Heinselman, Miron L.

Miron Lee “Bud” Heinselman was born on 7 February 1920 in Duluth, Minnesota, the son of Everett Millard Heinselman (1895-1979) and Helena Alvina (Krueger) Heinselman (1895-1969). On 18 September 1942, Bud Heinselman married Frances Ruth Brown in Minneapolis. They had two children, Russell Craig Heinselman (born 1946) and Ann Louise Heinselman (born 1947). Heinselman died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 28 February 1993 at age 73 from the effects of a rare blood disease.

Heinselman graduated from high school in Minneapolis, and attended the University of Minnesota. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree there in 1942. After serving two years in the U.S. Army during Word War II he returned to the University of Minnesota to obtain a Bachelor of Science in Forestry in 1948, and a Master’s degree in Forestry in 1951. In 1961 he received his Ph. D. degree from the University of Minnesota.

In 1948 Heinselman began his career as a research scientist in forest ecology with the U.S. Forest Service. He became an expert in peat lands ecology, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Heinselman also researched the role of fire in northern conifer forests, and became an internationally recognized expert in fire ecology. From 1966-1974, he located and mapped the remaining virgin or unlogged forests of the million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northeastern Minnesota's Superior National Forest. As part of this research, he reconstructed the fire history of the BWCA going back to the year 1595. His many scientific publications include five major articles that show the breadth of his expertise: two significant articles on peat land ecology in Ecological Monographs, his landmark 1973 article in Quaternary Research on fire in the virgin forests of the BWCA, and his lengthy 1981 chapters in two different books (one a description of fire and northern ecosystems across the continent and the other chapter delving deeply into the ecological concept of succession and the role of fire in succession).

Heinselman took an early retirement from the Forest Service in 1974 in order to become more fully and publicly involved in conservation efforts to save the BWCA as a wilderness. (He had become active in the 1950s with the Izaak Walton League of America, a private nonprofit conservation organization, but the Forest Service required him to not take a public role on BWCA issues beginning in 1964 even on his own time.) He became publicly active in the Copper-Nickel Coalition of the mid-1970s right after his retirement. In May of 1976 he and other environmentalists formed the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness to push for new federal legislation to protect the BWCA. Heinselman was elected as the Chair of this new coalition, in what soon became a full-time unpaid volunteer position. Over the next two and a half years, Heinselman led the Friends’ citizen effort to pass new legislation through Congress. As part of this national campaign, both Bud and Fran Heinselman lived in Washington, D.C. for months at a time, coordinating the Friends efforts in a highly politically-charged campaign. He worked particularly closely with congressmen Donald M. Fraser (D-MN), Bruce F. Vento (D-MN), and Phillip Burton (D-CA). Heinselman’s efforts largely succeeded in October 1978 when Congress passed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act. President Carter signed the bill into law on 21 October 1978 as Public Law 95-495 (92 Stat. 1649).

Heinselman authored or co-authored two books, both published posthumously, that reflect both his advocacy and research careers: Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, co-authored with Kevin Proescholdt and Rip Rapson (St. Cloud, Minnesota: North Star Press of St. Cloud, 1995) and The Boundary Waters Wilderness Ecosystem (University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

This biographical sketch was written by Kevin Proescholdt in November 2011.

From the guide to the Papers relating to the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness., 1897-1996 (bulk 1976-1978)., (Minnesota Historical Society)