1,030 research outputs found
Letter re: Amon Carter, Jr.'s capture
No full textLetter from Sydney M. Kaye, Goldmark Colin & Kaye, to Amon Carter regarding capture of Amon, Jr. by Nazis
Letter re: Amon Carter, Jr.
No full textLetter from Sydney M. Kaye to Amon Carter expressing sympathy at the news that his son, Amon Jr., had been reported missing in action in North Africa.Mr. Amon G. Carter, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas. My dear Mr. Carter- Harold Hough has just told me of the word you have received from the North African front. We in New York are joining to the prayers of your friends and associates in Texas our own fervent prayers that you may receive good news swiftly. Meanwhile, we wish you strength and fortitude during your period of anxiety. Sincerely, Sydney M. Kay
Recommended from our members
Kaye Bock Award Winners
No full textThe Kaye Bock Award is given to the author (or authors) of the best paper, as determined by the editors, in each issue of the Berkeley Planning Journal that was written by a student (or a team of students). The award is named in loving memory of Kaye Bock to honor her unbounded concern for and commitment to graduate students. This award is also intended to be an eternal expression of gratitude from the Berkeley Planning Journal to Kaye for her critical and caring support during our first two decades of publication. The Kaye Bock Award is accompanied by a $250 cash gift
Interview with Dr. Robert Krear by Roger Kaye November 21, 2002
No full textOral history interview with Robert Krear. Roger Kaye as interviewer.
Dr. Krear discusses his involvement in the 1956 Murie Expedition of the Sheenjeck River and the Arctic Refuge.
Organization: FWS
Name: Robert Krear
Years:
Program:
Keywords: History, Biography, Biologists (USFWS), Education, Environmental education, Exhibitions, Forestry, Forests, Parks, Wildlife refuges, Wilderness, Murie Expedition, Sheenjeck River, Arctic RefugeINTERVIEW WITH DR. ROBERT KREAR
BY ROGER KAYE NOVEMBER 21, 2002
MR. KAYE: This is an oral history interview with Dr. Bob Krear. The subject will be
his involvement in the 1956 Murie Expedition of the Sheenjeck River and the Arctic
Refuge. Bob, thanks for providing this interview. Maybe you could first start off with
talking about how you happened to become involved with the Muries, and got invited in
the 1956 Sheenjeck Expedition.
DR. KREAR: I met the Muries first in 1948, I guess, when I was still a Forestry student
at Penn State. I was traveling west to the State of Washington and dropped off so that I
could meet them. Since then, I practically became a member of their family. In 1949 I
began my Masters work at the University of Wyoming. On almost every holiday after
that I was up at Moose, at their place. I was up there for Thanksgiving and for
Christmas. Their son, Martin Murie and I both served together in the Tenth Mountain
Division during the War. That’s another reason why I got to meet them. I was a
Naturalist at Grand Teton Park for three seasons. Of course that was near their
homestead. I got to see them often. In 1951 I was on an expedition to Ungaba, which is
near Quebec and Labrador on the eastern side of Hudson Bay. Olaus apparently
considered that qualified experience to join him on the Arctic Wildlife Range. He also was
instrumental in my getting a job as a Biologist, first doing research on the [unintelligible]
Islands in 1953. So I had signed up to go back to the Purpolip [sounds like] Islands in
1956. Mardie Murie called me up on the phone and I told her my plans. She said, “Why
don’t you come with us up to the Arctic Range, up to the Brooks Range”? So I changed
my mind immediately, and then essentially felt like I was on the expedition.
MR. KAYE: Interesting. Maybe in just a few sentences, can you summarize your career
after the Murie Expedition, and where you ended up?
DR. KREAR: After the Murie Expediton I went right down to the University of
Colorado and began work on my Doctorate. I finished that in 1965. I took nine years
getting that Doctorate done. But I interrupted it numerous times. One of those times
was to go out to the Aleutian Islands, and Manchitka to do research on the Sea Otters. I
worked seasonally with the Park Service several times. I worked for fifteen years as a
seasonal professional naturalist at eight different National Parks. My main job of course
was as a professor of Biology at [unintelligible] University. I ended up at Michigan Tech
University on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I liked a great variety in my life.
MR. KAYE: Yes. Ok. What I’d like to get to here is the Muries, and some of the other
people who were instrumental in establishing the Refuge. I’ll ask you about them. And
particularly, I am interested in your impressions on the beliefs that Olaus and Mardie
held about this area that became the Arctic Refuge, and what their hope was for it’s
future.
