176,053 research outputs found
Internview with Stewart Branborg, March 3, 2003, by Roger Kaye (also present: Mrs. Branborg)
No full textOral history interview with Stewart Branborg. Roger Kaye was the interviewer.
Stewart Brandborg was a former Conservation Director of the National Wildlife Federation.
Name: Stewart Brandborg
Keywords: History, Biography, Congressional operations, Connecting people with nature, Forest conservation, Human impacts, Parks, Subpolar environments, Wilderness, Olaus Murie, Howard Zanhiser, Mardy MurieINTERVIEW WITH STEWART BRANBORG
MARCH 3, 2003 BY ROGER KAYE
(Also present, Mrs. Branborg)
MR. KAYE: This is an interview with Stewart Branborg conducted March 3, 2003 in
Darby, Montana by Roger Kaye. Stewart, thank you so much for doing this with me
today. I’d like to ask you to begin with a brief biographical sketch of your background,
where you are from, and how you got into this wilderness work.
MR. BRANBORG: I was raised in a family with a mother and dad who had a great
appreciation for wildlife and wild country. They took me and my sister on major
expeditions into the wilderness of Idaho and western Montana. This partially, or
substantially, I would say, because of my Dad’s service for forty old years in the U. S.
Forest Service here in the Bitter Root. He was Supervisor for twenty years. I was
influenced by a fine biologist at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory, William Jelison, who
took young people, a group of young men into the woods and on to the ranges of our
wonderful game animals. I decided to take up Wildlife Biology. I attended the University
of Montana for my undergraduate work. I became involved with field studies, range and
timber surveys. I had the opportunity to live on wilderness lookouts for a couple of
years. All of this I grew to value more and more through the years. In that process I was
invited to be part of a Mountain Goat life history study. I picked up on that in 1947.
During the next seven years, I devoted a major part of my time research while attending
the University of Idaho, Wildlife Research Unit. It was with the Fish and Game
Departments of Idaho and Montana that I worked on Mountain Goat studies. I had
become an area game Biologist for the northern part of Idaho and I was offered a job with
the National Wildlife Federation in 1954 by Charles Callison, the then Conservation
Director. That took me in to four and a half years of legislative work with Callison
working in all areas of conservation. Particular areas of concern with wildlife and of
course very strong support for the Wilderness bill offered by the Wildlife Federation, lead
by Callison. This put me in contact with Howard Zanhiser in about 1955. I became a
member of the governing council in 1956, of the Wilderness Society. Then, as a part of
the Executive Committee, I worked closely with Zanhiser. I was given great latitude and
freedom to pursue the Wilderness bill in support of the Zanhiser campaign. Indeed the
Wildlife Federation was one of his stalwart organizations that did much to promoting
understanding of the Bill. That took me through some four years with the Federation. In
1960, when the Federation became embroiled in a controversy, Callison and others within
my friendship circle departed. I went to the Society and asked for a job. Zanhiser
encouraged me to be in touch with the then President Harvey Broom. It was decided that
if I could make my magnificent salary of $8000.00 through use of direct mail and other
skills that I had captured at the Federation, I could go to work. So, I was enlisted for a
position as Director of Special Projects, I think the title was. From that after a couple of
years I became Associate Director under Zanhiser and when he succumbed in 1964, in
May, I was appointed to succeed him. The rest is history.
MR. KAYE: So you were Director of the Wilderness Society then?
MR. BRANBORG: I became his replacement in May of 1964, on the eve the final
signing of the Bill in September. It was my task at that point…we had waged this long
campaign from 1956 to 1964. There were seventeen Congressional hearings. There was a
strenuous effort of organize grass roots people for the wilderness cause and in support of
the Bill. It was my task to make people aware that in this great accomplishment of
setting the national policy in a preservation program we had only included some eight
million acres in the wilderness system. All the rest had to come through the laborious
process of public hearings, local studies, the passage of proposals up through the
hierarchy in the agencies and Congress. There would again be a round of hearings to see
the inclusion of these areas into the wilderness system. So that took me into
implementation and what I feel was my contribution; in organizing grass roots teams in
some forty states, in support of wilderness.
MR. KAYE: When you were with the National Wildlife Federation as Conservation
Director you were their representative on the refuge issue. What were some of the things
that you did with the Wildlife Federation in support of the campaign to establish the
Arctic Refuge?
MR. BRANBORG: I of course had fallen under the influence of Howard Zanhiser,
Callison at the Federation, and the Muries. Olaus had come to the University of
Montana in the 1940s to a northwest section meeting of the Wildlife Society. Here was
this sweet, humble epitome of a fine biologist.
The infusions from Olaus and Zanny I think crystallized by thinking about the
rich experience I had had in the backcountry. Those months on the lookout, and working
on trail and telephone line and wild country, and the great trips that I had had with my
family. It gave a framework for something that was deep in my psyche, my life. But
here it was brought together that needed our best effort to realize protection of all of the
unique things that we had experienced in the wild setting. I was working under Callison
on legislation, on educational campaigns. I am sure that part of my job was to make
contact with those members of Congress and their staffs to give them background on the
Arctic Range, and to support this effort. Of course in effective lobbying, the best job you
can do is to say, “Here in Olaus Murie. Here is Mardy Murie.” I had the realization of
the value of those people, so wherever we could convene good, open minded staff people,
members of Congress, House or Senate, we would do that. That was my expertise, not
that I had fully accomplished all that I ultimately as a base of my competence as a
lobbyist. I know that these people had touched me, and as a representative of the
Federation, I could speak with real conviction and eloquence because of my tie to these
spirited people.
