The year was 1935. Across the nation workers were suffering the ravages of the Great Depression that had begun in the last years of the twenties. Like the economy, the land and waters of the United States were in ruin. It was the fourth year of the terrible drought that made the Dust Bowl. It was not only dry, it was hot. The landscape stayed brown for years. Marshes disappeared completely, and there was real concern that the continent's waterfowl could be headed for extinction. Forests withered. Lakes and streams shrunk to shadows of themselves. People and wildlife, the land and waters, suffered as few have before.

But out of these terrible conditions, conservation would begin to grow, a "golden age" would come. Out of the dry wetlands of the year before came the duck stamp, a signal of conservationists on the move.

In late 1935, J. N. "Ding" Darling, the Iowa cartoonist-conservationist who then headed the Federal Bureau of Biological Survey, approached the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, suggesting that it sponsor a national conservation movement. Twenty-five states reported having state federations in operation, but Minnesota wasn't among them.

The U. S. Chamber contacted the Minneapolis Junior Chamber of Commerce, which in turn handed the matter over to its conservation committee chairman, Leonard Ramberg. Ramberg called the first meeting of the newly formed "Minnesota Wildlife Federation" in January of 1936 at the Curtis Hotel in Minneapolis. Homer Luick, a Minneapolis banker, became the organization's first president.

Today the Minnesota Wildlife Federation is known as the Minnesota Conservation Federation, and the General Wildlife Federation is the National Wildlife Federation.

In 1954, Minnesota Out-of-Doors, the state's first conservation and outdoor newspaper made its debut. MCF officers Cap Lund, Roger Preuss, and Cliff Sakry were regular panelists on Stu Mann's "Sportsmen's Round Table" on Channel 11. The Federation held clinics on conservation legislation around the state. And the MCF paid its first (and only) $50.00 reward for the conviction of a "hunter" committing an act of vandalism on a farm. The reward was featured on one of the series of posters the Federation circulated in its hunter safety campaign.

In 1955, the MCF again fought the proposed diversion of funds from the Game and Fish fund. The list of affiliated clubs had gown to 144, a projected total membership of nearly 18,000 individuals. The second issue of Minnesota Out-of- Doors appeared. The Federation continued to fight for more scientific wildlife management, recommending closing the deer season in areas of low populations, an end to bounties, and game animal status for the black bear. And at the Third Annual Assembly of the Federation in Duluth, Cliff Sakry left his position as a paid employee of the MCF, due primarily to the MCF's hard financial times, but continued on as a volunteer.

In December of 1967, the Federation voted to commit $1,000 of MCF funds to promote the establishment of Voyageurs National Park. At the December Board of Directors meeting in Winona, a resolution was passed saying in part: "We believe that if we are to have a National Park in the State of Minnesota, we must act now. It is evident that no action is forthcoming by State officials or National Congressmen unless we, the public, demand it." The resolution was adopted by the NWF as well.

All of us can look with pride to the grand tradition we are now heirs to. The MCF brought us the State Youth Firearms Safety Training Program, permanent funding for the "Save the Wetlands" program, improved water quality, and end to toxic shot for water fowl hunting, and of course, a good deal of the credit for RIM goes to the Federation, along with many, many other accomplishments.

And that tradition continues with you, with all of the members of the Minnesota Conservation Federation, which has become the voice of conservation for this state.

-Adapted from the Fifty Years Edition of Minnesota Out-of-Doors
written by Dan J. Dinndorf