Jim Brandenberg on BWCA damage, part 2

Grants | NHPRC | Topics | Environment | Special Collections | Minnesota Books and Authors | Types | Interviews | Disaster | Legacy Project Remote Work (2020-2021) | Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness: A Chronology | "Wait 10 Minutes" - Minnesota's historic weather events |
July 9, 1999
Perry Finelli - Interviewer, James Brandenburg - Interviewee
Listen: Jim Brandenberg on BWCA damage - cut 2
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Nature photographer James Brandenburg says it's been hard to deal with the scope of the damage to the wilderness after massive windstorm. Brandenburg lives near Ely on the edge of the Boundary Waters.

The Boundary Waters–Canadian Derecho (also called the Boundary Waters Blowdown), produced straight-line winds of up to 100 mph, which uprooted and toppled nearly 500,000 acres of the BWCA's trees in a massive blowdown. It began in Fargo mid-morning on July 4, 1999, and plowed at a northeasterly angle across the state. It mowed across northeastern Minnesota, crossed into Canada, and fizzled out in Maine the following morning, traveling 1,300 miles and lasting 22 hours.

Transcripts

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SPEAKER: I had a book that came out a year or two ago Chased by the Light, where they're-- probably my favorite image was of a small island with two loons in front of it up in the Boundary Waters. And that island is a landmark up here, and it's a favorite of mine. One of the islands called Twin Islands on Moose Lake.

That island is virtually gone, and it's extremely traumatic to see that. It'll take two two, three generations to come back to something like it was. So in our own self-centered way, we'll never see it like we like to see it in our hopelessly romantic view of looking at nature, where everything has to be pretty and well-ordered.

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