Arctic Refuge: No place like it, so don't mess with it

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Our last group picture, in June of 2001, was a lineup of sunburned guys halfway through an incomparable raft trip down the Canning River in America's ultimate wild place, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The "Men of the Marsh Fork" -- we started out on the river's main tributary -- had to see this place before it was invaded by haul roads, drilling platforms, pipelines and that symbol of wanton development, the rusting 50-gallon oil drum.

Nearly a decade and two Bush terms later, however, Big Oil has not (yet) crossed the Canning, whose lower reaches mark the western boundary of the vast Refuge on Alaska's North Slope.

Now, six of us were reminiscing and mugging in a 1960's vintage capital bar called the Hawk and Dove. Suits had replaced wet suits. The wild place was a Capitol Hill in transition.

Gwich'in elders, river guides, bush pilots, Republican moderates (nearly an endangered species) Sen. Maria Cantwell, historian Doug Brinkley and famed writer Peter Mattheison gathered in D.C. late last week to celebrate a still-wild place far away.

"I was worried after the (9/11) attack that they would do it," said Sarah James, a Gwich'in activist who left 30-below weather in Arctic Village to travel here. The native village, flanked by the Refuge, depends on the Porcupine Caribou Herd for subsistence.

What a country chooses to protect, of its human and natural heritage, says a lot about that country's character. And frontiers are sometimes to be respected, not exploited.

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy. Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

In December of 1960, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower set aside 8.1 million acres as the Arctic National Wildlife Range. It was a milestone achievement, done a month before Ike handed the reins over to John F. Kennedy.

Lame-duck President Jimmy Carter used a December morning 20 years later to sign the Alaska Lands Act, which enlarged it to 19 million acres, gave wilderness protection to eight million acres, and bestowed on it the new name Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Congress left one place in limbo -- the 1.2 million acre Coastal Plain of the Refuge. It's a place where baby caribou are born, stalked by wolves and grizzly bears, and where oil companies have long wanted to drill.

How do you see this place? Answer: Through the eyes of many beholders. Gale Norton, Bush II Interior Secretary, spoke of "flat white nothingness." An oil industry flack described the Coastal Plain as a "flat crummy place."

The late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, as an Interior Dept. aide, helped create the Range but forever after said it was done largely to please the Fairbanks Ladies Garden Club.

Stevens fought 40 years to allow oil and gas exploration on the Coastal Plain. He almost succeeded in 2005, attaching drilling authorization to a defense spending bill.

If you think Senate filibusters should be curtailed, remember that Cantwell and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., assembled 42 colleagues and blocked Stevens' backdoor effort. Cantwell has emerged as the "Mother Grizzly" defender of the Refuge.

Susan Eisenhowever, grandaughter of the 34th president, spoke to a celebration dinner here and noted that the "Wildlife Range" of 1960 became the "Wildlife Refuge" on 1980.

"The word 'Refuge' carries a message: It means (drilling) should be a last resort," Eisenhower said. "We have so many opportunities in the energy field to move away from fossil fuels that it would be a shame to harm a national treasure."

There are different ways of looking on the Refuge, and at the Refuge. Jonah Goldberg, editor of National Review Online, flew over the Coastal Plain and brought back fuzzy pictures of snow. The right-thinking Goldberg lampooned comparisons with America's scenic jewels.

Maria Cantwell had a different experience on the ground. She peered into a scope and fixed on a prowling wolverine. Not far off, however, was a barren ground grizzly feeding on a kill.

"Is this unusual?" Cantwell asked Seattle businessman Tom Campion and river guide Jim Campbell.

"Not in the Arctic Refuge," replied Campion, founder/chairman of Zumiez, the kids' clothing chain, who has devoted much of his non-business time to defending, advocating and exploring the Refuge.

The "Men of the Marsh Fork" floated from high in the Brooks Range down to the Canning's confluence with the Beaufort Sea. Nothing crummy about the places we saw. Jonah Goldberg, come down to earth and see what you missed.

As we pulled into an eddy -- a fast eddy -- a fox was trying to steal eggs from a plover's nest. The mother bird flapped around feigning injury in a (successful) effort to distract the predator.

Caribou emerged from and disappeared into the mists. A pair of musk-oxen lumbered through camp, not letting a collection of tents get in the way of their accustomed travel.

We were witnessing cycles of life from migration to rejuvination to the natural interaction of predator and prey.

More than 90 percent of Alaska's coastline is open to oil and gas exploration. Could not America search elsewhere for oil, and develop new energy sources, and leave this Refuge as a last resort.

Sen. Stevens railed against Cantwell and "lower 48" environmentalists who fought to keep rigs out. He tried to restation Coast Guard vessels from Washington to Alaska, and introduced a bill to gut Puget Sound oil tanker safeguards. He took out after Cantwell, only to see her reelected in 2006 by a landslide.

A generation of Washington State folk have fought to save what Brinkley calls "this amazing, amazing, amazing place," and America's largest and wildest refuge for wild creatures.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, of Yakima, camped in the Brooks Range and preached the cause of its preservation. Current and former Seattle activists -- Subhankar Banerjee, Polly Dyer, Doug Scott and Brock Evans -- are on the "Arctic Heroes" list compiled by the Alaska Wilderness League.

Three Washington lawmakers -- Cantwell and Reps. Rick Larsen and Jay Inslee, D-Wash. -- have gone up and been on the ground in the Arctic Refuge to see for themselves.

Yep, and there's one more "Arctic Hero," Ted Stevens' longtime buddy the late Sen. Warren Magnuson. Maggie, in 1959, introduced legislation to establish the Arctic Wildlife Range. He was, on so many fronts, a man ahead of his times.

In development-minded Alaska, nobody can succeed in politics without going gung-ho for drilling in the Refuge, as former Gov. Tony Knowles once confided to a conservation activist. Knowles, a Democrat, issued a sharp rebuke to Jimmy Carter when the former president traveled to the Refuge and opposed drilling.

The Coastal Plain may soon -- once more -- be a political battlefield. "As long as Barack Obama is president and Ken Salazar is Secretary of the Interior, there will be no oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Refuge," Asst. Interior Secretary Ted Strickland told the 50th anniversary celebration.

Conservation groups want Obama to add one more layer of protection by designating the Arctic Refuge as a national monument. By contrast, Big Oil's buddies may send pro-drilling legislation out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the new Congress.

She calls herself a "Mama Grizzly," but Sarah Palin made support for oil drilling grizzly habitat in the Refuge a litmus test for candidates seeking her support in the 2010 election.

The "Men of the Marsh Fork" are a decade older, a bit more grizzled, and talk of knees, hips and ankles needing repair. We are, however, resolved again to raft a Refuge river, set up scopes and scramble buttes.

How remarkable it is that Big Oil has been held off. The Canning River punches through a small canyon just before reaching the Coastal Plain. An active gyrfalcon nest sits on a cliff, with an angry mother who does mock dive bombing runs on unwelcome visitors.

The bird -- largest in the falcon family -- is fierce. But in William O. Douglas, Maria Cantwell, Jay Inslee, Sarah James, Subhankar Banerjee, Tom Campion, Jim Campbell, Jimmy Carter and others, the Arctic Refuge has enjoyed fierce defenders. They are protecting an American wonderland.