MR. KAYE: Interesting! Were the people, the legislators and so on that you lobbied
touched or influenced my the Muries and their philosophy about wilderness?
MR. BRANBORG: Some were. The John Sailers, the Lee Metcalfs, just to name a
couple. In that period, conservation and the environment were not popular causes. You
introduced yourself with your card. The best way to get into a Congressional office was
have people call from the home state, or district saying, “we’re sending in Steward
Branborg to discuss this issue with you.”
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MR. BRANBORG: I had a lot of background in doing that. So if I really wanted to get
in I would call the local affiliate of the Wildlife Federation; a Sportsmen’s group and say,
“Would you mind writing and or calling that office and telling them we have this
important issue to bring to them?” That would prepare the groundwork. But at that
time, when you walked in you didn’t necessarily get a warm reception if you didn’t have
that kind of introduction. But there were those, lets say epitomized by John Sailor, who
embraced the concept. He knew it and he felt it. And so he would steep in the presence
of Olaus, and Zanny and Mardy. He savored them for what they stood for as people,
and their testimonials. He loved what they spoke for. He sensed the values that they
represented. Some others later, the Udalls, they were good. Senator Nelson was good.
Hubert Humphrey in Minnesota, the first introducer of the Wilderness Bill on the Senate
side. These people had the feeling. They had the measure of the quality of these spirited
folks who spoke for the wilderness. And they themselves sensed what we valued.
MR. KAYE: What did you do as far as your position with the Wildlife Federation to
encourage members to write their Representatives and get involved? Did you have a
campaign to involve members?
MR. BRANBORG: There was a very strenuous campaign particularly as we went into
the hearings for the Wilderness Bill. It was outreach, mobilizing people. In Idaho, as a
matter of fact I was assigned to go with Ted Trueblood with my 35mm slides on the life
history of the Mountain Goat. We held meetings at the Rotary and the schools all the
way from southern Idaho up to Sand Point and the Canadian line in every community we
could reach. It was just proselytizing for the Bill, explaining why it was so very
important to gain its passage. But in every instance, when there was a field hearing, we as
the Wilderness Society would go into the grass roots communities, bring together those
who shared this concern about wilderness. That concern had been nurtured through a
series of mailings that Zanhiser had engineered from Congress, to the citizens using the
mailing list of the Wildlife Federation and most of the conservation groups. They
numbered into the hundreds of thousands as I recall. The Federation was some three
hundred thousand. And there was Audubon, the Sierra Club, the National Parks
Association and other groups. Everybody on those lists had received these descriptions
of the Bill, its purposes, the rationale for its passage, the speeches that were made by
Sailor and Humphrey upon introduction. People had had repeated mailings saying, ‘here
is the Wilderness Bill. Here is the effort that we’re making. Here is why people from all
over the country must be in touch with their members of Congress to voice their
support.’ It was that foundation that gave us the starting point.
MR. KAYE: Was this the same approaching, but probably on a much smaller scale in
your advocacy for the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?
MR. BRANBORG: I think with the Arctic Wildlife Refuge of course you focused on the
key committees in the House and Senate. You focus on those members who will be
friendly. You do that systematic approach. You call and mail to your membership out in
that state, and the key leaders. You say, “Here’s the Arctic. Here’s what it means. Here
are the magnificent dimensions of what it represents for wildlife and wildness.” Then you
have those people apply words of encouragement and pressure to those who are on that
Committee. Of course you are watching that vote. You are going in from the Washington
level to say, “How’s the Congressman doing? What will the Senator do on this?” You are
talking to staff. You are talking to the member. You’re walking with the member to the
House floor or Senate floor. You are catching him wherever you can. But you’re nailing
down his vote. I am damnably sure that was my job on the Arctic, along with Callison
and Zanhiser. The Muries of course were not in the Washington scene except when they
came to visit. I think C. R. Goudermooth, the Wildlife Management Institute, Ira
Gabrielson, I think they were fully in ownership of this campaign. You probably read in
the context of this documentation their testimony. They were working with Zanny, with
Callison in coalition.
MR. KAYE: The document that you point out is a hearing record for a Senate testimony
that you gave on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation in 1959, recommending the
establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In reading through this, one thing
that interested me was that it was very eloquently written. You are representing a group
that is largely hunters and hunting interests, yet you don’t focus on that as being the
value of setting this place aside.
MR. BRANBORG: I believe that’s because of my own personal feeling and love for the
living creature. The appreciation emanates I believe, from my parents. But having come
out of Wildlife Management schools you know the heavy emphasis on harvest. Having
survived with Annalee on Elk and Deer meet through the winters, and being a hunter, I
was increasingly appreciative of the living creature. While I had to represent the interests
of the hunting community and recognize appropriateness of hunting in specific places, I
didn’t feel in my heart that this was the function of the Arctic; to provide hunting
opportunities any more than any of us emphasized recreation.
MR. KAYE: What did you see as the primary value of what became the Arctic Range?
MR. BRANBORG: I believe I saw through the eyes of Olaus and Mardy the
magnificence of the area, the rich community of wildlife and this spacious, endless
panorama. And here was the community of life and this spectacle, this museum. These
people were so articulate and so persuasive that that influence came on what I had had as
a kid and as a young biologist in the field and it coalesced with all of the things in my
background to make me see that in the wild untrammeled setting we had things that far
transcended the human experience of taking an animal or indulging in one kind of
recreation or another. Putting oneself in that setting as an observer who traveled as
quietly and unobtrusively as he could, but to savor it, to measure it, to watch it and above
all, to leave it untouched as much as humanly possible.
