Three Indiana Waltonians served during the early and mid-1960's on the lzaak Walton League's Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area Task Force to help stave off timbering and mining interests, and other exploiters, who were determined to invade the BWCA. The BWCA had received less than full protection under the national Wilderness Act in 1964. And the battle to complete the protection of the BWCA was a major national goal not only of the League but of most other national groups as well, including the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, and others. Indiana's three Task Force members prepared a color brochure on the BWCA which was then mailed to the entire memberships of these key organizations. This was during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, and Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman. The BWCA constituted 1-million acres of the 3-million-acre Superior National Forest. While the battle for the BWCA may never end, and has included many lawsuits over mining, timbering, and motorized conflicts, much was achieved in that era-with the highly active participation of the Indiana lzaak Walton League. During the 1960s the Indiana Izaak Walton League was one of the organization's major influences backing passage of the National Wilderness Preservation System. In fact, the then-president of the Indiana IWL was authorized to represent all of the midwestern state divisions at the final field hearings on the Wilderness Act, held in Denver in 1964. The Wilderness Act was passed and signed into law later that year, immediately establishing millions of acres of Wilderness on dozens of areas of national lands.

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