Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness

Thank you to Representative Kaohly Her for hosting a gathering at her lovely home for her colleagues on the Minnesota House Legacy Finance Committee -- Leigh Finke, Ethan Cha, Leon Lillie, Samantha Vang, and Samakab Hussein! Each year, through the Legacy Committee, Minnesota invests more than $400 million to protect our clean water, conserve and restore our natural resources, and advance our arts and cultural heritage. Minnesota is the envy of not just our neighboring states, but of states around the country. We are leaving a legacy worthy of the next generation. Thank you to Representative Her and all the members on the committee for their service!

Thank you to Laurie and Max Bremer for hosting a house party for Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness at their lovely home in Minnetonka! The relationship of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness with their family goes back nearly 50 years. In 1976, Laurie's father, Dick Flint, was one of the founders of the Friends. After Laurie's brother Tom died in a tragic motorcycle accident in 1990, Laurie's family established the Thomas Flint Memorial Fund to provide scholarships to enable students from underserved and underrepresented communities to experience weeklong, transformative wilderness canoe trips in the Boundary Waters. Since then, the Thomas Flint Memorial Fund has provided hundreds upon hundreds of students with the opportunity to experience Boundary Waters wilderness canoe trips, including our current Board Chair Lee Vue, who went on her first Boundary Waters trip as a teenager. This past year, more than 130 students went on wilderness canoe trips through this program. The foundation of our success at Friends of the Boundary Waters is people like Laurie and Max Bremer; Laurie's father, Dick Flint; and you. If you would like support the Thomas Flint Wilderness Canoe Trip Program or other aspects of our work, you may contact me at any time at 651-999-9565 or visit our website at: https://lnkd.in/gntU34rm Thank you!

Please join me at the Friends of the Boundary Waters’ Northwoods Gala on Saturday, October 19! Featuring Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison as our keynote speaker, this will be a fun and inspiring evening, celebrating our cherished Boundary Waters! Tickets are going fast! Reserve your seats now at https://lnkd.in/gPxaPh7x

Thank you to State Representative Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger (Woodbury) and State Representative candidates Huldah Hiltsley (Osseo-Brooklyn Park) and Anquam Mahamoud (Minneapolis) for being champions for the Boundary Waters! We at Friends of the Boundary Waters look forward to working with you in the upcoming legislative session to pass Prove It First to protect our clean water from sulfide mining and leave a future worthy of the next generation!

The proposed PolyMet-NewRange copper-nickel sulfide mine project in northeast Minnesota, which now has the dubious distinction of threatening the clean water of both Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters, is a terrible deal for Minnesota. The foreign mining conglomerates that own PolyMet-NewRange are ditching the original proposal. It’s time to move on from this dangerous, undeniably flawed mining proposal. Let’s use our common sense and not spend more years and millions of more dollars trying to force through a project that is simply located in the wrong place. The risk to Minnesota’s clean-water heritage is too great. Read more about this in my commentary in MinnPost. https://lnkd.in/gs9FRgwn

I had a great time at the Friends of the Boundary Waters booth at the Minnesota State Fair, handing our free sporks with my wife, Audrey. The State Fair is in full gear, setting all-time attendance records in the first few days. Good thing we have lots of sporks! Stop by our booth, get a free spork that you can use immediately on the State Fair food of your choice. Tell us about your favorite trips into the Boundary Waters and sign up for an opportunity to win a free tent!

We were thrilled when Ron Shara, the legendary Minnesota angler, hunter, and all-around sportsman and host of Minnesota Bound, stopped by the Friends of the Boundary Waters booth at the Minnesota State Fair! Thank you, Ron, for your passion for the outdoors and support for protecting the Boundary Waters and Minnesota's other special places!