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   I can hear you asking, who the heck is Will Dilg?

   After joining the Cass County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League I had the same question.

   Almost no one knows this fella… 

   From The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium:

Williamson H. Dilg (1869-1927) was the driving force behind the establishment of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge from north of Wabasha, Minnesota to Rock Island, Illinois. He was one of the most prominent voices for conservation and the environment in the 1920’s and was the founder and first president of the Izaak Walton League. Dilg crossed the country speaking, writing, and organizing to preserve 240,000 acres of upper Mississippi River bottomland and backwaters and prevent them from being diked and drained. On June 7, 1924, just eleven months after the campaign began and two and a half years after the first Izaak Walton League meeting, the U.S. Congress authorized the Refuge. This was the first time in U.S. history that the federal government purchased large tracts of private lands for conservation and public use. Dilg and the League then moved on to other issues such as protecting the elk in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, strengthening migratory bird laws, and protecting the Superior National Forest from exploitation by timber interests. Dilg was referred to as “a man of dauntless courage, persuasive eloquence, and inspiring zeal in the protection of fish and fishing” by others, and spent most of the remaining eleven months of his life in Washington, D.C. lobbying Congress and the Coolidge administration to establish a cabinet level “Department of Conservation.” The League he founded had grown to over 2,850 chapters and over 200,000 members.

   Will Dilg did some really good things toward the end of his life, and he would have done more were his life not cut short by cancer at age 58. His efforts put him on par with Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Rachel Carson, all giants of early American conservation.

   I personally would have liked to see Will and the Izaak Walton League advocate for adding the Mississippi River from Wabasha all the way to the Headwaters into the Refuge, but I can imagine at that time the River was still very wild and in much less peril than areas south.  In the beautiful natural world we live in, it is hard to prioritize what parts to protect.  I think if we are honest with ourselves, we want to protect it all.

As we have seen over the years, our area has been pressed by developments that have diminished the wilderness and forested aspects of the great Northwoods and its wetlands, lakes and streams. We now have tough choices to make.  How do we resolve the issues around shoreland alterations, lakeshore densities, sewage, and drinking water?  How much public forest should be harvested or left alone, and how is a harvest done best?  What fish, animals or plants have we excluded from the local ecology at our own expense?

   Maybe in our day-to-day lives it would be good to keep asking ourselves “What would Will Dilg do?”  I am pretty sure Will would not say “let George do it” when it comes to any of the issues above. I am pretty sure Will would go to work protecting the wild places and inspire others to do the same.  

   In a way, he still does.

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