MR. KAYE: In your testimony to the Senate in 1959, you talked about the importance
of an area, “free from man’s domineering influence.” Tell me what you meant by that in
the context of the Arctic Refuge.
MR. BRANBORG: Significant signs of course, of human presence. Really, I get down
to any signs of human presence. What I was thinking about then, I can’t bring back. But
basically, leaving the setting without any signs of having been there, as much as possible.
And I think that is incumbent upon us. And I think that’s the test that we face now.
How do we give support to wilderness with a public that says ‘this is the ultimate
criterion, we will come, we will savor, we will indulge ourselves, but we will leave it
basically untouched’. Well of course it’s almost impossible to not leave some sign. But I
think that that is what I felt at the time, as much as I can project into that time fifty years
ago almost.
MR. KAYE: Your quote, “free of man’s domineering influence’ is very similar to the
Wilderness Act statement of ‘wilderness is in contrast where man and his works
dominate”. It seems like your advocacy for the Arctic Refuge and the Wilderness Act
was very much the same.
MR. BRANBORG: Undoubtedly, because I had been one of the early readers of the
Wilderness Bill drafts. Zanhiser was leaning on me to look for imperfections as he was
looking for people like you in the agencies. There were Dick Griffith, and people in the
Forest Service and many different disciplines to whom he presented the draft of the
Wilderness Bill and asked that they read it and study it. He wanted them to refine the
language and make it as good as they could for the purpose of the wilderness. By this
time almost on the eve of the introduction of the Wilderness Bill, right in this period, I
had been exposed to those words and those thoughts, most of which had fallen from
Zanhiser’s good mental process to the tablet where he did his first draft of the Bill. That
stuff was being fed into my system.
MR. KAYE: I noticed you used the word ‘wildness’ as an adjective, as a descriptive of
the values of this place in some of your writings. Tell me what you meant by ‘wildness’,
and what some of the parts of it are.
MR. BRANBORG: Of course, coming on the scene as a visitor, watching the land within
vision of the magnificent glaciated mountain basin, the meadow, the lichens the mosses,
the Labrador Key, that’s some of the country that we both know. I think there’s in
periods of isolation, when you’re by yourself, you do feel that there is energy and a
presence that is much greater than self. You are just there. You watch and feel this and
you listen and you hear. You marvel at what’s there. And you absorb what’s there to
the best of you ability in the absence of the knowledge of all that goes on within the
lichen or the Lemming, but you are the furry Marmot, the Caribou. It’s enveloping. It
comes over you. You sit and absorb the marvel of it.
MR. KAYE: Is this the wildness of the wilderness that you refer to?
MR. BRANBORG: This is the wildness, yes. No patterns of conformity, no impacts of
human beings are present. The communities of animal and plants, the glacial and
geological forces, they are all there working in their timeless way. Any reflection brings
you to the realization that this is the evolutionary process of life and the landforms. You
are here as an observer. And you are here as a humble agent who gets to see this without
any interference on what is taking place.
MR. KAYE: It’s interesting that you mention the word evolution. Olaus Murie used
that work very often in his wilderness writings. The idea being, let me ask if I understand
Murie correctly from your understanding of him; that a part of the value of this place
would the evolutionary process would be free to continue here unhendering by people.
Was that a value of this place to you?
MR. BRANBORG: I think very definitely. Here is the stop where things are continuing.
The landforms are changing. The animals are changing. The plants are changing, and the
climate may change. It is an epitome of evolutionary process if we can keep our hands
off of it.
MR. KAYE: Does that contribute to the scientific value of the place? Was that a
concern of yours, or a value to this place?
MR. BRANBORG: Yes, I always identified the scientific value, but I recognized that
scientific exploration would pose a threat to wilderness if we got carried away with it.
The intrusion of science in a way that interfered with or inhibited natural evolutionary
process would itself be destructive to the wilderness and the wildness. That was
something that came to us as it is here today. We can’t tolerate intrusions on the
wilderness that are destructive in the name of science.
MR. KAYE: Olaus used the words spiritual value and intangible value quite a bit. Did
this place hold some intangible value for you? I think that some of the values we have
talked about are intangible, but…
MR. BRANBORG: I believe so. Interestingly, in references to spiritual values from
Zanhiser, Murie and the two that I knew the best; Harvey Broom, Sig Olson, Oberholser,
and I am not mentioning others that were rich in their philosophical base and their
spiritual base. I don’t read to remember their references to the deity, to God. But I think
in those people and in myself, there’s a rich spiritual feeling that comes. And some of the
best expressions of that were from Olaus in describing what had happened to him when
he walked around the block waiting for a bus. I think it was in Pennsylvania when he was
on his way to Washington. He met me for dinner with Mardy. He said that he came to a
place were the ‘beautiful leaves of fall had come together.” He looked into that montage,
and he saw that there were transcendent things, beyond us. I remember conversations
with Mardy where said that some of these things that flow together in our lives are by
some design. There is synchronicity. Things come together and are meant to be. Many
times in my life in the Salmon River Canyon and in the high basins of the Bob Marshall or
the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho, and I had my wilderness experience in these
areas on my Mountain Goat research that I was doing. I think you feel a spiritual
influence, and I don’t think I’d tie that to any specific higher power. But I felt that there
was a strong spiritual influence. I don’t know that I ever really discussed that with
Howard Zanhiser. We both had spiritual experiences in the Cathedrals of Washington. It
was our habit, when I drove with him to and from work, to stop by the Cathedral, or the
Catholic Shrine and stand in awe within these structures.