DR. KREAR: Let me first give you my impressions that the Muries had of the area up
there. I think this was a second honeymoon for them. It was a return to the wilderness
country they had traveled in by dogsled in 1922 I believe, during their wedding
honeymoon. They went down the Yukon, up at Anvek and up to Koyuakuk. My
impression was that they were supremely happy up there in the Sheenjeck Valley. And
Olaus was certainly back in his element. After we moved to Lash Lake, our second camp,
the two of them put backpacks on their backs and hiked up the Sheenjeck to be by
themselves for several days. I believe that was to recapture the memories of their
honeymoon together, west of the Brooks Range about thirty-four years earlier, up the
Koyakuk. Your other question was what?
MR. KAYE: What about their hopes for the place? What was their, what motivated
them to work for protecting this area as wilderness?
DR. KREAR: It was in 1953 that Olaus took a flight over the whole Brooks Range area.
They selected from the air the Sheenjeck River Valley as a possible source for an
expedition. That was the only part of the Brooks Range that was left unexploited. After
we got there, we had no reason to believe that he had made a bad choice. There was no
human activity in the area, except for the Indians of course. But their hopes were just to
preserve some of the…they knew that the Grizzly Bear was being exploited, and the
Wolverine, and in some areas, the Caribou. They wanted an area where those animals
could be at peace so to speak.
MR. KAYE: William O. Douglas was there for a period when you were there. Tell me
about your impression of him and what interested him in this area. Why did he come up
to get involved in this campaign?
DR. KREAR: William Douglas and Olaus Murie were on the canal hike near Washington,
D.C., I forget the name of it now. They were trying to preserve an old canal. [C&O
Canal] Olaus got acquainted with Douglas at that time. Because of that he invited him to
visit us up there at the Brooks Range. Douglas and his wife Mercy came in and spent
about a week with us. They spent most of their time with Olaus and Mardie so I was not
privy to most of their conversations. Nor do I think that Brian Kessler or Joyce Sheller
had a chance to talk much with them. [name accuracy?] You might ask Brian about that.
I did take Douglas fishing for Grayling once, and he mentioned that in his book titled My
Wilderness. He caught fish by the way. I found him to be very personable. Of course I
preferred to listen to him around the campfire. I was somewhat overwhelmed with the
man of his experience. He told of us his recent experiences in the Soviet Union. He had
been over there recently. He was very much interested in this project.
MR. KAYE: In what way? What was his hope for this place?
DR. KREAR: He was very much a wilderness person himself. He was a good mountain
climber and that sort of thing. He knew it was pretty much an unchanged, unexploited.
There was no commercialization up there yet and he wanted to keep it that way. His
ideas were almost identical to those of Olaus Muries.
MR. KAYE: I found in the Archives a letter that you wrote in 1980. Actually, you
addressed it to then President Jimmy Carter, protesting the renaming of the Arctic Refuge
after William O. Douglas. It of course temporarily had that name. It’s a very interesting
issue. I know that Olaus and Mardie opposed place names in the area too. Tell me about
what your thought was, related to why you were against place naming. You mentioned in
that letter that you believe William O. Douglas was against naming places in the
wilderness as well.
DR. KREAR: That was very interesting. Around a campfire one night, he and Olaus
were discussing that very thing. I don’t know if I brought it up or not. But once when I
was doing my research over on [sounds like] Ungada, there was a nearby camp of
Geologists and they told me that the head of our lake which was Menehet Lake, that there
was a rapid entering the lake called Murie Rapids. I told Olaus about that and he was
pretty much disappointed to hear that because he did not believe in the naming of
beautiful, natural areas after people. Certainly, Douglas was against this too. I heard him
agree with Olaus on it. They both believed that often it was done for political reasons
and for political persons whose names mean nothing to the generations that follow. They
often rather cheapen the significance of the object or area. Many times such areas have
been named after people who have never there or never had anything to do with the area,
such as perhaps the Molly Beatty Wilderness in Anwar. Natural restrictive names
always seem best when applicable. That’s pretty much the thoughts of all of us on that
expedition.
MR. KAYE: In what sense, do you think, that Douglas and the Muries felt it cheapened
the area? What place names like people did they represent they resisted?
DR. KREAR: They were mostly concerned that politicians would name areas for
their…to perpetuate their name and that sort of thing. Olaus was very much in favor of
natural names. He would even have accepted Indian names. What he preferred mostly
were descriptive names for the area rather than a person’s name given to the area.
MR. KAYE: Olaus is often described as a humble person. Is it perhaps that maybe he
and Douglas as a result of humility that the place shouldn’t be named after them?
DR. KREAR: I would agree with that. Olaus was a very humble person. He was very
intelligent, very quite, very unassuming. His personality was unique as far as that is
concerned.
MR. KAYE: What was it like to be in the field with him?
