Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness Campaign: Winton Weydemeyer Biography

Weydemeyer’s Early Years
One could do worse than be raised in the Tobacco Valley of northwest Montana at the turn of the 20th Century. Winton Weydemeyer’s good fortune was to be born in 1903 to a pioneer-spirited family who had recently moved west from Michigan to ranch and farm in the Fortine area under the morning shadow of the Whitefish Divide. The farm is still in the Weydemeyer family. Winton’s close ties to family and his family’s close ties to the land nurtured his young life.

As a child Weydemeyer lived in the environment of the Whitefish Range, watching its magical change of character with each season. Then as now, green ridges and peaks of summer give way to the candle bright yellow of aspen and the pumpkin orange of western larch peppering the hillsides in fall. Snow gradually descends to the forested foothills cloaking entire mountainsides in winter. The Whitefish Range rises from the valley floor at 3,000 feet to over 7,000 feet, its peaks connected by gently arched and forested ridges.

Winton Weydemeyer’s good fortune was to be born in 1903 to a pioneer-spirited family.

This paradise surrounded young Winton. The morning sun did not crest the Whitefish Divide until well after daylight at the Weydemeyer farm, so close was it to the mountains. Clean water flowed. Deer, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, grizzly and black bears existed in abundance. Weydemeyer’s father, Harry Weydemeyer, took Winton, then ten years old, on his first backcountry trip up Deep Creek, over Therriault Pass and into the wild core of the Ten Lakes country. It seems that with that trip at such an impressionable age, Winton Weydemeyer became a dedicated lover of wild country.

As Weydemeyer and his brother, Donald Robert, matured into young men, they tramped the hills, ridges, and stream bottoms of their backyard country, learning the sights and places. They hardened their bodies with the rigors of forest exploration, learned the ways of the forest, and became expert in woodcraft.

Growing Up Grange
Yet as powerful as the effect of that fresh country was, Weydemeyer’s education played at least an equal role in shaping the community and conservation leader he would become. His parents instilled a love of literature, along with respect for schooling and the beliefs of the Patrons of Husbandry, or the “Grange.” As the saying used to go, Weydemeyer “Grew Up Grange.”

Founded in 1867 by Oliver H. Kelly, a one-time Department of Agriculture field investigator, the Grange movement was a formidable force in the 1800s into the early 1900s. Kelly conceived the Patrons as an apolitical educational organization promoting reading and information for small farmers. However, the needs of America’s family farmers were so great that the Patrons eventually adopted a progressive political agenda, promoting cheap rail transportation for agricultural products, cheap public power, rural electrification, Rural Free Delivery of US Mail, soil conservation, and other beneficial accomplishments. They opposed grain monopolies and high taxation. The Montgomery Ward catalog company sponsored and promoted The Patrons and the Grange grew to over 700,000 members nation-wide at its peak.

His parents instilled a love of literature, along with respect for schooling and the beliefs of the Patrons of Husbandry.

The Grange philosophy of husbandry and respect for the land took root in the young Weydemeyer. Weydemeyer based his ethics and philosophy in large measure from his Grange education. He remained active in the Grange his entire life, authoring Grange publications and serving for decades as Grange Master.

The Aldo Leopold Connection
A good student, Weydemeyer enrolled at Montana State College in Bozeman (as Montana State University was then called) and graduated with highest honors from the agricultural school. He served a year and a half as director of the Moccasin Experiment Station in the Judith Basin before returning to his roots in the Tobacco Valley. During his college days he’d involved himself in current conservation issues, returning to the subject in debate and oratory contests. When he returned to Fortine he simply continued that involvement, firmly establishing himself in the Grange organization and educating himself to be a progressive spokesman on conservation issues.

In the 1920s Aldo Leopold, at the time a forester on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, wrote an article in American Forests and Forest Life, the Magazine of the American Forestry Association (AFS), proposing to set aside primitive areas to be saved simply for their wild qualities. Leopold was not the first to offer the idea, but he became recognized as one of the more eloquent proponents. The essay’s title introduced the whole subject: “A Plea for the Preservation of a Few Primitive Forests, Untouched by Motor Cars and Tourist Camps, Where Canoe and Pack Trips into Back Country May Still Be Enjoyed by Lovers of the Wild.”

Weydemeyer, living in the forests of northwest Montana, read Leopold’s article. The Montanan fully agreed with its author. Later Weydemeyer simply said, “[I was] just spurred on by Aldo Leopold’s article.” Leopold wrote:

“Has it ever occurred to us that we may unknowingly be just as short sighted as our forefathers in assuming certain things to be inexhaustible, and becoming conscious of our error only after they have practically disappeared?... In fact, our tendency is not to call things resources until the supply runs short. When the end of the supply is in sight we “discover” that the thing is valuable.”