Finding ourselves, I guess, in the midst of the flurry to do all of these things for the
Wilderness Bill and the membership of the Wilderness Society and holding the operation
together. Certainly, there was a heavy feeling of spirituality within these rich characters.
Harvey Broom, Howard Zanhiser, Sig Olson, and of course Olaus and Mardy.
MR. KAYE: How about Bob Marshall? You were probably pretty young in his time,
but I know you met him as a child and your father knew him didn’t he?
MR. BRANBORG: Yeah. When Bob Marshall retired from the Forest Service his
brother George had run on to some old notes. Those old notes indicated that there were
five people in the Forest Service that Bob recommended for his replacement in the Office
of Recreation, as the Chief. One of them was my father.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MR. BRANBORG: I don’t know whether my dad had been with him on more than the
one occasion when I remember Bob coming to our home. He had hiked from the Salway
River over the Montana Divide, down into Boulder Creek on the west fork of the Bitter
Root in one day. That was a tremendous exertion of forty or fifty miles. His face was
sunburned, and he was at our dining room table when my mother served dinner. I
remember him, I suppose, that would have been in the 1930’s before his death. I think he
passed on in 1939. It would have been in the period of 1935
Kaye, W P C, 418428
No full textThis record was harvested from a previous catalogue system and will be withdrawn in 2025. Information in this record may be superseded or incomplete. Visit this record in UMA's new catalogue at: https://archives.library.unimelb.edu.au/nodes/view/396319Surname: KAYE. Given Name(s) or Initials: W P C. Military Service Number or Last Known Location: 418428. Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiry Card Index Number: 52236.232749
Item: [2016.0049.28612] "Kaye, W P C, 418428
[Letter] 1908 April 7, St. Leonards on Sea [to] Mr. Cazenove/ Sheila Kaye-Smith.
No full textThe letter is written on letterhead from 9 Dane Road/ St. Leonard\u27s on Sea.Kaye-Smith declares herself to be "delighted that my story is taken at last" and expresses her satisfaction with the terms of Bell\u27s offer for her first book. Here she is referencing the publication of _The tramping methodist._ (1908), published by George Bell & Sons. Kaye-Smith goes on to enquire about when the book will be released and whether it would cause a delay to sell it in America as well as England. She also discusses plans for her next book. Among her more than twenty novels and short stories, Kaye-Smith penned _All the books of my life: a bibliobiography_ [1956]
Cicinnus magnapuncta Kaye 1901
No full text<i>Cicinnus magnapuncta</i> (Kaye, 1901) <p>(Figs. 6, 9, 10, 31)</p> <p> <b>Type locality.</b> Trinidad, Tabaquite [NHMUK, syntype examined, designated here as lectotype] <i>Perophora magnapuncta</i> Kaye, 1901: Kaye (1901); Kaye & Lamont (1927).</p> <p> <i>Cicinnus magnapuncta</i> was described and illustrated implicitly from one (but possibly more) specimens collected at Tabaquite, central Trinidad, in June 1898 by W.J. Kaye (Kaye 1901, Kaye & Lamont 1927). Kaye (1901) does not indicate the sex of the type material but his illustration and the single specimen recognized as a type in the NHMUK is female (Fig. 31). The syntype in the NHMUK lacks a collecting data label, though it does bear a label reading “Trinidad, Kaye” and the accession number 1901-72. On the reverse of the accession label, <i>Perophora magnapuncta</i> Kaye is handwritten, in a style similar to that seen for other Kaye types from 1901 in NHMUK, although different from Kaye’s characteristic writing on later types. A red edged type label is also present on the specimen, along with a genitalia preparation label (the genitalia are apparently missing because the slide only contains the terminal two abdominal segments). We therefore believe that this specimen is a syntype, and here designate it as the lectotype with the following labels: C, magnapuncta Keyes [<i>recte</i> Kaye] Type genit.pr. No 6 Mimallonidae / BMNH(E) #805414/ NHMUK010588329/ Type [red edged circular label]/ Trinidad Kaye 1901 -72 [number after 1901 unclear, 72 or 92, written on upper surface of label]; <i>Perophora magnapuncta</i> Kaye [written on lower surface of label]/ LECTOTYPE ♀ <i>Perophora magnapuncta</i> Kaye designated by St Laurent and Cock, 2017 [red handwritten label].</p> <p> <i>Cicinnus magnapuncta</i> was the only mimallonid species described from Trinidad until <i>C. trini</i> described above. Although <i>C. magnapuncta</i> seemed to be endemic to the island, a single male specimen from French Guiana in the MNHN (Fig. 9) may be this species considering the similarities in external appearance to the females and the close affinity of Trinidad Mimallonidae with those of French Guiana. However, due to the lack of males from Trinidad, it is not possible to definitively state at this time that the two populations are conspecific. Interestingly, so far only females of <i>C. magnapuncta</i> have been collected or photographed in Trinidad, thus males seem to either not be strongly attracted to light or are potentially diurnal or crepuscular whereas the females arrive late (23.51 h and 0 0.44 h) at light (K. Sookdeo pers. comm.).