DR. KREAR: Wonderful. Wonderful. He was interested in everything; the plants and
the animals. Of course, one of his favorite things was animal tracks, and making casts of
the tracks and that sort of thing. While we were up there in the Brooks Range he had us
all looking for Wolf tracks, and the tracks of any other animals. If we found something
interesting he would immediately go to the area. He always carried his plaster of paris
with him, and poor it in the tracks. Olaus was a naturalist, a complete naturalist I would
say.
MR. KAYE: What other things did Olaus and Douglas talk about, say over the campfire
on evenings and so on?
DR. KREAR: They talked a little bit about Douglas’ latest experience over in the Soviet
Union, but I can’t remember much about that. Otherwise, that’s about all I can tell you
about that.
MR. KAYE: Yes, it was a long time ago.
DR. KREAR: It was a long time ago, yeah.
MR. KAYE: Do you recall anything that the Muries, either Olaus or Mardie said maybe
about Aldo Leopold or Bob Marshall, Howard Zonheizer, Henry Shore, other people that
indicated that some of the Murie ideas may have been influenced by these people?
DR. KREAR: Let’s think about Bob Marshall and his experience in the Brooks Range
which was about in 1930, I guess.
MR. KREAR: Tell me, if you remember, what they said about Bob Marshall. What was
the context?
DR. KREAR: They told me that he had visited them at Moose, Wyoming. They had
great respect for him as a pioneer in the wilderness movement. They mentioned that Bob
was instrumental in getting them involved in the Wilderness Society. Of course, Olaus
became the President in 1957. Mardie has an especially fond memory of Bob when he
told her that she was fondly remembered on the Koyukuk as the most beautiful that had
ever passed through there.
MR. KAYE: Oh!
DR. KREAR: That was kind of interesting! That’s about all I remember about Bob
Marshall. I never had the pleasure of meeting him. I met his brother Jim.
MR. KAYE: How about Leopold? Did the Muries talk about Leopold at all?
DR. KREAR: A little yes, but again, I can’t tell you much about it.
MR. KAYE: Are they any other authors or writers that the Muries might have
mentioned that stick out in your mind after all of these years?
DR. KREAR: No, I’m afraid not. Somebody else might be able to do better for you on
that.
MR. KAYE: O.K. That was a long time ago. Another question: The Muries and other
people, founders, that were involved with them, often described wildlife, but it was
usually in the context of wildness. Do you have a sense of how or why wildness was so
important to them? Why was it such a predominant theme in the campaign to establish
the refuge?
DR. KREAR: Up there in the Sheenjeck Valley we saw that the Grizzly’s had very little
fear of us. The Wolves came right into camp once. Foxes and the bird life was very tame.
They had never had any bad experiences with people. I guess that was one of the things
that Olaus Murie hoped to preserve in a global wildlife refuge. I don’t know what else to
say about that.
MR. KAYE: O.K. You mentioned ‘intangible values’, and in fact, you know Olaus used
that term quiet a bit in his writings. In fact, in his testimony before a Senate Committee
he talked about saving the intangible values as being one of the purposes of establishing
the Arctic Range. What do you think he meant by intangible values?
DR. KREAR: I guess it was just to be surrounded for three months by that great,
pristine arctic beauty, and that incredible wildlife that was almost constantly in sight. It
had to have affected us all deeply. It something that you couldn’t touch, couldn’t
describe. It did affect us. We didn’t want any contact with the outside world. We twice
turned down offers for the loan of two-way radios. Olaus and Mardie and all of us, we
wanted the feeling of peace that could come only by being totally isolated in what was
going on in the world. Since we reverted to the blessings of primeval nature. We even
disliked the occasional planes that flew over the route up to Keptovick and the dew line
installations. There were several visitations while we were there; people that wanted to
visit Olaus, and especially when Justice Douglas was there some reporters came up. We
didn’t exactly favor that sort of thing, but those interruptions were short though. It was
just being isolated and living the feelings of nature. I am not very good at expressing it.
Olaus considered it to be a spiritual, as well as a religious thing. Olaus, I know that Olaus
was not a religious person; Mardie was. But as to spiritual values, one benefits. It has to
be an individual thing as far as I am concerned. I can only speak for myself. I can say
that I am not a religious person, but yet I do have those spiritual values when I am out in
the wilderness. I think you described it best.
MR. KAYE: O.K. So, is it a secular thing for you, is it a relationship with something?
DR. KREAR: It’s definitely a secular thing. It’s a thing I can’t describe. It’s a great
gratitude for being able to feel the influence of the wilderness.
MR. KAYE: O.K. Another thing that I was going to ask; “evolution” is a word that I see
reoccurring through Olaus’ writings. He uses it in relationship both to human beings and
to the natural world. Do you have a sense of what this concept of evolution meant to
him? Why it was significant?
