quiet as a resource...

I am preparing what to say when I speak at the Natural Resources Board Meeting on Wednesday. Like the villain in a bad horror movie, the ATV trail proposal seems very hard to kill. Here are some of my random thoughts:

I think the "loop trail" idea was-and still is- the "Harriet Miers" of trail proposals, unwanted by friend and foe of ATV's alike. ATV people want a connecting trail-(I am still trying to figure out where it is.)-and are hoping to make a last minute home run swing here.

I suspect other speakers will focus on trail and environmental damage, so I am just going to focus on the issue of quiet.

FOr a moment, lets pretend that ATV groups are correct-that there is incredible need and pressure for more trails based on increased numbers, and a connecting trail or a loop trail is needed to take up that pressure. (I don't believe it, by the way) If that were true, we could say for certain that an ATV trail would significantly diminish recreation for a large swath of the forest.

Without significant public support and input, no new recreation should displace or significantly disrupt existing recreational activities. What evidence do we have for what the public thinks? We have one referendum in Presque Isle, One in Vilas County, and a huge public response to the ATV issue in the Master Plan. It is clear the public doesn't want ATV's in the NHAL forest.

The reason for this is clear, but we have never looked at it straight on: Quiet is not an ancillary, secondary benefit of the Northwoods. It is, for many people, the main resource.


Most of us want, and need, that window of quiet to pass by, when we stop in our tracks, stop thinking so much about problems, and just listen to the wind, listen to the wood thrush give a holy depth to the forest, listen to the fire hiss and crack. We need a place to be outside of a world of machinery. We want to feel that magical feeling that occurs when we go to bed with the windows open, and hear the forest creeping. We want to hear the monkey like calls of woodpeckers and the sounds of waves lapping on a boat, We want to shush each other as we shushing each try to figure out what those strange whistles are down by the river, (they are otters, by the way)

Sound is not just an ancillary tangiential benefit. It is part of the main reason people come.