Like its hundreds of islands, Voyageurs National Park in the border lake country between northern Minnesota and Canada ripples with stories.
A colorful but underappreciated champion of the region is emerging as a key part of the Voyageurs origin story as the park marks its 50th anniversary.
Jun Fujita was a Japanese American photographer whose keen eye and sense of adventure was manifested in powerful news photography for the Chicago Evening Post in the early 1900s. His black-and-white images from the hustle and heat of the city included everything from race riots to Al Capone gangster violence.
But Fujita also found ample material – and inspiration – in trips to northern Minnesota during the same period, said his great-nephew, Graham Lee.
Fujita’s images still resonate among park historians as fundamental to the preservation of the Rainy Lake watershed in the early 20th century and the legislation that established the national park in 1975.
This image ran in Outdoor America magazine as part of a campaign to protect the boundary waters from industries that wanted to dam the region. Photo courtesy of the Graham and Pam Lee Collection. (Photo: Courtesy of the Graham and Pam Lee Collection)
While at the height of his powers, Fujita provided photos to Ernest Oberholtzer. The titan of Minnesota conservation displayed them as he made the case for protecting the Quetico-Superior region from industries that saw the boundary waters as ripe to exploit.
Fujita, who immigrated to Canada in 1906 before moving a few years later to Chicago, even petitioned a Post colleague to write an editorial in support of Oberholtzer. Later, he sent a note to the activist:
“This fight is a fight of every person in this country, who has any civic pride in himself.”