DR. KREAR: As near as I can figure, it is something like this; the value of wilderness has
affected the evolution of human attitudes towards wilderness preservation. I think that
the changes that can or will take place are profound, especially in the minds of confirmed
urbanites like members of the U. S. Congress. Urbanites lead a totally artificial way of
life in my opinion. And wilderness confronts one with the beauty of reality, and with the
obvious values of simplicity. Wilderness teaches a person what one really is, and not
what one thinks one is. I think every wilderness experience could bring about a change in
mindset, and always for the better. If you’ve never had an experience with the wilderness
before, and go into it for the first time, one’s mind or one’s attitude is bound to evolve I
think, for the better. That’s about all I can say on that.
MR. KAYE: I wanted to talk about recreation for a minute. Olaus described recreation in
this area as having a great potential for what he called, or described as, “satisfying an
important human urge”. He said it was the use of “wilderness as wilderness and not as
make believe”. What do you think he meant by this? Did you guys talk about recreation,
or the recreational potential, or what about recreation would be special or unique in this
place?
DR. KREAR: Yes, we certainly did. He thought that, it almost goes without saying that
there are numerous recreational values associated with Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It
depends on the type of wilderness experience. At Anwar, these would include rafting,
fishing, canoeing, camping, observing and photographing wildlife and flowers, hiking and
climbing, ecological research, experiencing twenty-four hours of daylight in the summer,
and the Aurora Borealis in winter. He just thought that all of these recreational delights
were limitless, and that’s just some of them.
MR. KAYE: You mentioned scientific values; do you have a sense of what he thought
the scientific value of this place would be in the future?
DR. KREAR: While we were there, I helped Ronnie Castle set up some permanent plots
for John Buckley at the University. Some ecological research would be occurring
indefinitely. It was just describing the changes that would occur in those plots over a long
period of time. Where we were, it seemed pretty obvious; the northern limit of course
was extending itself northward, that is just one of the things that he was going to be
describing. I assume those plots are still up there in the northern Sheenjeck Valley.
George Strouder and I helped him set them up. I think the Indians from Arctic Village
would come over there to hunt Wolves, there was a bounty on them at the time; I don’t
know of there still is, or not.
MR. KAYE: No.
DR. KREAR: There would be continuous, or long-term, and those sorts of studies; what
was happening to the wildlife over a long period of time.
MR. KAYE: Did Olaus talk about the bounty that was on Wolves at the time?
DR. KREAR: Yes. He didn’t particularly like it, but he understood why it was
necessary for the Indians. They didn’t take too many Wolves. That was a topic of
conversation. The Atabaskan Indians were pretty much dependent on the $50.00 they
got for a Wolf at that time. I think I shot a couple while we were there.
MR. KAYE: Did Olaus have empathy, that you saw, for native peoples and their use of
this area?
DR. KREAR: Oh, very much, yeah. And the Indians knew it. Every time our bush pilot
visited us; he’d go to Arctic Village first and he’d bring some Indians over to our camp.
We got to know them pretty well, and they got to like us. They commented that we were
quite different from most white people in Alaska. They didn’t like the discrimination
that was directed at them. We got to know them well, and we liked them very much.
MR. KAYE: Interesting. I wonder if they understood what you people were up there
for; in terms of getting information that would be used to protect this area?
DR. KREAR: I think Olaus explained that. He was collecting small mammals and
mounting them and that sort of thing. That really enthralled them to watch him do that.
He pretty much explained why we were there, and what we intended to do with the area.
He explained to them that they would still be permitted to hunt the area after it had been
established as an Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; that it wouldn’t in any sense be a threat
to their lifestyle. They liked that.
MR. KAYE: You mentioned humility once, and the notions of humility and restraint
again, kind of reoccur through the writings of Olaus and Mardie. Why were these
concepts important to them?
DR. KREAR: Mainly for the long-term protection of wilderness, I think. On the
Sheenjeck, we were camped near the northern-most limit of timber. There is no timber on
the mountain slopes. In the valley there was white spruce. Olaus suggested that we look
for and utilize only the dead timber for tents poles, etc. We all felt the terrain was
somewhat fragile, and did our best to make certain that when we left the valley we left no
evidence that we had been there. As far as humility is concerned, I think a wilderness
experience creates a feeling of humility, as well as a feeling of profound gratitude for the
presence of the surrounding natural beauty. It stimulates these feelings, and the pleasure
and joy and realization of how humble we should be in the presence of pristine natural
beauty, it can never be improved upon by man. We made sure while we were there that
we didn’t harm anything. We looked for access someplace of course. When we were
done with our tent poles we stacked them for the next people who would come in. The
value of restraint and humility in wilderness is to preserve wilderness unchanged,
essentially.
MR. KAYE: Are there any other values that the Muries mentioned, or that you feel
might be important to them in terms of the purpose of this place?
