10,190 research outputs found
Friedrich Hayek and the left: A response to Simon Griffiths
No full textFriedrich Hayek’s political theory is sometimes misunderstood, often controversial, and definitely worthy of detailed analysis from all political perspectives. But can scholars and politicians make use of Hayekian reasoning without also arriving at the same conclusions as he did? In this article, Simon Kaye sets out some of Hayek’s unique insights, and why it may be difficult to detach them from a laissez-faire politics
Interview with Bella Francis with Roger Kaye, February 26, 1993
No full textOral history interview with Bella Francis and Roger Kaye as interviewer.INTERVIEW WITH BELLA FRANCIS
WITH ROGER KAYE, FEBRUARY 26, 1993
This is Roger Kaye with Bella Francis.
MR. KAYE: Bella, tell me, where were you born?
MRS. FRANCIS: I was born in Orland Park, up the Porcupine River.
MR. KAYE: What year?
MRS. FRANCIS: 1928
MR. KAYE: How long did you stay up there?
MRS. FRANCIS: I stayed up there until 1941.
MR. KAYE: Who were your parents Bella?
MRS. FRANCIS: My father was Charlie Francis. And Blanche is my mother’s name.
MR. KAYE: And you were adopted?
MRS. FRANCIS: I was adopted by my Dad.
MR. KAYE: Who was that?
MRS. FRANCIS: Charlie Strong.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about Charlie Strong.
MRS. FRANCIS: Charlie Strong married Mom when she was very young. He went up
to Orland Park. They had a little trading post there for the people. There was about
eighty people there. A lot of people from all over come there because he had a little store
there.
MR. KAYE: What kind of people came?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, Indians, and sometimes Eskimos. And a lot from Old Crow.
MR. KAYE: Where did the Eskimos come from?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, there used to be a lot of Eskimos from up around Artic Village,
up that way.
MR. KAYE: Did you ever talk to them?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. I see them, bit I didn’t talk to them.
MR. KAYE: They didn’t bring kids?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. They didn’t bring no kids. They probably did, but I don’t know
I guess.
MR. KAYE: What was your Dad’s trading post like?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh it just a log house. There was a drum stove over there to burn
wood. It was just like other stores, you got a counter in there and shelves. He’d get all
his stuff by getting it on a inboard launch and barge nanovik. He would go up the
Porcupine River, that’s how he’d get his stuff up there.
MR. KAYE: Where did he come from?
MRS. FRANCIS: He came from Sweden.
MR. KAYE: What brought him to Alaska?
MRS. FRANCIS: He told me that he just ran away from his family when he was
fourteen year old. Because of the hard times, and there were a lot of them, and he wanted
to go to Alaska. So he made it up to Alaska around the time when he was twenty-five
year old he said.
MR. KAYE: Was he a good father?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah! He was a really good father. He really brought me up good.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your mother, where was she from?
MRS. FRANCIS: My mother is from Fort Yukon. They were pretty young too, all of
them, my aunts and uncles they were pretty young when my grandpa, Dick Martin
drownded. So, my grandma had quite a bit of kids to raise up by herself.
MR. KAYE: Did you go to any school up at Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had no school in Old Rampart. There was a school in Fort Yukon,
but my Dad doesn’t want me, and my sisters to go to school. Even though we wanted to.
He doesn’t trust anybody, that’s why he doesn’t want us to go to school in Fort Yukon.
MR. KAYE: Why didn’t he trust people there?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, thinks we were going to get hurt, and things like that I guess.
MR. KAYE: Did you want to go to Fort Yukon? Was it lonely being way out, way up
the Porcupine, away from the village?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh no. Oh no. When we were in Fort Yukon, two month out of the
year, we were in a hurry to go back. The reason we were in a hurry to go back was
because we were in a hurry to pick berries, and go fishing and things like that.
MR. KAYE: So, about two months out of the year you spent at Fort Yukon then.
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes, from the first of June to the first of September.
MR. KAYE: Was that to bring furs in and send them out?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes. He would bring all his furs, and he’d wait for his groceries what
he sent for. All of that got to be taken care of. While we were there in Fort Yukon for
two months people would help him, and he’d take all of the stuff up for the store and for
us. He works year round.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about the boat trip from Old Rampart up to Fort Yukon.
MRS. FRANCIS: That was fun. When the first of June would come we’d like it. Up
there, there were certain kinds of birds that we don’t have up that way, and we see all
that. And we see a lot of people up the Porcupine River at that time. We see villages,
and when we get close to Fort Yukon, we see tents. You know people go out camping in
the springtime for muskrats and ducks, and fishing and everything like that. We really
enjoyed ourselves. And they got in nice in the barge that we won’t be crowded.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your fathers barge. How big was it? And did he make it
himself?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, there’s a guy named Andy Johnson at Fort Yukon that made it.
SIMON: It was Stanley too.
MRS. FRANCIS: Stanley Luke too.
MR. KAYE: How big was it?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh I don’t know. How big is it?
MR. KAYE: A wooden barge?
SIMON: Thirty feet, maybe forty.
MR. KAYE: A plank boat?
MRS. FRANCIS: It was a barge.
SIMON: The barge was about forty feet.
