God's Land
On the eastern side of Lac La Croix, near the Quetico, where the waters of Minnesota mingle with those of Canada, there is a bluff that stands out against the blue of God's sky. It is steep, and it rises with the clouds to meet the rolling cliffs of Canada.
On a dry day, and with a good pair of hiking boots, you can climb to the top. From there, the horizon unrolls like a tapestry, revealing far to the northwest the shores of Coleman Island and the smallest signs of an Indian reservation. The lake glints with the spear of the reflected sun, and far to the east, the pines are just visible that shade Iron Lake from the rest of the world.
This hilltop has a name: It is called Warrior Hill. Many years ago, the Native Americans would train their braves on its face. Up and down and up and down the the steep bluff they would run, from sunrise to sunset. The name has stuck since then, a verbal headstone for a culture long forgotten.
Just east of the hill, massive granite cliffs stand erect, and on them are pictures drawn in a black and brown chalk-like mineral, primitive reminders that here too there once were people.
Just across the lake from both of these features is an island with a granite offshoot that makes a hard but splendid beach. Seated there, both features are clearly visible.
They provoke wonder. They speak of a time when man worked with the land, when he used what he had and nothing more. To think that these lands were settled thousands of years ago and yet still belong to God is unfathomable.
Minnesota became a state in 1858. Back then it was little more than miles of woods and farmland. Now it is 2017. In Midway, in St. Paul, the light rail zooms by, and cars flock to the Super Target by the dozen. College Students walk by with backpacks slung over their shoulders, and blank expressions flood the faces of the people walking down University Ave. Here we have built a world, one at which the ancients would marvel. And yet no one is happy. Every surface is cold, hard and gray. For this we call progress: the slow destruction of all that is pure and sacred over a period of 150 years.
And that is what makes the view from Warrior Hill all the more magnificent, all the more picturesque, because you know it could all dissolve within a second. Because you know that a man with a torch could destroy it all.
We city folk are not accustomed to daily encountering wonder. Rarely do we see a sight that provokes awe, a mountain, or a raging waterfall. But rather, we have begun trying to manufacture wonder. Massive skyscrapers dominate Downtown Minneapolis' skyline. Blockbuster films have increasingly higher budgets and production values. And this philosophy is underlying all of it: Aren't we great? We're beat over the head with this idea at every turn. We can't go anywhere without first acknowledging the greatness of people, because "just look at how far we've come."
But at what cost? The beautiful places of the world could disappear in a heartbeat. The drumbeat of industry and capitalism urges us to create. But to do this, we must first take the land from God. And the wonder we manufacture is nothing in comparison with that of nature. Our urge to create is part of what makes us human, but it I fear above all human urges, because so often it involves first destruction.
Those who fight on behalf of the woods will doubtless lose one day, but what matters is not who wins the battle. What matters is that there is a battle, that there always be men and women left to fight on behalf of the beautiful places of the world, to keep our destructive power at bay; to keep God's land from becoming man's.