DR. KREAR: Well, I think I have mentioned most of them. They were particularly
interested in the Caribou herd. There was a very large Caribou herd that came through the
valley a couple of times. They knew that value of that for the Attabasken [?] Indians,
and those at Arctic Village and those down on the Crow River. They wanted to make
sure that this continued for them, that their lifestyle would never change. They very
much worried that oil drilling at Anwar might represent a very serious change for the
native peoples in the area. I don’t how else to comment on this.
MR. KAYE: How about any sense of value to other peoples who will never go there, but
maybe might enjoy knowing that it’s there?
DR. KREAR: Just knowing it’s there [is important]. Several people have commented
that to me. It takes a pretty noble person to offer that concept, I think. I think I can
understand that. There are many places in the world that I can’t go, but I am very glad
that they are always going to be there.
MR. KAYE: Do you think that was part of the Murie’s thinking then?
DR. KREAR: It would have been, yes. That was a central part of his thinking. It was
mainly just to preserve the wildlife, and t
Student life
No full text"30-Year Reunion Truck" in the Homecoming parade outside Amon Carter Stadium1667px x 1097p
Interview with Dr. George Schaller By Roger Kaye, December 11, 2002
No full textOral history interview with George Schaller. Roger Kaye as interviewer.
George Schaller worked for Wildlife Conservation Society (New York Zoological Society), and discusses the 1956 Murie Expedition to Sheenjek River.
Name: George Schaller
Keywords: History, Biography, Alpine environments, Forests, International affairs, Mammals, Mountains, Research, Wilderness, Wildlife management,INTERVIEW WITH DR. GEORGE SCHALLER
BY ROGER KAYE DECEMBER 11, 2002
MR. KAYE: This an Oral History interview with Dr. George Schaller conducted on
December 11, 2002 by Roger Kaye in Fairbanks. Dr. Schaller we’ll begin in the present.
Can you tell me a little bit about your position with the Wildlife Conservation Society,
what you do, and particularly why you do what you do?
DR. SCHALLER: I started actually with Wildlife Conservation Society, known at the
time was the New York Zoological Society with the 1956 Murie Expedition to the
Sheenjek River. That was my first contact with them. I had heard that Olaus and Mardy
were going to go up into the Brooks Range and I wrote Olaus saying that I was available
and I’d be happy to be your assistant and to learn. I also said that I would come for free
as long as I was fed. He, very generously and actually, with great warmth replied that he
would like to have me along. He was sure that I would enjoy the studies and the life up
there. I have been affiliated with the Wilderness Conservation Society ever since. I am a
naturalist. I used to direct the International Program. Now, I am just the Vice-President.
But I spend most of my time in the field doing base-line studies on various species,
monitoring programs that we have, surveying areas in various countries that should
possibly be some sort of protected area. That keeps one busy because the Wildlife
Conservation Society has projects in about 50 countries. Most of them are run by
nationals within their own country. I have my own interests. I particularly like
mountains and remote areas. I spent many years in China, particularly in the Tibetan
Plateau. I studied the Pandas there. I spent a number of years in Africa studying Gorillas
and Lions. I have worked in Pakistan, Nepal, India, Tajikistan, Iran, Laos, Viet Nam,
Brazil, and on and on. It’s been a rewarding life because most countries have become
aware of the need for conservation even though the current administration in the U. S. and
you make considerable progress with collaborating and helping these countries.
MR. KAYE: What motivates you?
DR. SCHALLER: Well, motivation is difficult to define. Obviously one wants to do
something beyond one’s self to serve society in something useful, in some way.
Certainly, conservation is one such task, and you’re leaving something for the future.
Beyond that, there is obviously the pleasure of just being outdoors in remote areas,
studying unique species that nobody has ever watched before. And if you can help
protect something that you have studied, that gives tremendous personal satisfaction. I
chose this kind of life because I have always been interested in the outdoors, in animals,
and in roaming here and there. I suspect that most naturalists have that kind of
background. That’s one aspect that drew me to the University of Alaska. There, you
have Alaska. You have tremendous freedom and space still. I have never really wanted to
do anything else.
MR. KAYE: Throughout your work, you’ve always combined biological research with
advocacy. Some biologists are reluctant to do that. What do you think the role of a
biologist should be towards the subject?
DR. SCHALLER: I presume that most people study something, not just as a job, but
because you’re curious. You have, or ought to have the response of heart towards what
you are doing. I think this is where, for example, the Murie Expedition had a tremendous
influence on me. In that Olaus particularly, did superb fieldwork. He was a well-known
Mammalogist. He was also President of the Wilderness Society. So you have the
combination of doing good research and at the same time, trying to conserve an area, for
whatever reason. Maybe you think you like a particular species. You want to save the
Caribou migration. Or, you think an area is simply beautiful. You can have a lot of
reasons for preserving something. But most people as a third category also consider the
spiritual values. You can phrase it in another way. You can talk about, as Olaus did, the
precious intangible values. That basically means that you respond to the beauty of an
area. You get a feeling of personal well-being. You’re not thinking of how much money
the area can make from tourism or anything else. You don’t think about just the biological
aspect; how many species are there? How do you quantify the howl of a Wolf, or the
sight of a Grizzly for example? Or just a beautiful river scene crowded by mountains?
