Per Moberg died in August at age 91. He will be remembered as a give-no-quarter conservationist who was totally dedicated to protecting the Adirondacks. He said that other people were all too ready to compromise and his job was to stand up for the environment.
Born in Brooklyn, his parents took him back to Sweden six months later and he didn't return to the US for 25 years, after getting an electrical engineering degree. He spoke for the environment in a deep strong voice and with a thick Swedish accent - an effective combination.
Having gone fishing many times in Lapland with his father for Arctic char, in the US he quickly developed a passion for trout fishing and that eventually drew him to the Adirondacks. In the 1960s he served on the Board of Governors of ADK and, with Dave Newhouse and David Sive, on the committee that ensured the integrity of Article 14 during the 1967 Constitutional Convention. He was there when Laurence Rockefeller proposed a national park for the Adirondacks. By the late 1960s he was Chairman of the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club and was keeping a watch on the Temporary Commission for the Adirondacks.
In 1970 he joined the staff of the Bureau of Community Assistance in DEC where he helped to create and provide technical services to local conservation commissions and county environmental management councils throughout the state.
In the early 1980s, he transferred to the Preserve Protection and Management Bureau in the Division of Lands and Forests where he worked on Forest Preserve acquisition and met his second wife-to-be, Margaret Baldwin, an expert cartographer. Perhaps his most spectacular accomplishment came in 1985, a year before he retired, when he coordinated the acquisition of the Bog Rover Flow and Lows Lake for the Forest Preserve Centennial. Per and Margaret liked to fish and camp there as well as in the St. Regis Canoe Area.
Per never really left the Sierra Club when he joined DEC's staff. Rather, he served as the Atlantic Chapter's representative to the national Council for a few years. He became more than just agitated about the impacts of the 1980 Olympics. In retirement he took up the cause again as co-chair, with Tom Kligerman, of the Chapter's Adirondack Committee. He tried mightily, but unsuccessfully, to have a house removed that was on Forest Preserve land at Indian Lake dam in violation of Article 14 of the State constitution. His greatest accomplishment in this period was that, with Tom, he met with Paul Jamieson in 1988, the spiritual father of the fight for public navigation rights and then he and Tom laid the groundwork for the Sierra Club's 1991 famous foray through Adirondack League Club property on the South Branch of the Moose River by making trial runs on the Beaver River and the Middle Branch of the St. Regis River. The Moose River trip led to the 1998 landmark Court of Appeals decision that sanctioned recreational use as a test of navigability, a major step forward in clarifying the public right..
Per and Tom also issued a position paper in 1988 titled "The Adirondack Park - A Park in Trouble." Per would say now that it never got out of trouble. We sure could use him - and he is missed.
On September 17, Per's Sierra Club friends, with his children and neighbors and his good wife and companion in the outdoors and indoors and on the road, Margaret, gathered at Per's house on the hill in Easton in Washington County for a final hail and farewell.