WILDERNESS ACTS: Dorothy Molter and Performing the Boundary Waters

Wilderness is a contested concept and those areas designated as such are often at the centre of debates and activism related to environmental protection and climate catastrophe. This chapter considers the ways that wilderness is both legislatively constructed and called to perform by those who visit and live near such areas. These ideas are examined through the figure of Dorothy Molter, who lived in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota, even after the US Wilderness Act of 1964 prohibited permanent residences, among other regulations that have come to define wilderness areas in the United States and internationally.