Weydemeyer wrote a passionate follow-up letter and the AFS published Weydemeyer’s thoughts nearly in total.

Weydemeyer’s exchange with Aldo Leopold (though they never met in person) gave direction to his conservation thinking. Weydemeyer’s letter to the AFS was dominated by two themes then current in the emerging natural resource debate: timber harvest practices and the advent of forest roads that allowed “motor cars” to enter the wild country where formerly only the hiker or horseback rider traveled. The issues were simpler and clearer in 1925, but foreshadowed a broad debate. Weydemeyer’s letter foresaw the demise of his backyard wilderness, and he felt impassioned about its preservation. For example, Weydemeyer wrote:

“If roads were constructed to beauty spots in all the remaining unbroken forests and far mountains of the nation, probably ninety-five percent of the motor campers would be not better served and satisfied than they are at present, but one hundred percent of the wilderness lovers would be deprived of their pleasure in outdoor life.”

This uncannily clairvoyant statement, written in 1925, rings true for the wilderness lover of today perhaps more resoundingly than for those of Weydemeyer’s time. Weydemeyer closed his letter to the AFS strongly urging the protection of his Whitefish Range. This is how Weydemeyer described his wilderness area:

“... the Whitefish Range, which with its outlying ridges, lies adjacent to the Canadian boundary and the west boundary of Glacier National Park, with a central roadless area of approximately 485,000 acres -- half as great as the park itself.

“Topographically the country in this area is much the same as that in the lower elevation of the park, and the fauna and flora are similar...

“Many sections have never been visited by anyone other than a few old-timer hunters and trappers, and members of the United States Geological Survey party. Trails are usually few and distant, probably because of the surprising lack of forest fires in the past years. Though it thus admirably conforms to the requirements by the Western wilderness lover, it is by no means inaccessible to the ordinary camper or tourist who is willing to pay the just price of entry -- a few hours’ travel from automobile roads by foot or horseback...”

Aldo Leopold and Winton Weydemeyer held common beliefs. They took pleasure in and saw the value of natural, wild country. In his writing, Winton Weydemeyer lobbied for his backyard wilderness in a time prior to national wilderness legislation, or even government recognition of such places being administered by the youthful Forest Service. Weydemeyer would go on to many projects, many endeavors and many public service efforts in the coming decades, continuing to write and speak his beliefs as did the nationally recognized Aldo Leopold.

Decades of Effort, Success and Disappointment
Weydemeyer’s life between 1925 and 1964, the year of the passage of the National Wilderness Preservation Act, was a life lived in full. But he acted primarily from his ranch: tending livestock and growing Christmas trees (he harvested over a half million in his lifetime), serving his community as Grange Master, a founder of the local Soil Conservation District as well as the Lincoln County Fair, and assuming other community positions. He continued to tramp his woods, gaining remarkable skill as an amateur photographer. Over the years he published more than 300 of his own photographs (many developed in his bathtub) in regional and local papers.

In his 56th year, he made room for love and family when he married Hallie M. Taylor Thompson.

In 1950 he ran for and won the State Senate seat for his district, serving 1951--1953.

Twenty-first century Montana possesses a tumultuous political environment. The 1950s, though different in many ways, exhibited similar social turmoil. The Anaconda Company had an iron grip on extractive industry and state government as well as outright ownership of most daily newspapers. Labor was unionized and strong. Clashes between the Anaconda Company and union factions affected the entire country and established a national legacy. Weydemeyer entered this political maelstrom as a new State Senator. It may have been a no win situation for him from the outset. Weydemeyer’s own words describe the situation:

“I tried to recognize that they [labor unions] were a big voting group, not from the standpoint of getting votes from them, but that they were a part of the population and had their own concerns. I tried to go along reasonably. They’d come in session after session for something they knew they couldn’t get....I’d say, ‘Do you want me to work for something I think you can get? Or do you want the whole hog for what you are asking?’... I didn’t go the extreme they asked for so they booted me out... I lost by 56 votes.”

However wounded Weydemeyer might have felt at being turned out, he didn’t quit. If anything his release from political office permitted him to focus his energy on his conservation goals. He returned to Helena as a lobbyist during several sessions on behalf of the Montana Grange, and later for the Montana Conservation Council.

Winton Weydemeyer had focused his interests on advocacy and politics, but in his 56th year, he made room for love and family when he married Hallie M. Taylor Thompson, the widow of a fellow conservationist, with one son and three daughters. Hallie Weydemeyer proved to be an activist who participated in community and state concerns as an ardent Republican.