That kind of thing you can call intangible values or spiritual values, or whatever. Olaus
and Mardie both combined all of these values in a wonderful fashion. I have tried to do it
also.
MR. KAYE: Would you say that your time with them there on the Sheenjek influenced
your career and your later accomplishments?
DR. SCHALLER: They certainly contributed and influenced. I obviously had a
predisposition to absorb this. They emphasized it, and I saw how Olaus, who was in his
late 60’s then, still retained his enthusiam, his spirit of adventure and his real passion to
learn more about the environment and respond to it’s beauty. This was whether he talked
about it or made sketches. I remember once particularly. We were out hiking together
over the Muskeg Tundra and he came across a big pile of very soggy Grizzly Bear
droppings. One would be tempted to ignore them. But Olaus kneeled down and cupped
the wet droppings in his hands. And with a great big grin, he looked at them and
dissected them to see what the bear had eaten. That became just another small fact that
cumulatively gave us some insights into what went on in the ecology of the area. That
always has impressed me.
MR. KAYE: How about Mardy Murie? What was you impression of her?
DR. SCHALLER: Mardie was tremendously supportive and focused on Olaus. They
had similar beliefs. She helped him in every way she could. She didn’t come really into
her own as a public person until after Olaus died. She, in effect, took over from Olaus in
speaking out loudly and clearly on behalf of the environment. She has done that so
effectively since he died in 1963.
MR. KAYE: What was the range of values that you feel Olaus and Mardy wanted to
protect in this area? It is my understanding that they weren’t necessarily focused on a
refuge with its implication of being set aside for a particular species that of most interest
to us, but more of an ecological perspective. Is that your sense of where they were
coming from?
DR. SCHALLER: The Brooks Range has always had, and still has very few people. It’s
basically still undamaged. Back in the 1930s, Forester Bob Marshall spent a year up
there. They made other trips. He suggested that the whole area be protected in some
way. Then in the early 1950s two National Park Service Biologists, Lowell Sumner and
George Collins took a flying trip around the area. They stimulated Olaus and Mardy to
go up there and take a closer look to see what kind of protection should be given to it. I
don’t think anybody thought of it in terms of a National Park, closed to everything other
than a few tourists; but as a wilderness area that should be maintained without roads,
without development just so people can go in to trek, and boat on the river; hunt and in
general enjoy the out of doors.
MR. KAYE: How about William O. Douglas? He was there for a while when you were
up at Sheenjek. What was your impression of him? And why did he come here, a Justice
in the Supreme Court to spend time up there?
DR. SCHALLER: William O. Douglas was a world traveler when he wasn’t sitting on the
Court. He had a vast curiosity about the world, its people, and the environment. He
took part in various environmental issues in and around Washington. This is where he
came in contact with Olaus, and they invited him up there. He flew up with his wife
Mercedes for a few days to look around and see what’s going on.
MR. KAYE: Going back to some of Olaus’ particular interests in protecting this place.
It seemed that he was more focused on the perpetuation of natural processes, rather than
specific species or features. That ecological process was particularly important to him.
Is that your sense?
DR. SCHALLER: I don’t know if he had particular interest in the process of the area.
But he was most definitely interested in the ‘wholeness’ of it. Here was a functioning,
beautiful wilderness, which had all the different habitats of the Arctic. It had spruce
forests. It had tundras, mountains, and glaciers and coastal plains. It has everything. It
has the full range of habitats, which is unusual and at the same time, he felt it should be
simply maintained for its wilderness value. I’m not sure he thought of it as an ecological
process, and so forth.
MR. KAYE: In an earlier interview, you told me about historic values that the Refuge
was thought to hold. Could you say something about that? I think it was in terms of
cultural history.
DR. SCHALLER: Well, the cultural history obviously, in the area is ancient. Right near
camp on a knoll we found stone tools which anthropologists later said may be as much as
8,000 years old. So you had early hunters already using the area. When we were there,
that had continued. In that Arctic Village was about forty-five or fifty miles to the
southwest, from which Indians came to hunt Wolves and Caribou. We met one little
group. And that’s fine. It’s maintaining an ancient cultural tradition. Certainly, if the
present administration has it’s way, and degrades the coastal plain and reduces the
Caribou that will have an impact on the Indians both in Alaska and Canada. The Caribou
move across international boundaries.