</p> <p> Several similar <i>Cicinnus</i> species are known from mainland South America, namely: <i>C. bactriana</i> (Butler, 1878), <i>C. callipius</i> Schaus, 1928, <i>C. candacus</i> Schaus, 1928, <i>C. gaujoni</i> (Dognin, 1922), and <i>C. marona</i> Schaus, 1905. Primary types of all species have been examined by the first author. <i>Cicinnus magnapuncta</i> is unique in having weak maculation, particularly submarginally, such that there is a complete absence of dark petiolate scales. The relatively faint postmedial lines and discal spots, as well as light brown to fawn ground coloration, also can be used to distinguish <i>C. magnapuncta</i> from other species listed previously, which are darker brown or nearly orange in the case of <i>C. marona</i>, and nearly always have stronger maculation.</p> <p> Prior to this work, <i>C. magnapuncta</i> was only known from a single location in Trinidad, therefore we report several new locations for this species, and figure actual specimens (not a painted illustration) for the first time. This species is restricted to forested areas of Trinidad, though the previously mentioned specimen from French Guiana may be this species. In addition to the lectotype collected from Tabaquite in the Central Range, <i>C. magnapuncta</i> has been found on the slopes of the Northern Range.</p> <p> <b>Material examined.</b> (1 ♂ *, 6 ♀ total) <b>TRINIDAD</b>: 2 ♀, Brasso Seco: 14.III.2015 (K. Sookdeo photograph, not collected). 1 ♀, Cumaca Road 0.5 mi: 27.X.1980, M.J.W. Cock [<i>leg.</i>], at MV Light (UWIZM CABI.2457). 3 ♀, Cumaca Road, 4.6 mi: 21.X.1982, M.J.W. Cock [<i>leg.</i>], at MV light (2 ♀ MWJC, 1 ♀ to be deposited USNM). 1 ♀, [Tabaquite]: [VI.1898], Kaye 1901, [lecto] type, BMNH (E)# 805414, NHMUK 010588329 (NHMUK). <b>FRENCH GUIANA:</b> 1 ♂, St. Jean du Maroni: 2.I.1978, T. Porion <i>leg.</i> [*provisionally identified as this species] (MNHN).</p>Published as part of <i>St Laurent, Ryan A. & Cock, Matthew J. W., 2017, Annotated list of Mimallonidae (Lepidoptera, Mimallonoidea) from Trinidad and Tobago, with the description of a new species of Cicinnus Blanchard, 1852 and taxonomic notes, pp. 53-70 in Zootaxa 4268 (1)</i> on pages 60-62, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4268.1.3, <a href="http://zenodo.org/record/579898">http://zenodo.org/record/579898</a>
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
Interview with Dr. Brina Kessel by Roger Kaye, January 22, 2003
No full textOral history interview with Dr. Brina Kessel. Roger Kaye as interviewer.
Dr. Kessel discusses her involvement in the 1956 Murie Expedition of the Sheenjeck River and the Arctic Refuge.
Name: Brina Kessel
Keywords: History, Biography, Exhibitions, Biologists (USFWS), Murie Expedition, Sheenjeck River, Arctic RefugeINTERVIEW WITH DR. BRINA KESSEL
BY ROGER KAYE JANUARY 22, 2003
MR. KAYE: This is an interview with Dr. Brina Kessel conducted on January 22, 2003
in Fairbanks, Alaska by Roger Kaye. The subject will primarily be a discussion focusing
on her involvement with the 1956 Murie Expedition to the Sheenjek River. Dr. Kessel,
thank you for being here and doing this with us today. I’d like to ask you to begin with a
brief biographical sketch on yourself; where you came from, how you happened to come
to Alaska, some of the main things that you have done, and what you do now.
DR. KESSEL: Well, I was brought up on the east coast. I was born in Ithaca, New York
where my parents were graduate students. Then my Dad got a job at the University of
Connecticut at Storrs. He was an English professor. I was brought up then on a one
hundred and ten acre piece of land adjacent to the University. So I was brought up in a
University atmosphere, but in a more or less country living atmosphere. Both my Dad
and mother had taken Ornithology courses at Cornell under Dr. Arthur Allen. They were
both interested in birds and we had feeding stations and things around the place. My Dad
would take me out for hikes, identifying birds. I guess that’s where my love of birds
began. I worked my way through College working on a poultry farm, which also helped
me a great deal in my knowledge of birds, believe it or not. I was cleaning dropping
boards and things like that. And when I first went up to Cornell, which I did end up at,
working with Dr. Arthur Allen, but during my first year up there I earned money as a
Freshman working in the Poultry Department there. Then, Dr. Allen and Peter Paul
Kellogg were going to come up to Alaska. You may have known their work from out on
the Y-K Delta. Dr. Allen and Dr. Peter Paul Kellogg had worked together on the sound
recordings of the first bird sound recordings that had been made. I was very fortunate
when I went to Cornell that the War was on, and all of the Graduate Students were off in
the Service. Even as a freshman vitally interested in Ornithology and hanging around the
Labs, I automatically became their “gopher”. This gave me an awful lot of good training
scientifically, logistically, and that sort of thing while I was there. I don’t know why I’ve
always been interested in tundra. I think it must have been a mutant gene that I had.