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, about forty feet.
MR. KAYE: How many people would ride this barge down to Fort Yukon?
MRS. FRANCIS: Lots. A lot of people. We’d pick people up on the way.
SIMON: That barge could hold about twelve tons.
MRS. FRANCES: We would pick them up on the way, that want to go in. Or help them
out because their boat is small. Sometimes they had this small boat. They don’t all have
big boats. So we helped them. You know, you have to take your dogs and all that with
you because there was nobody in the came who will take care of them. You can’t go
without dogs because don’t have no “snow goes” and things like that in those days.
MR. KAYE: So how many people in your family rode the barge to Fort Yukon?
MRS. FRANCIS: My family? All of us.
MR. KAYE: How many, who was that?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh well, me, and my sisters, and we got one brother. My sister next
to me is Doris, and there’s Jean, and Barbara and Bessie and Dick Strong.
MR. KAYE: And how long would it take to get to Fort Yukon?
MRS. FRANCIS: It’d take about a day and a half.
MR. KAYE: A day and a half. Did he have a motor on the boat? An inboard?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, an inboard.
MR. KAYE: And he had all of the furs that he had traded?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: And how many dogs?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh, a lot of dogs sometimes. I will say maybe over ten.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: It must have been really crowded.
MRS. FRANCES: No, it’s not crowded.
SIMON: Sometimes there were five families on the barge, dogs and all.
MR. KAYE: Oh really? So, as a little girl when you were living at Old Rampart, what
did you do? How did you spend your days?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh gee, the days would just go so fast. Normally we would get up
and Dad would talk to us about what we’re supposed to do. Help our mother around the
house. When I was young I didn’t work outdoor too much. And when I got older I
would work out. When we got big enough, maybe around eight or nice year old we
always helped her out with cooking, and sweeping the floors, and things like that. There
was always a lot of things to do. Making beds too. After lunch, then we all get dressed
in all of our furs, and go down to the river and then we’d make our house. All the kids get
on down there. It’s always so windy. The snow would get so hard you can just saw it
out. Saw, it out and get it in a square. And we’d all make a house for ourselves. Just like
we helped our mother, we’d do the same thing at our house. We would get our wooden
knives and carve things.
MR. KAYE: This was a kid’s house?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah. Then if we’d get tired of that, we’d get together and we’d slide
down, all the village kids. We’d go way up on the hill and pack the big toboggan up and
we’d all pile in it and slide down. Or we’d play football.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh, sometimes we’d do that until moonlight. Then they’d have to tell
us to come in the house now. Next day, we’d do that again. We had all kinds of games.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about the playhouses that you made as a kid at Old Rampart.
MRS. FRANCIS. Well, the snowdrift would get so hard we’d cut it out. Sometimes we
would saw, or axe and cut it in squares, and pile it up and make a house out of it. Big
enough for two maybe three to sit in it. Some kids make it big, they got a lot of room in
there. After we do that, we’d play in there. We’d carve. Maybe we’d carve doughnuts,
and little biscuits, and plates and pots, and all that. We’d make a stove, and pretend we
were cooking. And there were chairs and tables. We’d make it real nice. Then we
pretended to visit each other, and send a biscuit over to the next snow house. Things like
that. That’s what we’d do.
MR. KAYE: And you had just your brother and sisters to play with at Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. Other village kids too.
MR. KAYE: At Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, at Old Rampart.
MR. KAYE: And these were children of Indians?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes, all Indian kids. Then you’d get little snacks. Mother would give
us little snacks. Me, I was always getting crackers from the store. Or some kids get
dried, smoked meat. We pass around and share with each other. And we’d chew that.
And we really enjoyed ourself that way.
MR. KAYE: Did you have more store bought things ‘cause your father owned the store?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had more than other kids.
MR. KAYE: More than other kids?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah. Because we got it right there you know.
MR. KAYE: Besides you family, your brother and sisters, how many kids lived up at
Old Rampart then?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, I don’t know, I can’t remember, but just one family was my
husband’s family. When I remember it, I’d say there were about maybe ten boys, ten or
eleven there at one house. Then another family had maybe eight or seven. That was
Cyrus Blakely. Then another family that’s Henry Wilham, he had about seven or eight.
So we’ll say that there’s more kids there than adults. There’s about maybe fifty, sixty
kids. There were a lot of childrens. They did make a log schoolhouse, but they couldn’t
get teacher. They had a hard time. They tried to get a teacher In those days you know,
they had a Chief and Council. Our Chief really tried, but he couldn’t get anybody to
teach. That’s why we couldn’t go to school.
MR. KAYE: Did you plays with dolls when you were a girl?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, we didn’t have very much toys.
MR. KAYE: You didn’t?
MRS. FRANCIS: Unless our relatives sent us some. I had a china doll but I dropped it
and that was it. We never had Christmas tree. Didn’t have no Christmas tree. And at
Christmas time we had a potlatch we called it. Everybody would get together and eat
together. Then they’d pass out presents. We didn’t have no toys so they’d give us,
sometimes they’d sew things. They would give us, some people would get fur coats, new
ones, and moccasins, mitts, or a scarf. We’d get a lot of goodies though. Hard candy
come in big buckets in those days. And cookies. Cookies come in fifty or maybe sixty
pound box, they come in. All different kind of cookies, real good ones. And all the dried
fruits , they all come in boxes. Raisins come in boxes. Crackers come in boxes.