MR. KAYE: Did Olaus have quite a bit of interest in or at least empathy with the native
people and those traditional uses?
DR. SCHALLER: Very much so. Olaus spent quite a number of years in Alaska
working mostly with the Aleuts, Eskimos, and the Indians. They helped him a great deal.
They were always very hospitable. He appreciated their traditional way of life.
MR. KAYE: You once mentioned historic values in terms of American history and the
wilderness being part of our cultural history perhaps as a reason to protect it. Can you
tell us little bit about that?
DR. SCHALLER: Well, I think certainly that wilderness has given America its vision and
identity. We don’t have any cultural monuments like so many in Europe and Asia to
which people can go to, to get some contact with the past. We have our wilderness.
People appreciate it for its values, the feeling of solitude it gives us. So many people feel
that it ought to be saved for it’s own sake. Look at the cowboy mentality so many
people still have about cowboys because it was the opening up of the west. In Alaska,
they keep talking about the last frontier even though they haven’t had a last frontier there
for a well over a hundred years. Even the anti-environmental people in this
administration still retain a little bit of feeling for it. The President goes down and sits on
his ranch. Vice-President Chaney has a fancy home in Jackson Hole, one of the most
beautiful spots in the United States. Yet, both are willing to trash the rest of the country
even though they have their little island of wilderness. This is something I can’t
understand.
MR. KAYE: You mentioned wilderness being saved for it’s own sake. It’s interesting
that seems to be kind of a prominent motivation for many people who never would have
supported setting it aside, which seems to be symbolic value. Would you talk a little bit
more about the value of saving a place for it’s own sake beyond a particular use of it?
DR. SCHALLER: I think everybody needs something beyond one’s self. I think people
travel all over the world these days to see some wilderness elsewhere because they get a
feeling of well-being and contentment. And most certainly, few people will ever visit the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But a lot of people are familiar with Caribou and
Grizzly from watching TV shows. I think many of them like to think that it still exists.
And so, people like myself can talk about it and say how wonderful it is. Most people
have empathy toward that feeling. You can talk about all of the science that you want but
what people respond to, let’s say in a Tiger, is it’s beauty, not it’s habit. People have an
emotional attachment to these intangible values.
MR. KAYE: That seemed to be a major, I guess, aspect of the Muries. And it seemed to
be connected to their sense of humility and restraint in the face of perhaps something
larger than themselves. Was that your impression of them?
DR. SCHALLER: Nobody that wanders in remote areas can really do so without a sense
of humility, that you don’t count for much. I think when you’re in the towns and
surrounded by your cultural safety, people show a lot of arrogance. But if you are alone
in the middle of nowhere dependent entirely on yourself, you can’t help but feel
somewhat full of humility. But this doesn’t mean that Olaus, for example, was full of
humility in all aspects. He was very forceful in what he believed in and conveying that
message even though he did it in a low-key way. He was a very determined person.
MR. KAYE: The Caribou seemed to, very early in the campaign to establish the Refuge,
become a symbol of something, perhaps a symbol of the issue. Perhaps it was their
wildness that they symbolized. Did you get a sense that that was perhaps why Caribou
very soon became such an important visual image of this place?
DR. SCHALLER: It became, setting up any reserve these days, is in essence, symbolic.
You can make a lot of scientific reasons why it’s good to have a place that’s not been
trashed because you need a baseline of information to measure change somewhere else.
You need a reservoir of species in case you want to rehabilitate some habitat. You can
draw on those places to get species for reintroduction. You can make all of those kinds of
arguments. But I think a lot of people want to keep some of their past. They honor the
past by keeping some of the wilderness unaffected by greed, unaffected by intrusion.
And I think this is what is so terribly sad in Alaska, where you have all of these options
and you have all of these members of Congress that seem to have no thought for saving
anything beautiful with real intangible values for the future. I mean, people in Congress
like Frank Merkowski and Ted Stevens, I think they are a real dark stain; or will be
considered such on Alaska’s past in the future.
MR. KAYE: Well, moving on to some of the other values that the Muries and others
espoused, and you must have experienced in terms of recreation. I know that you went
on a long solo trip during your Sheenjek expedition. I was wondering, what type
wilderness characteristics were important, what type of recreational experience was it
thought this place should serve?
DR. SCHALLER: Olaus, when he was promoting the Refuge, talked to a lot of hunting
groups in Alaska. He stressed to them that they would, he hoped, be allowed to continue
to hunt the sheep and so forth in the area. He certainly believed that local people should
be able to continue their traditional life and kill some wildlife for subsistence. People go
in nowadays to run the rivers like the Sheenjek and the Hula-Hula. They go in for
trekking. They go in for fishing. It’s all low numbers and therefore, low impact. That is,
I think the perfect way to have it.
