Carter signs Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act, banning logging and expanding protections

President Jimmy Carter signs the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) Act into law, expanding the protected wilderness area and adding notable protections. The law ends logging within the area, restricts snowmobiles and motorboats, and sets strict limits on commercial activity. The act was passed after logging threatened to destroy the area. It becomes the legal backbone protecting more than one million acres of pristine forests, glacial lakes, and streams in the Superior National Forest along 150 miles of the Canadian border.