Everything is boxed. The elderly would get leaf tobacco it come in a box. So, at
Christmas they would have potlatch all the way to New Years. And they have good
time. And they have a dance. They played just like now, a fiddle. They’d have a dance,
and teach the kids how to dance.
MR. KAYE: Really? Where was the dance held?
MRS. FRANCES: They had a dance hall.
MR. KAYE: Really? There in Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah. They had a dance hall.
MR. KAYE: How many buildings where there, about, in Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Gosh, I don’t know. There was a lot of buildings, but they all went
down.
MR. KAYE: How many would you say, Simon?
SIMON: There was about twelve.
MRS. FRANCIS: But there was more houses that went down. A lot of people stay in
tents in those days. There was a log around the bottom and they staid in tents. Even in a
blow. Even in Fort Yukon they used to do that. They all staid in tents, down in the
village. Nowadays, they don’t do that. You know why they don’t do that? Because
there’s danger nowadays.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: Those days, I remember when we live in the village, everything is
outdoors. Like in front of the door, when they’d come back from hunting, they’d just put
their gun against the wall there. They’d put their gun there, their axe there, their
snowshoes there, till next time they go out again.
MR. KAYE: What did you do for mosquitoes?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had smudge. Up there’s a lot of bluffs, you know. There’s a
certain kind of weeds that grow, like grass just like. They pick that up, and they make a
fire. And they put that on it. That’s what kill mosquitoes. It smelled strong. Like
buhack. The mosquito medicine smelled strong. That what they use.
MR. KAYE: Looking back, what was the biggest hardship of living up there?
MRS. FRANCIS: I don’t know. But sometime it really hard for people. “Cause its kind
of way up, and it’s in a canyon you know. Sometime it’s hard to get food. I mean like
meat and things like that. Or furs.
MR. KAYE: Did you consider life a hardship being so far from town when you were a
girl?
MRS. FRANCIS: That’s true, that’s true. It’s hard to go to town you know. You have
to go all the way with dogs. And sometime the weather is bad.
MR. KAYE: Did you make the trip with dogs from Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah, a lot of people come from Fort Yukon.
MR. KAYE: What about you? Did you make that trip?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, not me.
MR. KAYE: What did your father do besides trade there? Did he trap at all?
MRS. FRANCIS: He trapped.
MR. KAYE: He trapped which way from Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: Saminkut, he traps up that way. He traps over to Old Crow, up that
way.
MR. KAYE: Did you ever go with him?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, at that time, I never go with him.
MR. KAYE: You were still very young then?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, very young then. Then when we moved thirty-five mile below
where they call Burnt Paw, when we moved there I was sixteen year old. So then he was
getting ill.
MR. KAYE: Oh, I see.
MRS. FRANCIS: He was getting short of breath. I can’t go out very much. So when he
went out with us, he taught me and my sister how to set trap and all that stuff. What do
to, and all that stuff. We kind of know little bit from before, we see a lot of people do
that in the village. So we start out. And sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen I trap.
I trap all the way around up the Colling River, over the mountain, all over around there I
trap.
MR. KAYE: Before you tell me about living at Burnt Paw, as far as Old Rampart goes,
didn’t they expand when you were there, and start building houses across the river?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like some of those houses are very old. There
was about four families. They built across the river, where there was nice timber there.
They make a whole bunch of nice houses there and they move across. All of them got big
family too. And we still stay on this side. A few families stay on this side. Every time
we want to visit we get a little boat and go across the river to visit. We can wait til it
freeze up too. After it freeze up, then we harness up two dogs and we go over.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: We visit like that, even at nighttime. Lot of time, we holler, and we
holler, and tell kids to come over. So they’d do that.
MR. KAYE: Was it dangerous, the Porcupine River? Did anyone drown when you were
there?
MRS. FRANCIS: No, nobody drowned when I was there.
MR. KAYE: So, what year was it when you left Old Rampart?
MRS. FRANCIS: 1941.
MR. KAYE: In 1941. And you moved on to Burnt Paw?
MRS. FRANCIS: Um hum. (agreeing)
MR. KAYE: Why did your father move there?
MRS. FRANCIS: Because he was ill. And it’s really hard for us up there you know,
because it’s canyon, all over. Hard for us. Where we moved to is my uncle’s place, uncle
Richard Martin’s place. He went to the Army, so he want us to move down there. It
more easy.
MR. KAYE: To Burnt Paw?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes, it’s easier than Old Rampart. That’s why we move.
MR. KAYE: Did you build the cabin that’s there now? At Burnt Paw?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, in 1944 I build it.
MR. KAYE: In 1944. There was a cabin there before?
MRS. FRANCIS: It burned down.
MR. KAYE: It burned down. Where did Burnt Paw get its name from?
MRS. FRANCIS: I guess that long ago when people travel a lot, you know, always
traveling out for food, and for things like that, I guess this one kit, this is what they told
me, that one kit fell on the fire or hot ashes or something and burned the foot.
