Reshaping Our National Parks and Their Guardians: The Legacy of George B. Hartzog Jr.

8: Alaska, the Last Park Frontier

167 “Ihope that the Alaska bug bites you—and I don’t mean mosquitoes,” wrote Doris Leonard to George Hartzog in June 1965 prior to his first visit. “There is something about that place that haunts one,” the enthusiastic conservationist and wife of a former Sierra Club president professed. “You have a great responsibility and tremendous opportunity to capture and protect whatever that haunting quality is.”1 In August 1965, Hartzog traveled to Alaska and experienced for himself a landscape that evoked such passion. “Once I was introduced to Alaska,” he said, “I was obsessed with saving the best of that.”2 As Hartzog ascended to the directorate, long ignored Alaskan land issues were being forced to the forefront. Land selections that were permitted to the new state by the Alaska Statehood Act of 1958 increasingly conflicted with Native land claims.3 Land managing agencies like the National Park Service, environmental organizations, and some in Congress turned evermore wistful gazes toward Alaska. They began arguing that Alaska possessed resources of national significance and therefore needed federal protection . The discovery of valuable oil reserves on the Arctic coastal plain provided the catalyst that would speed the growing controversy over land ownership toward eventual resolution in Congress but not without a lengthy and impassioned battle. What would unfold in Alaska was without precedent. While George Hartzog was but one of a number of key players in this process, his role was critical. As the director of a preservation agency, he was on the leading edge CHAPTER EIGHT Alaska, the Last Park Frontier 168 chapter eight of a national movement to federally protect the state’s unspoiled resources. Early in his directorate, he had recognized that Alaska held immense promise and was “ripe for the taking.”4 He grasped the potential, but he was savvy enough to realize he needed to move cautiously lest he anger Alaskans and the leadership in other federal agencies. Initial Park Service studies of Alaskan lands, which had begun in the 1920s and 1930s, laid important groundwork but lacked sufficient support to yield park additions. President Lyndon Johnson stopped just short of leaving the country an Alaskan legacy before he left office. The crucial turning point would come when Hartzog persuaded a key member of Congress to sponsor a critical amendment to the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This amendment opened the door to what would become an unrivaled but hotly contested conservation legacy. For Hartzog, the quest for Alaska parks alternated between elation and frustration. Hartzog and those associated with Alaska labored hard to save significant resources before they were lost. They had vowed not to repeat mistakes made with previous parks in the lower forty-eight states. Past additions, once buffered by large expanses of unsettled lands, had become wilderness islands, as development pressed in from all sides. Resulting problems, such as those encountered in Florida’s Everglades National Park, where the park’s lifeblood of water lay outside its boundaries, left park managers facing resource management and protection nightmares. With Alaska, an immense area well over twice the size of Texas, they believed they had an unparalleled opportunity to protect entire ecosystems and do things right the first time. . Many called Alaska the last unsettled frontier, but hardy souls had occupied its harsh lands as early as 6000 BC. Eskimos lived mostly along the northern and western coasts and in pockets of the interior. Aleuts occupied the Aleutian Islands. Hugging the more moderate shorelines of southeast Alaska were coastal Indians, largely Tlingits and Haidas, while Athabascans occupied the interior. Over the years, Native peoples had established their own territories and subsistence patterns that later served as the basis for their land claims. Around 1741, Russians sailed to Alaska and quickly began exploiting the natural resources and spreading devastating diseases. After more than a century, troubles at home and a dwindling fur supply led Russia in 1867 to sell her claims in Alaska to the United States for $7 million.5 After purchasing “Seward’s Folly,” the United States did little to assimilate Alaska alaska, the last park frontier 169 and its inhabitants into the rest of the country. Communication difficulties, inhospitable climate, and distance proved significant obstacles. Nevertheless, enterprising Americans found ways to use Alaska’s rich natural resources. They picked up whaling where the Russians left off and opened up salmonprocessing canneries at seaports.6 Discoveries of gold from the 1860s...