An Ely group agrees on the value of the Boundary Waters — but they can’t agree on mining
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As she stands in front of a massive map of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Becky Rom can trace the footsteps her father, Bill, made over this terrain nearly 90 years ago.
Over the course of several years in the late 1930s, the elder Rom built trails connecting this vast wilderness of interconnected lakes as part of a U.S. Forest Service trail crew. Becky Rom said the experience stuck with her dad through his years in college and while serving in the Navy during World War II.
“He was in the Pacific, dreaming of coming back. This was what he fell in love with, the canoe country,” Rom said.
When her dad returned from the war, he started a successful canoe outfitting operation in Ely. Growing up exploring the Boundary Waters with her father and working in the outfitting shop seeded Rom’s life-long activism to protect the area from copper-nickel mining.
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“My activism started when I was in seventh grade, and I’ve never stopped,” she said. “My advocacy for the canoe country has been with me my whole life.”
But her role in opposing copper-nickel mining has made Rom a flashpoint in this tight-knit community.
She’s successfully drawn national and federal support for blocking new mining operations through the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters. She and like-minded environmentalists argue the science is clear: There’s no safe way to mine copper-nickel without tainting the water, which draws canoers and tourists to the area.
Her views put her at odds with an equally vocal group of mining advocates who argue allowing copper-nickel mining in the region could bring back much needed jobs to the area and boost the local economy.
Two years ago, the Biden administration banned mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber has reintroduced legislation to overturn the ban, which was also a campaign promise of President Donald Trump.
In Ely, the issue has become so toxic that a group of residents last year started a local chapter of a national organization called Braver Angels. It’s a group that helps people talk about the political issues that divide them. It’s also MPR News’ partner on its Talking Sense project.
And Rom has been recruited to be part of a workshop later that night that will help the community find common ground on the perennially divisive issue of mining.
While mining may be one of the most vitriolic topics in Ely, Johnnie Hyde said it’s hardly the only one.
“Our town polarizes easily and with rancor. And to me, that is not a way to find solutions. It’s not healthy for our community,” she said. It’s a big reason why Hyde helped start the local Braver Angels chapter in late 2023.
Over the following months, the group learned skills to better communicate with people who see politics differently. They tackled hot-button issues like abortion and guns. But they didn’t touch the mining issue until now.
Hyde admits it’s been hard to attract political conservatives and mining advocates to the meetings.
Local Dan Dusich is among the skeptics who hasn’t attended a meeting. He’s conservative and he thinks there’s no productive way to talk about much of anything when he’s heard the group is stacked with liberals.
“It’s a good idea on paper and whatever. The left is always going to have their opinion. The right’s always going to have their opinion,” he said. “Maybe you can talk to someone, but in the end, there’s going to be disagreement. There’s going to be arguments."
Still, conservatives like Gerald Tyler have continued to show up to meetings. Tyler is the chief executive of Up North Jobs, which promotes mining, and he’ll be participating in the Braver Angels workshop, too.
Tyler said that even though he’s in the minority at many of these meetings, he’s felt understood. He described an interaction with some attendees who are skeptical that Ely needs mining to survive.
“And one of them asked me, ‘Do you think Ely is a dying community?’ No, it’s not a dying community. Ely is always going to be here, but it’s not a healthy community,” he said.
“We no longer have a hospital that provides maternity service. We have one newspaper. We no longer have a radio station. And we don’t have these things because there’s not enough business. There’s not enough money flowing through,” he told her.
He said he appreciated that she listened attentively. “She didn’t shut me out,” he said.
Liberal Anna Thompson has been going to these meetings, too.
“I was able to get through the last year before the election without having an ulcer,” she said.
Thompson said the meetings have helped her better communicate with her conservative neighbors and family members in a moment when the country feels very polarized.
“I could sleep at night because there are, you know, as many people on, I’ll say, the other side, who are just as compassionate about what they believe and also afraid of the things that I believe,” she said. “It’s just helped me be more calm and survive.”
And when it comes to mining, Thompson says the meetings have helped liberals like herself consider the other side of the debate.
“It’s not changing my opinion about what I believe should happen with the copper-nickel mine, but it helped,” Thompson said. “It gives me so much more compassion.”
Later that night, Thompson was among 100 Ely residents who filtered into the senior center for a three-hour Braver Angels meeting. They watched as five designated people who support copper-nickel mining tried to find common ground with five people who oppose it. The group included Becky Rom and Gerald Tyler, among others.
After three hours, a list of common goals emerged. The group wanted more affordable housing and child care, along with a thriving economy.
As for the lakes, everyone said they love them and want to keep them clean. Still, the group couldn’t find a single area of common ground when it comes to copper-nickel mining.
Johnnie Hyde, the group’s co-founder, said the meeting was nevertheless valuable. To her, it’s all about modeling the type of collaboration and civil discourse that Ely needs to move forward.
She said it was positive, “just seeing people talk together, work together, enjoy one another’s company and having completely different, you know, opinions. It’s a little pie in the sky,” she added. “But you’ve got to start somewhere.”
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