MR. KAYE: Oh, I see.
MRS. FRANCIS: So, in our language they say “burned foot”. So they just made it Burnt
Paw.
MR. KAYE: So you were about sixteen when you moved to Burnt Paw.
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: It that about when you started your own trap lines?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yes.
MR. KAYE: Tell me about your trapping. I remember we mapped it, and it was a
tremendous length. Tell me about what you did, and how you went about it.
MRS. FRANCIS: Your mean how I start out?
MR. KAYE: Yes
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh well, before we start out, like we said, on September first we go
back up to village. The first thing we do, is we fish. Put nets in. I put maybe four or five
nets in and try to get fish for the dogs.
MR. KAYE: How many dogs did your family have at this time?
MRS. FRANCIS: I always had nine, nine dogs. The rest of my sisters have dogs too.
We get all the dog feed we can.
MR. KAYE: How many salmon would that be, do you think?
MRS. FRANCIS: For a year?
MR. KAYE: Yes.
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh gee, I don’t know. I can’t guess. But we get a lot of corn meal and
tallows and all that too besides the fish. Probably, maybe eight hundred, a thousand
maybe. We’d get all kinds of fish. Like whitefish. We put fishnet under ice. For eating
and for dogs. My mom fished lots too. Sometimes fish ‘til Christmas. Depends on how
the ice is too, how thick it gets. If it get too thick, then you have to pull your net out.
Then while you’re doing that, you get your wood. We go back, and we get wood.
Maybe three weeks we cut wood. Cut it all up, haul it. When snow come we haul it in.
Then we cut it all up, and then we split it all up. We got to make kitchen wood, we call it
kindling for cooking stove. We don’t have no propane stove. So, then outdoors we put
big tarp over it. That’s for winter. We’d get meat, and caribou and moose. Then we’d get
everything ready. Then, when snow come, when season opened, we fix our toboggan.
Fix all the harness, and all our gears. Mom fixed all our clothes. Then we’d just start off.
MR. KAYE: When you started trapping did you go alone, or did you go with someone?
MRS. FRANCIS: Lot of time my sister went with me.
MR. KAYE: Which one?
MRS. FRANCIS: Doris, she was next to me. She was fourteen year old when she
started. I was sixteen. But, I lost her after about a year. A lot of time I had to go alone.
MR. KAYE: Did you think it unusual for a young girl to have a long trap line ?
MRS. FRANCIS: I think it’s fun. When I see those women go in the races, in the dog
races, I know how they feel. Because I really enjoyed myself when I was out alone. Out
alone, and my dogs. Have a good time with the dogs.
MR. KAYE: Were you ever afraid to go out?
MRS. FRANCIS: Never! Never afraid to go out, never. Because in Colling River,
there’s always a lot of bears. Even my dogs try to pull me in the brush because the first
bear tracks go in the brush you know. I just hold them down. One thing, I was not
afraid.
MR. KAYE: When you trapped alone, how many nights would you be out on the trap
line?
MRS. FRANCIS: I didn’t stay long. The longest I stay out is maybe three nights, or
two nights.
MR. KAYE: I remember when we traced it on a map it was about ninety miles once.
You must have gone a long ways.
MRS. FRANCIS: I do go a long ways when I’m alone. That’s the funnest part. When
you are alone you can go a long ways. When somebody’s with you, gee, you waste a lot
of time. I can go up the Colling River to the cabin just like that, you know. But if my
sister, or mother go with me, gee it’d take all day!
MR. KAYE: Did you stay in tent camps sometimes?
MRS. FRANCIS: Sometime tent camp, sometime little houses. We build one at let’s see,
we build one at Colling River, at Fishkil we build one. That’s one, two, three, four, below
our place, six mile, there’s a house too. So we had about five trapping houses. We had
about two tents.
MR. KAYE: Two tent camps? And how many dogs were you running now?
MRS. FRANCIS: At that time? Nine. I always run nine.
MR. KAYE: You had pretty good fur catches?
MRS. FRANCIS: Oh yeah! Gee. . .
MR. KAYE: What would you catch?
MRS. FRANCIS: Well, one time was pretty good for link, I remember. It was pretty
good for link. And I caught forty-two lynx. And a lot of other animals like fox . . .
MR. KAYE: Was that in one year?
MRS. FRANCIS: One year.
MR. KAYE: And martins?
MRS. FRANCIS: Martins, and the fox, and coyotes.
MR. KAYE: Oh yeah?
MRS. FRANCIS: We had about two or three coyotes one year. And wolverine, things
like that.
MR. KAYE: Did you skin them yourself?
MRS. FRANCIS: No. That’s one thing, I don’t skin them.
MR. KAYE: Who does?
MRS. FRANCIS: I bring them home. My mom does.
MR. KAYE: Oh really?
MRS. FRANCIS: I only thing I don’t like is when we haul it. We have a tough time
when we haul the lynx.
MR. KAYE: Oh, the furs?
MRS. FRANCIS: Yeah, when they’re frozen.
MR. KAYE: Are you using traps, or snares?
