothing.
I've spent a lot of time in the woods hiking and camping and I found the BWCA to be a unique wilderness. Cell towers shrink the wilderness and that makes me sad.
AT&T is not a good corporate citizen and should be avoided. They had two alternatives to building a tower of this height and they chose to fight in the courts instead. It's really sad that corporations are considered citizens at all when they have no incentive to do what is right.
Nice commentary, Steve. Nice picture, too. There you are, on the shore of some lake in the BWCAW, cooking a little shore lunch, looks like.
I wish I was right there in the picture, peacefully paddling my canoe near where you are cooking.
Of course, I would be deeply offended at having to see your bright red cap & bright blue shirt, and your brown hoodie and tan pants, all probably made in China. Certainly not an indigenous part of the Northern Minnesota wilderness.
And your bright yellow plate, and your plastic water bottle too. All very offensive to my eye, which has come here to the BWCAW to view only non-manmade stuff. You know, like wood and water and rock.
And your canoe, laying on the lake shore just out of the photo. It also offends my senses.
What's that you say, Steve? I'm wearing bright clothes from China, too? And I'm in a shiny aluminum canoe?
Yes, Steve, that is true. But you see, I am not offended by my bright clothes. Or my canoe. They are not in my line of sight, therefore, they do not bother me.
I am looking out from where I perch on my canoe seat. Yours are in my vision, so it is yours that become an assult upon my notion of what the wilderness should look like.
Even though your canoe is a cedar strip model, much more expensive than my plain aluminum one, it still had to be brought here, into the wilderness, from some factory far away, where crass commercialism is the order of the day.
Next time, Steve, please come naked & on foot.
When all else fails, sarcasm.
I really appreciate your thoughts Steve, I know that thousands of people who enjoy the wilderness are sad to hear that the cell phone towers are being built where they will impact the visual treasure that is the Boundary Waters. You have captured the feeling that many of us strive to achieve when we visit the wilderness and these towers just represent all that we would love to leave behind, even if only for a short time. I used to tell people that the Boundary Waters were so remote that even cell phones would not work there, I guess I won't be able to brag about that anymore! Every little piece of solitude that we lose makes our lives that much more hectic and less enjoyable. Thanks for working so hard to keep these towers for being installed, even if this battle may be lost all of us must fight to perserve what is left of our wilderness areas.
MY HAT OFF TO DAVID ROBILLARD FOR HIS COMMENT. WE MUST KEEP FIGHTING FOR THE WILDERNESS JUST AS SIGURD OLSON DID. THE BWCAW IS OUR ONLY PIECE OF SANITY IN THIS CRAZY WORLD.
Piragis Northwoods Company is perhaps the premier outfitting company in Ely. He failed to mention in his article that his company has satellite phones available for rental. These are for more thoroughly escaping the shackles of civilization, I presume. I'll save the issue of cooking over a wood fire for another time.
I doubt if anyone from AT&T Mobility or the appeals court has ever spent their vacation in the Boundary Waters. I've driven 20 hours, one way, then 20 hours back home, annually, over 10+ years just to experience its uniqueness, unlike none other. It's just that pristine! You wouldn't understand if you hadn't been there yourself. The people, and friends, that were fighting AT&T on the tower realize that the Boundary Waters is one of the very few natural, undisturbed places left in the US, and it's worth every effort possible to protect it.... but we are so few. We are the little fish in the big sea of major corporations, and we just got 'swallowed up' . If you've "Been there, done that", and you didn't see the value, you went in with the wrong intentions. What's next?.... electricity, roads? Smirk if you want, but this is the first stepping stone in ruining the area forever.
My husband proposed marriage to me in the BWCAW, and of course, we returned there for our honeymoon, and many times since. It is a true paradise (in its own right), and has a way of touching the souls of those who visit, and leaving a lasting impression that is unforgettable and addictive.
Thank you Steve, and thanks to Greg of the Friends of the Boundary Waters for your beliefs, devotion, hopes, and support.
AND... Shame on AT&T! ... they just don't get it.
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