MR. KAYE: Can you tell me a little bit about the solo trip that you made from Last
Lake?
DR. SCHALLER: Well, I felt that I wanted to see some of the high country. So I went
for what, about ten days I think. I just carried an air mattress, a sleeping bag and some
food. I set off walking up the Sheenjek up to the divide, down the fork of the Chandalar
and back to get an impression of the area. This was one of the things that the whole
expedition was about. It was to take a sample area and see what the values are. Of
course we did science too. Brina Kessel particularly emphasized the birds. I did a little
bit of everything. Bob Kreer was particularly interested in taking a film of the expedition.
Everybody had their tasks, which I think they did with great enthusiasm.
MR. KAYE: So, was one of the purposes of the expedition to gain photos and other
images that could be used to protect the area in the campaign?
DR. SCHALLER: Well, I think that certainly the film that Bob Kreer took served that
purpose. It helps, because if you give people a visual image, then they can really see
what you are talking about. But that was really secondary to just getting a feeling for the
place.
MR. KAYE: I noticed that you wrote an article that appeared in Outdoor Life. I think it
was entitled New Area for Hunters, which I understand maybe wasn’t your title. But
was it your purpose in writing that to gain support for the area, to convey what was out
there?
DR. SCHALLER: Well, there are several purposes in writing any popular article. One
most definitely was to advertise the area. Another was to describe what was up there.
And I, being a poor graduate student, also did it to make a little extra money.
MR. KAYE: Just a couple more questions here. You describe yourself as a Naturalist, as
opposed to say, a Biologist or an Ecologist. What’s the difference, in your view? Is there
a difference?
DR. SCHALLER: I can sometimes describe myself in various ways; conservationist,
conservation biologist, naturalist, and so forth. And Naturalist is probably the most
general in that it encompasses in many ways, both the science and the more popular
aspects of communicating your science to the public.
MR. KAYE: Finally, I guess you know what the Carter program, held last year, the
dedication of the Carter Archives, you gave a talk. You talked quiet a bit about the Murie
Expedition on your life. You also said that there are just a whole host of reasons why
you value the Arctic Refuge and reasons for keeping it as wilderness. Could you
summarize what you feel the value of the Arctic Refuge is today, and to the people of the
future?
DR. SCHALLER: I don’t remember what I said over a year ago. But most definitely,
there are various reasons. Some of them are general and apply not just to the Arctic
Refuge. But the Arctic Refuge really is a place of living grandeur. It’s throbbing with life.
It’s not a barren desert, as it’s often pictured by people who want to go in to plunder and
pollute. It’s really also an Arctic legacy of world importance that you must treat with
respect and restraint. I think it emphasizes also the fundamental values of American
society. What kind of people are we that we would want to destroy the last remnants of
beauty in this country? Do we lack all restraint? I think wilderness values are too
precious to permit them to succumb to special interests. Certainly one question that
must be asked is: What is ethical and aesthetically correct? Not just, what is
economically and politically expedient. As the past four decades since ANWR was
established has shown conservationists may win some battle, but there is never final
victory. You have to fight the same battles over and over and over again because the
forces of destruction are always waiting. So, I think it’s up to everybody that cares at all
about the natural environment in world and especially in the United States, to show
constant vigilance and clarity of purpose, and commitment and compassion for areas like
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is so that it will last not just in years or decades
but it will have to last for centuries if we really want to prevent the Arctic Refuge from
vanishing.
MR. KAYE: It’s interesting that you said that the Arctic Refuge reflects the values of
American society and perhaps this question of whether it should be open for
development or preserved as wilderness reflects that I guess. The potential for it being a
symbol for our society’s willingness to restrain itself, or some broader purpose?
DR. SCHALLER: You don’t know what the future will bring. Therefore we should not
destroy the past and the future through our ignorance. Especially not, when everybody
knows that has had any interest in the area at all, that the oil not needed. The oil is likely
to be exported. Nobody knows how much oil there is. And you also know that there is
no environmentally sounds ways of getting it out. The wilderness will be destroyed the
minute you put a building and you put a road and pipelines in. That wilderness ceases to
exist. All you have to do is look next-door at Prudhoe Bay, which has 800 square miles
of development. They say, “Oh we’re so much better these days”. I don’t believe a
word of it. The minute you allow anything in the way of development in the coastal
plane particularly, which is so sensitive. It’s the main area where the Caribou go to calve.
You will destroy it forevermore.
MR. KAYE: I guess you would loose that sense of wildness that Olaus talks so much
about. It seems that so many of this writings were dominated by that word, or that
adjective, “wild”. Is that a central feature that you feel would be lost to development,
more than perhaps numbers of Caribou?
DR. SCHALLER: Caribou will cer
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