Because as long as I can remember, I have loved particularly, the high alpine type of
tundra. I remember it first from the top of Mount Washington. Then, as kids in grade
school, my Dad took a sabbatical out to California and we had a trailer that we went
across the country in. I can remember at any stop where I was anywhere near the high
country that I would either take a horse up, or take a hike up to the top of the tundra. So,
when I was looking for a job as I finished my Ph. D., I decided that I would go were there
was tundra. Frankly, I would have been out at Nome, had they had a University out
there, at that time. I ended up in the Taiga here in Fairbanks. And I told my mother
when I came “way up to Alaska” that I would stay for at least two years because I didn’t
want to be a job hopper. I was up here teaching summer session and Ira Scarlon took us
up to Cleary Summit where there was tundra right there at the very tip top. At that
summer session picnic, I knew for sure that I was never going to leave Alaska. So, I am
still here. The only place I applied for a job was to come to Alaska. There were
probably two reasons for that. I knew that I could be in tundra here, or near it. And a
man by the name of Neal Hosley was the head of the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit
at that time. I had put up specimens for him while he was in the Forestry Department at
the University of Connecticut. So, I knew him. And my proclivity for tundra, plus
having someone that knew me here… so I applied for a job. He told me “no” there
wasn’t a job at that time. But the next year I went to Milwaukee to the North American
Wildlife Conference meetings to try and job-hunt. I met Hosley there and he asked me if I
had gotten a job. I told him no, and that I hadn’t really been looking. And he told me that
they had an opening and that I should send up my stuff. John Buckley, who had just
been the second person in the Biology department, had taken the job of Cooperative
Wildlife Research Unit when Hosley moved to Dean, which left that position open. So I
applied for it, and came up here, so there were two of us in the Biology department at
that time.
MR. KAYE: So you were to be a professor, or an assistant professor?
DR. KESSEL: Yeah, I came for summer session as just an instructor because that was all
they had in summer session. Then I was immediately in an assistant professor of
Zoology, or Biological Science is what I guess they called it at that time. I slowly worked
my way up from there. I did a lot of teaching in the early years. And did quite a lot of
research around the edges. Then, when Mrs. Schible died in a fire in the Lathrop in about
1967, I guess, I was immediately made acting Department Head. Then, when Dr. Wood
came in he reorganized the whole University into Colleges and he made me the Dean of
the College of Biological Sciences and Renewable Resources. There was no difficulty. I
think it was partly because it was kind of a frontier arrangement up here. The school was
very small. It was more who you were, or was more what you could do than you were or
what you were. I had absolutely no visible sex discrimination and that sort of thing here
around the University. I had some other interesting experiences, which I’ve told
elsewhere. We talked about George Schaller. He was one of my freshman students there.
And I got Buckley, the head of the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit my second year
there. He said, “Brina, you should have a research project,” it was something to do for
the summer. We put in a proposal to the Arctic Naval Research Station. It came through
and Tom Cade and I were going to float the Colville, a full boat. Narell was going to fly
us up from Umiatt, upriver. Then we were going to coast down and then go back up on.
It was all approved, and I got a letter from the boss up there at Narell saying, “Everything
is fine. Put in a little more money for photographs, because we’d like to have them”. He
said that we had one problem. He said, “You can not come up on to the Reserve because
the Navy will not allow any woman on the Petfore Reserve unless they are married, and
with their husband”. So, instead of taking a Ph.D. in Ornithology to do a bird job, they
took a freshman man! But his name was George Schaller. I feel that I was able at my
misfortune, to kick him along in the right direction. It was a little bit fortuitous as far as
his expedition went.
MR. KAYE: You are referring to the Murie Expedition of 1956?
DR. KESSEL: Right, right. In the early 1950’s apparently, Otto Geist, and Earnest
Patty who was then the President of the University of Alaska recommended me to the
Muries for their planned trip to the eastern Brooks Range. I first met the Muries then, in
Washington, D. C. at a North American Wildlife Conference in the early 1950’s. I think it
was 1953. I think that was the year I was able to get to that Conference on a Naval flight,
because of my work at Barrow. I know that that is where I met the Muries. I can
remember standing in the back of the big conference room and chatting with them for the
first time. They were interested because I had been recommended to them. We were
going to go up about then, in the early 1950’s. But if you recall, Olaus came down with
spinal Tuberculosis. He was hospitalized and had to put it off. I remember that when Ira
Gabrielson was up here helping with the Statehood document, and so on, he told me,
“Forget it, Olaus will never be up here”. Spinal T.B. in a man that age was not a very
good thing. But he did. [get better] And we went up in 1956. It was interesting because
he was still recovering from his Spinal Meningitis. He was still weak. And it was
interesting as we were working around up there; there is a lot of tussock country up there
and you people with long legs have a definite advantage. You don’t have to go down in
those pits quite as often. Olaus was magnificent because he was kind of wobbly on his
legs when he got up there. And he just kind of managed to wobble between them in the
right sequence. It was marvelous to watch him strengthen in the early part of the summer
as he became better and better at getting around up there.
MR. KAYE: So, let me ask you; what was your impression of the Muries both as
Naturalists, and as people?
DR. KESSEL: Well as people, they absolutely cannot be beat! They were very
understanding, sensitive to other people and their weaknesses and strength. Scientifically,
Olaus was always a good scientist. And Mardy was his partner in note keeping and
taking care of Olaus. I think neither one of them would ever have reached the heights that
both of them did of it hadn’t been for the other. It was a beautiful partnership that they
had.
MR. KAYE: And as a naturalist; what kind of a scientist was he? You had worked with
many scientists by then. Did Olaus stand out as different from other scientists?
DR. KESSEL: Only that sometimes Naturalists are not considered Scientists. But he
was. He was a Scientist. And he was both. He was wonderful in his observational
abilities and his note keeping. I don’t know whether you are familiar with the Bulletin on
the Birds and Mammals of the Aleutians?
MR. KAYE: The Bering Sea.