MRS. FRANCIS: Everything. Trap and snares. When we trap lynx, we make a house,
and put trap, and then we put s
Charlie May Simon materials
No full textThis collection contains materials relating to Arkansas author Charlie May Simon
On the complex relationship between political ignorance and democracy
No full textPolitical ignorance is one of the most important features of the British – or any other – public. As the general election approaches, we may be moved to ask how competent the average voter really is. But, as Simon Kaye explains in this article, the relationship between democracy and ignorance is extremely complicated, and calls for sophisticated political analysis
Book review: National populism: the revolt against liberal democracy by Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin
No full textIn National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy, Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin offer a concise examination of the rise of national populism, seeking to challenge some of the established views regarding this political shift. While elements of the book’s analysis do engage in simplification, Simon Kaye nonetheless finds this a succinct, striking and thought-provoking work
Professor Simon on the Kaye Scholer Affair: Shock at the Gambling at Rick’s Place in Casablanca
No full textIn this issue of Law & Social Inquiry, Professor William Simon makes a somewhat belated, but highly valuable contribution to the literature on what he calls the Kaye Scholer "affair." By the phrase Kaye Scholer affair, Simon refers to Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays, and Handlers' representation of Charles Keating and his banking empire during the heady days when savings and loan institutions broke free of all vestiges of regulatory supervision and appeared to control not only their regulators, but most of the legal and political community inside the Washington Beltway. The results were not pretty, as mismanagement and imprudent risk taking eventually led to the collapse of the savings and loan industry, the bankruptcy of its federally managed insurance system, and massive losses to U.S. taxpayers
Professor Simon on the Kaye Scholer Affair: Shock at the Gambling at Rick’s Place in Casablanca
No full textIn this issue of Law \u26 Social Inquiry, Professor William Simon makes a somewhat belated, but highly valuable contribution to the literature on what he calls the Kaye Scholer affair. By the phrase Kaye Scholer affair, Simon refers to Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays, and Handlers\u27 representation of Charles Keating and his banking empire during the heady days when savings and loan institutions broke free of all vestiges of regulatory supervision and appeared to control not only their regulators, but most of the legal and political community inside the Washington Beltway. The results were not pretty, as mismanagement and imprudent risk taking eventually led to the collapse of the savings and loan industry, the bankruptcy of its federally managed insurance system, and massive losses to U.S. taxpayers
Interview with Jim King by Roger Kaye, November 24, 2003
No full textOral history interview with Jim King. Roger Kaye as interviewer.
Jim King discusses the creation of Arctic NWR.
Organization: FWS
Name: Jim King
Years: 1951-1983, 1983-2013
Program: Refuges
Keywords: History, Biography, Aircraft, Aviation, Biologists (USFWS), Employees (USFWS), Wildlife refuges, Work of the Service, Wildlife managementINTERVIEW WITH JIM KING
BY ROGER KAYE NOVEMBER 24, 2003
MR. KAYE: This is a telephonic interview with retired FWS Biologist and Pilot Jim
King who is in Juneau. It is November 24, 2003. It is conducted by Roger Kaye in
Fairbanks. The subject of our discussion today is the creation of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. Jim, thanks for talking with me today. To begin, tell us about your
position with the FWS in the mid 1950’s.
MR. KING: I started working for FWS in 1951. I think we were called Enforcement
Agents then. Actually, I started as a Stream Guard under Hogar Larsen in Cook Inlet. I
moved to Fairbanks in the fall of 1951 as an Agent Trainee. We had several titles that
came along, but we wound up as Game Management Agents. That was the normal title of
people in the management and enforcement divisions. Alaska was kind of separate from
the rest of the country at that time so we didn’t have to take civil service exams or
anything like that. They just hired people that they felt were appropriate.
MR. KAYE: So in 1956, I know you flew John Buckley up to Last Lake to visit the
Muries during their expedition there. What was your position in 1956?
MR. KING: I guess it was Game Management Agent. We didn’t actually land in the
lake. We landed in the Sheenjek River, which was pretty close to where the Muries were
camped. The lake was a little ways away, but that’s where Keith Harrington had landed.
He was a Wein pilot that took them up there initially.
MR. KAYE: Can you tell me a little bit about that trip and why you went up and what
you knew about the effort that the Muries were involved in there?
MR. KING: We had done flying at that time with the university wildlife unit people and
the wildlife unit that had started in 1950, I guess. It had been pretty new. The first
leader was Doc Cosley and then he began Dean of Students. Then John Buckley took
over. They were kind of learning the country. Ray Wolford, who was the Agent in
Charge in Fairbanks, helped them out as much as possible and we did flying for them
periodically when they requested it. Buckley wanted to go up there. I don’t remember
exactly the details but I assume that he talked to me or to Wolford to arrange it. So it was
set, I flew him up in a Piper Pacer as I recall.
MR. KAYE: So did he visit with the Muries then? Were they discussing strategy? Do
you recall what they were discussing?
MR. KING: Well, we went to their camp and Marty and Olaus were there. There was a
Doctor there. Maybe Brina Kessell was there. George Schaller was off somewhere. He
was staying there but he was off hiking that day. As a matter of fact, I think when we
first got there Olaus was off somewhere. He had been making track casts and other things
around the lake. He came back. But I don’t remember any great details about the
conservation regarding the Arctic Refuge. It was actually the south slope of the Brooks
Range and it isn’t a very arctic-like place. It’s more like the interior arboreal forest.
