Volunteer Spotlight is a blog series where we feature our outstanding Sustainable Ely volunteers. Learn why these dedicated volunteers share their time with the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, how the Wilderness has impacted their lives and why they choose to call Ely, Minnesota, their home. Long-time Sustainable Ely volunteer Deborah Kleese shares her story.
Before arriving in Ely, I spent about 28 years in the Hudson Valley of New York state. As my husband Dave and I planned our retirement, we concluded that the place we wanted to be was Ely--in close proximity to the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park. Canoeing is an important part of our lives, and there is no better place to canoe than in this vast, shared Wilderness between the United States and Canada. We spend time year-round in the Boundary Waters. We hike the trails in spring, fall and summer; we fish and ski the frozen lakes in winter; and take many day-trips to the various Boundary Waters lakes during summer. We also take at least one two-week trip that typically spans both the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park.
Prior to moving to Ely, I was a college professor teaching psychology, and my particular area of expertise was environmental psychology. As an environmental psychologist, I was interested in the transactions between people and the biophysical world. By “transactions,” I refer to human behavior, experience and the physical environment as a reciprocal unit. Humans, through thoughts, feelings and behaviors, intentionally or unintentionally change the environment and are, in turn, changed by the places we inhabit. In this context, place matters, and I can say that I have been profoundly changed by the Quetico-Superior ecosystem. Gradually, through years of traveling through this waterway, I am beginning to understand how it came to be and how it has changed. I appreciate its complexity and I am constantly surprised by what it reveals. I am beginning to understand its human history and how the various waves of human habitation have informed and transformed the region.
Because place matters, places are not interchangeable. The Superior-Quetico region offers unique and special features that make it one of the best places on earth. Minnesota is fortunate to have one of the best freshwater environments on the planet, home to part of Lake Superior as well as the Boundary Waters. The human history is therefore written on these waters, and part of my interest in this place is in reading the chronicles of those who traveled from Lake Superior through waters now named the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park and then on to the Canadian waters to the west. In reading the journals of early surveyors and explorers, I recognize many places and empathize with their experiences, (not only with their accounts of impressive falls and rock faces, but also with their exasperation with mosquitoes, storms and tedious portages). Every day I can briefly pause and consider what a privilege it is to live here, in what is so aptly marked on early maps as the “region of rocks and water."
We couldn't be more thankful for the hardwork and dedication that Deborah Kleese has given to Sustainable Ely and the entire Ely community.