DR. KESSEL: Yes, the Bering Sea. It was mostly just the Aleutians they were on. But
it’s a magnificent thing and you can absolutely depend on it. He was always, he is
always in his publications, accurate on everything that he puts in. You can count on his
dates. The book that Gabrielson and Lincoln put out on the birds of Alaska; there are a
lot of typos in that. And in many places it has been incompletely referenced. But if it’s
on the Aleutians, you can always go back to Olaus’ and pick up those original references
and so on.
MR. KAYE: And he was an artist too. Did he do artwork and so on?
DR. KESSEL: Oh yes! I am not sure how much he was doing while he was up there. He
was doing sketches. We know that. One picture I am very proud of is in my living room
is a picture that he painted as a result of his trip with A. H. Brandt on the Y-K Delta in
the 1920’s. What’s the name of that book? Is it Arctic Alaska by Herbert Brandt, in
which he participated with Conover, the Ornithologist? He was down on there while
Mardy was here in Fairbanks and when they left after many months on the Y-K Delta.
Mardy took the boat down and they met in Anvik, or some place down there where they
got married.
MR. KAYE: In 1924.
DR. KESSEL: I have a picture that he painted on my wall at home of Stellers Eiders on
the Y-K Delta. It was in their cabin there at Jackson Hole. They gave it to me, which I
am very proud of.
MR. KAYE: Some of the descriptions that Olaus made were like a childlike curiosity
about the natural world. Did you sense that, or not?
DR. KESSEL: I wouldn’t have called it childlike at all. He was just a naturally curious
person and scientist. And he loved the outdoors. I don’t think he varies that much from
other naturalists that I know, and use every excuse to get out in the field, and just plain
enjoy it.
MR. KAYE: How about the area. What was your impression of the area when you first
went up there? At that time, did you have a sense of the importance of the project in
terms of leading to establishment of a protected area?
DR. KESSEL: I personally didn’t, particularly. When we, I think it was our first
morning at breakfast, Olaus gave us our work papers so to speak. Olaus said “I want you
to get the best that you can out of your experiences here this summer”. And that was our
assignment.
MR. KAYE: Really?
DR. KESSEL: Yeah, and so it was do what you can and what you want to do, and have
fun. So, I did birds and plants. George did hiking and birds. We both collected some
small mammals. Of course, Olaus was setting some small mammal traps around. We
helped put them up. I made quite a plant collection up there. It’s in the University of
Alaska Herbarium now.
MR. KAYE: When we talked earlier once, you told me about how you apparently went
on a walk, or a trip and you hiked into an area that had been off of the topographic maps.
And it was a special quality of that experience. What do you remember of that? What
can you tell me about it?
DR. KESSEL: Well, I think more what impressed me was that we were in a part of
Alaska that had not been mapped by USGS. That was what impressed me. In fact, while
we were in the Last Lake camp USGS was up there in a helicopter taking the photographs
of that area. And on the east side of this mountain, I guess you’d have to call it a
mountain; they were taking the photographs in order to make the USGS maps in future
years. But what I had done one day; it was very close to camp. You left the camp and
walked a very little distance and you started to climb up in the foothills to that particular
mountain. But I went up the valley that was just a little bit south of that. Then there
was a valley that ran north and south. So, I then went into that unmapped valley which
was just like any other valley up there, with sedges and things in the bottom of it; and
rubble on both sides. I walked up there, but I was a little bit disturbed when I met a
Grizzly bear. I could see it way down the valley. So I slowly climbed up on the east side
of that valley up into the talis, and I tried to remain out of scent and everything else from
that bear. I figured that if I was far enough up that talis slope and he started to come up
there, I could start rolling rocks and boulders and things down on him. But the bear
continued on up where I had been coming. We kind of passed without him seeing me.
And then, I walked the rest of the way around the mountain to the north, and then back
to camp.
MR. KAYE: You talked about this sense of being off the map, and I guess, this sense of
the unknown, and how that added something to the experience?
DR. KESSEL: Well, it did just knowing that we were in an area that hadn’t been mapped.
When you knew that so much of the area had been mapped, it was kind of fun. One
time…I set up a research plot. The head of the Wildlife Cooperative Unit, Dr. John L.
Buckley had done some work for the Air Force, or was in the process of making it. They
wanted to know what foods that people who might get downed in Alaska could find that
would be edible for them to feed on. So he was very scientific about it and randomly
picked plots to be surveyed. One of them was way up at the headwaters of the Sheenjek.
So, Brina had to go up there and test that one. George and Bob Krear walked up there
with me, and we surveyed the plot and set it out. In the process, we met a Grizzly Bear
which you may have read about in Mardy Murie’s book, in which it was a hot day and
the Grizzly was sleeping there in the woods. Bob Krear was in the lead, George was
behind him and I was following George. All of a sudden that Grizzly Bear shot up in
front of Bob. He was of course scared witless. He tossed his little tripod at the bear, and
it was quite startled. George and I turned around and headed in the other direction. The
bear took off. Bob Krear was absolutely white. But anyway, that was on out trip up
there to set up that plot at the headwaters. So, when I was going to go up there and run
that plot by myself, they walked me up there to make sure everything was all right. I
then spent, is it three nights that you run a trap line? I stayed up there alone, way up by
the headwaters all by myself for three nights. Then I packed up my stuff and walked
down. But I didn’t go through the woods. I was walking down mostly the ouf ice along
the edge of the river. I got maybe about a third to a half way down, I was still on elf ice,
and there were Olaus and Mardy coming up to meet me. So then we walked back
together. Actually, we crossed the whole river. We had to take off our boots and pull up
our trousers and everything else to get across the water. It was too deep. We finally
turned around and came back.
MR. KAYE: Did you folks carry a gun for Bears?