MR. KAYE: When did you move to Juneau?
MR. KING: I came here in 1964.
MR. KAYE: I know that you knew Clarence Rhode. Maybe you could tell me a little bit
about what you knew of Clarence and what your association with him was?
MR. KING: Clarence was the Regional Director. He was really a vibrant and dynamic
person. He just had a way of dealing with everybody that was really appealing.
Although he did have enemies because he was a very powerful person.
MR. KAYE: What kind of enemies would Clarence have?
MR. KING: He was Regional Director at a time when Commercial Fisheries was part of
the region. Clarence had no college degrees of any sort that I know of. I don’t think he
had ever been to college. Here he was in charge of Ph. D. Fisheries people. I think there
was some tension over that. I can’t remember the year, but it was some time in the 1950s
when Commercial Fisheries was split off. There was that, and then Clarence and Albert
Day who was the Director in Washington. They were very, I don’t know if I’d say close,
but Clarence was able to get what he wanted from Albert Day. Day was one of the great
Directors of the Service. I think there was some resentment on the part of other Regional
Directors that Clarence could get what he wanted out of the Director and they sometimes
couldn’t. Those were the two things I was aware of. Of course there was some political
criticism by Alaska lawyers and politicians. He had a way of just riding over all of that
kind of stuff.
MR. KAYE: Do you know how he might have gotten along with a fellow named
Anderson who was a Commissioner of Fish and Game, who was very much against the
Arctic Proposal?
MR. KING: Well, Clarence Anderson was hired as the Director of the Territorial
Department of Fisheries somewhere in the mid 1950s. He wasn’t anywhere near the
strong personality that Rhodes was. At that time, one of the things I remember was that
the Territory established a fishing stamp that people were supposed to buy and attach to
their fishing license. It cost a few bucks, but not much. There was a question as to
whether it was legal or not. So the way it was handled was that people were advised to
buy this thing by territorial authorities but the Territory didn’t have any wildlife
enforcement people. We of course were checking hunting and fishing licenses and we
were told not to take any cases to court regarding that stamp. That was one of the things
that brought politics into the picture. Fish and Wildlife was accused of, and I think
maybe Anderson was involved in this sort of thing, of not supporting the Department
because we weren’t supporting the stamp from which they got money. It started to get
political then, and Ernest Greuning was Governor. He was working on Statehood and one
of his gimmicks was federal mismanagement of the wildlife and fish resources. He said
that the Territory needed to manage it’s own resources because the federal government
had done such a bad job. This was just politics. It was true that the salmon were down
because I think primarily during World War II there were hardly any FWS people around.
Producing food was part of the war effort. A lot of the fishermen were fishing up the
creeks and indulging in practices that were illegalized. There were huge salmon catches
during the war and they couldn’t be sustained. Greuning made a big deal out of that sort
of thing. He attacked Ira Gabrielson who was the Director and a national figure before
Day. Greuning really made some hard accusations against Gabrielson. Gabrielson came
to Alaska every summer for a number of years. The interesting thing is that as the
Director, he spent his summers bird watching, which resulted in this monumental book
with Frederick Lincoln. The excuse for Gabrielson to come here was that he went to
Fisheries Hearings. With fish not producing as much, and then there was the fish trap
thing going on; Greuning used Gabrielson as a target.
Clarence Anderson came in to this arena. It seems like he picked up on this thing
of federal mismanagement. He would preach that when Rhodes wasn’t around. But he
didn’t dare say anything like that when Rhodes was present. A lot of the things were not
true. I went to a Tanana Valley Sportsmen’s meeting one time when Anderson was there
giving a talk on what the Department of Fish was doing and how they were going to
develop a Department of Game after Statehood. I don’t remember exactly the points he
made, but while he was speaking Rhodes and Ray Wolford walked in. You could almost
see Anderson’s face drop! He finished his talk and walked right out the door. Then, the
group were pretty much supporters of Rhodes. They asked him what he thought about
what Anderson had been saying. He gave a little talk about why he thought certain things
wouldn’t work. But they had this funny relationship. I didn’t know too much about it.
But I did know that as a guy in the field we got some of the pay off on this federal
mismanagement stuff.
MR. KAYE: It’s interesting that you suggested that Rhodes got along pretty well with
the Sportsmen’s groups. Was that your impression? Was he well connected, or well
liked by the Outdoor Council or the sportsmen’s organizations?