In the late 1950s Weydemeyer and others established the Montana Conservation Council as an offshoot of the Northwest Conservation League. Weydemeyer served as his chapter’s first president and as its chief lobbyist to the Montana Legislature for years. This organization concerned itself with State Forest lands, water pollution control and conservation education. Weydemeyer invested years of his life in the Council, which did not expire until 1974, the year Montana’s new Constitution came into effect. The Council tried to hew a middle ground with a board of directors composed of conservation leaders as well as leaders of industry, including then powerful Montana Power Company’s president, Paul Schmeckel. However, the philosophical divide represented on the Council’s board apparently prevented unified action on increasingly complex natural resource issues.

The Montana Wilderness Association decided to go it alone and advocate for Montana’s most cherished wild country from within Montana.

In 1957, at about the same time as Weydemeyer involved himself with the Conservation Council, he teamed up with Montanans from across the state to create a conservation organization that has stood the test of time. The Montana Wilderness Association (MWA) was formed in 1958 explicitly to deal with the problem of the rapidly disappearing wild lands of Montana. The national Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club had been in existence for years, but rather than create a formal alliance with these national groups, the Montana Wilderness Association decided to go it alone and advocate for Montana’s most cherished wild country from within Montana. Member knowledge was local and particular. Weydemeyer was a clear leader of this group, serving two terms as the first vice-president and then moving up a notch to serve as its second president.

The MWA sought Congressional protection for Montana wilderness. Not just administrative protection, but iron clad congressional designation that could not be tampered with due to shortsighted economic interests. It took MWA and national groups six years to achieve the National Wilderness Preservation Act signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. This act was monumental in preserving parts of America’s wilderness heritage. Still, formal designation of wilderness was granted to only a fraction of suitable areas at the time of the measures enactment. Congress did not include Weydemeyer’s own cherished Whitefish Range.

In subsequent years Weydemeyer’s Montana Wilderness Association grew from an all-volunteer organization to one with paid staff. Even as the natural resource and wildlands debate grew more complex and acrimonious, several Montana Wilderness Bills passed the US House of Representatives, and one made it all the way to President Reagan’s desk, only to suffer a pocket veto. In each go-round the Northern Whitefish Range and Ten Lakes areas, a remnant of Weydemeyer’s original 485,000 acre complement to Glacier National Park, failed to make the final draft. The area was usually horse-traded out and Weydemeyer, always seeing the bigger picture, would concede his beloved local interest for the greater good.

One of Weydemeyer’s last acts as a regional conservation leader was his signing of the Kootenai Accords in 1991. This agreement, between the lumber producers union from the Libby area and the Montana Wilderness Association, determined which lands could be logged and which would be set aside for wilderness on the Kootenai National Forest. The agreement gave the appearance of both Weydemeyer and the unions having traveled full circle from the campaign days of 1954 when, as Weydemeyer recalled, “they booted me out.” Such was Weydemeyer’s ability to sit and talk conservation issues with anyone. Unfortunately, this final effort on Weydemeyer’s part, after a long life of tireless effort, was branded as “extreme” by some, and was abandoned by the Montana’s Congressional delegation.

Conclusion
Weydemeyer was a life-long progressive Republican, Granger, conservationist and community leader. He lived through momentous changes in our culture’s ability to alter the natural environment. He did all he could to balance economic demands with prudent conservation of the land. Weydemeyer reached further than his roots in Grange. Certainly, he passed beyond the stereotypical follower as he defended the land against those zealous to extract its resources without control, and exploit it for the fleeting, destructive pleasures of motorized recreation. Weydemeyer steadfastly held out as a progressive even as his party moved ever further to the political right.

“There isn’t much left of the Whitefish Range... It’s perfectly apparent that we haven’t accomplished all we hoped for.”

He attempted to hew to the middle course--to look to reason to resolve controversy. He balanced his desire to conserve the remnants of the beloved wild country of his youth with the demands of a growing nation of consumers. He understood the pressure such demands place on wildness. Weydemeyer’s activism was tempered by his living close to the land and alongside hard working neighbors. He focused on accomplishing all he could for land and community. He worked to gain results as well as defend ideals.

Weydemeyer lived a remarkably full life. As Secretary of State Bob Brown observed of Weydemeyer in 1998, “In visiting with Weydemeyer, one had the feeling that he had really learned what Thoreau had gone to Walden Pond to discover. You felt that here was someone who had come face to face with the Great Spirit.”

In 1991, the year before Weydemeyer died, he observed, “There isn’t much left of the Whitefish Range... Actual wild lands that remain are only a small part of the original... It’s perfectly apparent that we haven’t accomplished all we hoped for. The wilderness bill[s] that passed didn’t meet the objectives [early conservation leaders hoped to obtain].” In spite of that heartbreaking acknowledgment, Winton Weydemeyer remains a luminary in Montana conservation.

Weydemeyer’s vision of a Whitefish Range wilderness remains for the present generation to realize. Naming this wilderness the Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness would honor his lifetime commitment to his community, Montana and the land.

A more comprehensive biography of Weydemeyer’s life may be obtained by contacting slundstrum@wildmontana.org