DR. KESSEL: Not most of the time. I carried an over and under .22/.410 with the rifling
taken out of the .22 barrel because I wanted to use a .22 shot. You can’t get decent
pattern out of a rifled barrel. I used that to collect Warblers and that sort of thing. I did
carry a couple of single-shot, oh what do you call them, things in the shell?
MR. KAYE: A flare?
DR. KESSEL: I don’t know, it looks like a big lead ball in the end of it. But anyway, I
would carry one of those in my pack. The bears were more likely to avoid us than we
had to avoid bears. It was just that one instance that we were worried about. There was
another one that I think Mardy tells about. I was nearby. That was when a bear was
coming down the hill, and it appeared to be chasing Bob Krear. So he dropped his pack,
it stopped at the pack. Then Bob came on down. He went back later and picked up his
pack. You had to be careful. I am not sure we were careful enough! We didn’t have any
really bad accidents.
MR. KAYE: You mentioned George Schaller, and of course he was one of your students.
Is there anything that indicated at the time; any of his traits as a biologist or a student that
would lead one to think that he’d become the preeminent conservation biologist, kind of
world known as he is today?
DR. KESSEL: I don’t think there was at that time. He was very interested in natural
history. I remember he had, I think a Raven at one time, that he kept over near the
Dormitory or maybe even in the Dormitory. But no, I think that probably the Colville
River was his first experience in that. When he went up with Tom Cabe to work on the
birds of the Colville. He really enjoyed that very, very much. And that was probably his
kick-off. Then, to have the additional opportunity to be with the Muries on the
Sheenjek, I think that much more of a boost. He loved to walk. He would leave camp and
be gone for two or three days, just walking the ridges around there. I remember one trip
that he took, where he went on the ridges on the eastern side of the Sheenjek all the way
up and around the headwaters where he would look over into the Colleen. Then, he
walked around and came down the other side and came back to camp. I know that he
wore out at least two pairs of shoepacks. We had to order more for him from Fort
Yukon! I don’t know whether I answered your question there or not.
Here’s something from my notes that make me chuckle when I reread them. We
arrived up there on the first of June. I think the two fellows, Kreer and Schaller went up
there on the preceding day and the Muries and I went up on the first. On the morning of
June 2nd, I wrote in my journal, “had a horrible sleep last night. I was pretty cold. It
didn’t seem possible. I had flannel PJs on. I was inside both of my double down bags. I
had a blanket over that. Most of the trouble came from below. Anything that touched
the ground hard got cooled off in no time. It must have been the frost in the ground.
Today I cut some bows and put a layer of them under the tent floor below my air
mattress. Then I put my blanket, doubled, between my sleeping bag and mattress. Let’s
hope I am warmer tonight.” And sure enough, I was. That was probably one of my first
lessons that I learned about Arctic camping. I had the same trouble on the Seward
Peninsula when I got stranded with the lack of an airplane at the town of Dearing. Again,
it was that cold. They had some Caribou skins all stacked in a rack. I guess they were
going to send them out and have them tanned, I don’t know what. Anyway, I asked if I
could barrow one of those and I through it on the ground underneath my sleeping bag. Of
course, I was nice and warm. To this day, I have that lying on one of my beds upstairs,
just in case I ever have to use it again. But that’s just an example of the kind of thing I
learned up there.
At another place in my journal, I was writing about how wonderful the area was
and what nice weather we were having. “The mosquitoes are still scarce, even while
sitting in that damp area I only had two or three bothering me at a time. I did have a few
‘noseeums’ around me today however. I am afraid that this environment is too good to
last. Gorgeous beyond words. The birds are just getting started on nesting. The Caribou
are migrating. Everything seems perfect, it’s hard to believe that I am here. Why should I
have been chosen to come on a trip like this, out of the many persons that applied. Now
that I am here, I feel woefully inadequate to fully appreciate everything and to make full
use of the opportunities provided. I am not sure how best to spend my time; what
information to gather, how to gather it, etc. It’s easy to lay plans in the laboratory, it’s
another thing to fully utilize, synthesize and appreciate this great outdoor laboratory.”
So that was part of my learning experience, my early learning experience about working
away from
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No full textThe Kaye Scholer I case has excited much attention and alarm within the legal profession. 2 It is interpreted as greatly expanding the scope of lawyer liability to third parties and heralding much greater regulatory intervention into the relationship between lawyer and client. In some respects this interpretation is accurate. The Kaye Scholer proceeding is at least a wake up call to the legal profession, signalling that lawyers should be much more attentive to their legal and ethical obligations in transactional and regulatory matters. However, there is also much misunderstanding about Kaye Scholer, particularly the supposition that it created novel theories of lawyer liability to third parties. The purpose of this analysis is to explain what Kaye Scholer was about, what are the basic concepts of lawyer liability to third parties, and why the practicing bar should heed a wake up call |
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No full textThe Kaye Scholer I case has excited much attention and alarm within the legalprofession. It is interpreted as greatly expanding the scope of lawyer liability to third parties and heralding much greater regulatory intervention into therelationship between lawyer and client. In some respects this interpretation isaccurate. The Kaye Scholer proceeding is at least a wake up call to the legalprofession, signalling that lawyers should be much more attentive to their legal and ethical obligations in transactional and regulatory matters. However, there is also much misunderstanding about Kaye Scholer, particularly the supposition that it created novel theories of lawyer liability to third parties. The purpose of this analysis is to explain what Kaye Scholer was about, what are the basic concepts of lawyer liability to third parties, and why the practicing bar should heed a wake up call
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