MR. KING: Yes, I think very much so. One more comment on that controversy over
federal mismanagement; after Statehood, the first Governor, who was Governor Egan
wrote a letter to the Game Commissioners complementing them on the good condition
that the wildlife recourses were in when the new State took over. It just canceled all of
this nonsense about federal mismanagement. This letter did that. On the sportsmen’s
end of things, I think it was around 1945 that the Territorial Sportsmen’s group organized
in Juneau. They were an exceedingly active bunch. The FWS people in Juneau became
pretty active in that organization. A lot of them were officers in it. One of the things
that they did fairly soon was that they started having this Salmon Derby. You’ve
probably heard of the Juneau Salmon Derby. It produced a lot of money. The Territorial
Sportsmen’s group always had a lot of money to spend on things. They built cabins for
the Forest Service rentals and established a scholarship fund for kids that has produced
over a million dollars over the years. A lot of kids have had the benefit of those
Territorial Sportsmen scholarships, including one of my daughters. They were just riding
high, that bunch, and they commented on game laws. There were hearings then, as now,
about game laws. They testified that the way the laws were set up was that the
Commission would meet in Juneau every winter. Of course, the Regional Director was
the executive officer and a member of the Game Commission. Then were four other
members who were not government employees from each of the judicial divisions. They
would have this meeting in Juneau and all of the Agents and Refuge Managers would
come in. Pretty much all of the FWS people would come in. The Agents would talk
about the condition of wildlife in their districts and changes that were needed in the game
laws. There weren’t many Biologists involved. Biologists started coming in about 1948.
The Agents in the districts had been doing a pretty good job of restoring moose and
furbearers that had been sorely depleted before the Alaska Game Law began in 1925. The
Game Commission would talk with the Agents about needed changes and the public could
testify about things that they wanted. Then, the Commission would come up with knew
regulations that the Secretary of the Interior would adopt and would become law. That’s
the way that worked. The Territorial Sportsmen were right here in Juneau and they were
always attending these Commission meetings and they knew all of the Commission
members. Some of the Commissioners were pretty powerful people. I always think of
the guy in Petersburg, Earl Ohmer. He had a cannery in Petersburg and he was kind of a
strong personality. He was the guy that got involved when there were all kinds of
military conflicts that went on over hunting during World War II. Earl Ohmer would talk
to General Nathan Twining who was a pretty powerful General; and he called him “Son”!
Andy Simon and he and I were friends. He had a lot of connections with powerful people
from taking them hunting. This was the kind of the field. In the early 1950s, Bud Boddie
was the prime mover. He was the second President of the Territorial Sportsmen. I am
not sure, he was here right from the start, and so he probably was involved with the
President. He was an extremely good speaker. He could control a room full of people
just beautifully and get whatever he wanted out of them. He was a really close friend of
Clarence Rhodes. Boddie was the one that was really the impetus behind the Alaska
Sportsmen’s Council, which was affiliated with the National Wildlife Federation. The
NWF was started by Ding Darling as a federation of sportsmen’s clubs. I don’t think
Darling felt that it had worked out as well as he had hoped in his lifetime. But the bright
spot was Alaska, where the Territorial Sportsmen and the other really lively group at that
time was the Tanana Valley Sportsmen in Fairbanks. So Boddie came back and forth to
Fairbanks fairly regularly there for a few years. I knew him.
MR. KAYE: Where was Boddie coming from philosophically? He was very influential
in the Arctic Refuge issue. Where did he come from?
MR. KING: He grew up in Idaho. Other than that I don’t know much about his youth.
But he was a really avid sportsman in the classic term. He loved to hunt and fish. He
was really interested in game laws and game conservation. When he came to Alaska I
know he had a trawling boat for a while. And he had a cabin on Douglas Island where he
did his deer hunting in the fall. I went over there deer hunting with him one year. He was
one of these guys that was really into hunting and fishing. A couple of other players in
what was going on at this time would be Dave Spencer, who was the Chief of Refuges and
a pilot. Spencer was a very quite person and didn’t attract very much attention in groups
or at meetings. He had two things that were really important to him. One was that he
had been a student of Aldo Leopold’s and he’d also been a friend of Olaus Murie’s. He
was involved with Olaus in Wyoming. The other person was the Assistant Regional
Director; Urban Nelson, who we called Pete Nelson. Pete was also a student of Aldo
Leopold’s. I don’t think there was much sense in Alaska of a wilderness philosophy that
was used to support the ANWR. The other important player in this was George Collins.
I think it was him, with the Park Service who had….he was familiar with the writings of
Robert Marshall who had first suggested a National Park for everything north of the
Yukon, as a wilderness area back in the 1930s. Collins, in the 1950s was some kind of a
planning person in San Francisco. He was a very personable guy. He knew everybody
and talked to everybody.
MR. KAYE: Did you know George Collins?
MR. KING: I did.
MR. KAYE: Tell me more about your impressions of him. He was with the Park
Service. Did that make hunters and sportsmen leery of what he was proposing?
MR. KING: Everybody liked him. But his proposal was for a Park for the Arctic. The
Sportsmen’s Council could not go along with that because there would be no hunting in
the Park. I don’t think it was an adversarial thing at that point. The players which were
the people that I just talked about agreed that they probably couldn’t sell a National Park
up there in Alaska, but they could sell a Refuge. As far as I know, George Collins
couldn’t object to that. He was an interesting guy, and a really dynamic person. I guess
he knew everybody in Washington, but at that time, I was just a young guy. I think I met
him when I worked for the McKinley Park in 1950. Then, after I got to be working as an
Agent in Fairbanks, just as a district Game Warden. But I remember running into him on
the street and here and there. He always just wanted to talk was just a very pleasant
person to be around.
MR. KAYE: George Collins in his personal journal was very critical of wolf control
program that Clarence Rhodes carried out in northeast Alaska in what became the Arctic
Refuge. Did you ever talk to either Rhodes or Collins about that, or the disagreement that
they obviously had over wolf control?
MR. KING: That was a big issue at the time, and always had been. When I worked in
Fairbanks trapping was still very important in a lot of areas. The trappers really
supported wolf control because a lot of the trappers weren’t all that well educated or well
organized and a lot of them couldn’t deal with the wolves that could wipe out their fur
catch. They were constantly appealing to the FWS for reduction in wolves. The people
in Petersburg were always worried about the wolves there that were wiping out deer. The
reindeer people who in the 1950s were concentrated around Kotzebue and Selawik
couldn’t deal with the wolves. The wolf program had a lot of support. The Territorial
Legislature maintained wolf bounties. This didn’t fit with the kind of philosophy that
came from Bob Marshall and Aldo Leopold. But it certainly was something that Rhodes
had to deal with.
MR. KAYE: Do you think Rhodes was personally invested in it, or was just doing it
because it was popular and expected of him?
MR. KING: The Sportsmen supported the wolf control too. It supposedly produced
more moose. I would assume that Rhodes was just fulfilling the popular demand. He
was hearing from sportsmen’s groups and native groups.
MR. KAYE: Would you have any impression whether he was actually a “wolf hater” as
some people thought he really was? Or was he just politically required to carry out these
programs?
MR. KING: Oh, I don’t think he was a wolf hater! He was trying to administer a
wildlife agency that depended, like all government organizations on a certain amount of
public good will. He was responding to that. He didn’t have that kind of personal
prejudice. If he had a personal prejudice, it would be against the violators of the game
laws and that sort of thing. He was interested in management of wildlife. There were
things that were considered important then than that were not involved any more like…
Oh, I think it must have welled up in the 1930s; the prejudice against killing cows and doe
deer. That was just considered basic information; you didn’t shoot the females. There
were things like that going on. Another thing was that there used to be a closer along the
roads, a quarter of a mile back from the road, just because it was considered poor
sportsmanship to stand on the road and shoot things.
MR. KAYE: Do you thing Clarence was one of those interested in sportsmanship for the
more traditional or more venerated hunting tradition and trying to keep that alive?
MR. KING: Yeah, I think so. I would say that he felt that hunting and fishing is a sport
and should be dealt with as a sport.
MR. KAYE: Would you say that this was a motivation of the Territorial Sportsmen’s
group?
MR. KING: Oh, very much.
MR. KAYE: Were they concerned, do you think, about the degradation of the tradition
of hunting like you read about going on in the 1950s with the advent of technology and so
on? Was that a concern that they had?
MR. KING: Oh, very much. I think things like the prohibition of things like using
helicopters came right out of the sportsmen’s groups.
MR. KAYE: This is very interesting. I see a lot of reference to that. What was the
issue, or concern? Did it come from the military use of choppers? Was the worry that
this would further depreciate hunting if they started to be used for that?
MR. KING: Well, I think it was just that there were getting to be helicopters around and
it was considered that it would be un-sportsmanlike to go in and land next to animals and
shoot them down. There should be a fair chase. The Boone and Crockett Club used to
talk a lot about fair chase. There was a big element of that in the sportsmen’s clubs. I
think that the Sportsmen’s Council; I can’t remember exactly when the prohibition of
helicopters happened, but it didn’t result from the abuse of helicopters, that I know of.
Helicopters were extremely expensive and the public wasn’t using them. The government
and military were using them a little bit. That was the sportsmen sort of getting ahead of
the game in saying that we needed to stop this before it starts.
MR. KAYE: Interesting, that a kind of visionary thing.
MR. KING: Yeah, and there was a lot of that going on. And the wolf thing was sort of
mixed up in that some. I don’t remember feeling that anybody really hated wolves except
the trappers and the reindeer people. The sportsmen felt that they were a trophy animal
although they were furbearers. I don’t remember there being any feeling that wolves had
to be exterminated. They had to be managed like any other wildlife resource. I think that
would be Rhodes’ feeling on it. If you were going to manage for a surplus for humans
you needed to reduce the predation.
MR. KAYE: I don’t know if you have a sense of this, but Collins brought a certain
idealism to the Arctic Refuge proposal. Part of it was based on the new ecology-based
environmental perspective. I wonder if Clarence shared that view, or how he might have
responded to the idealism that Collins had for this place.
MR. KING: I don’t remember people vocalizing much about the idealism of Bob
Marshall. He was better known for his book on Arctic Village, and Wiseman there.
There wasn’t a whole lot of the idealism that was expressed by Muir and people who
followed. There was a strong sense of what a wonderful place Alaska was and how
exciting it was to be able to get out and do things, and to have animals. I think one of the
things that Bud Boddie used to say was that he didn’t want to see Alaska spoiled the
way that Idaho had been spoiled. I am not sure what he was referring to there. That was
sort of in the back of a lot of people’s heads. They didn’t want Alaska treated the way
other states had treated their natural areas and wildlife. They didn’t want to see things
torn up. It was a protective thing. I don’t remember vocalizing on the wilderness
philosophy and that sort o
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