When we think of human progress on the landscape, images of housing developments, shopping centers and skyscrapers come to mind. Disappearance of human occupation on the land altogether? That wouldn’t seem a likely scenario, but it’s exactly what happened along Alaska’s upper Yukon River. Progress came in the way of the Federal Government’s designation of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, which sent the homesteaders featured in John McPhee’s book “Coming into the Country” packing, and resulted in a very different river when Dan O’Neill floated it decades later and wrote the aptly titled book, “A Land Gone Lonesome”.
The river wasn’t abandoned, it was just different. The year-round residents were kicked out when the Feds moved in, but the river was as active as ever, with Park Service jet boats patrolling up and down its corridor, and a new following of recreationists seemingly attracted to anything with the word “National” in front of it. Did this make it more wild? Less wild? Did either group have any sort of impact on the landscape?
In the middle of all this, summer of 1975, a small group of scientists descended on the river in an attempt to better understand the area’s soil and its plant and animal life, and inform decisions about its designation. Dr. Steve Young, founder of the Center for Northern Studies, had assembled a small team to work the Yukon River bottom and highlands around the Charley, Kandik and Nation rivers.
Peter Marchand studied trees and vegetation. Garrett’s specialty was small mammals. Bruce was a geologist, Eduardo an entomologist. The men spent the summer at various tent camps up and down the river, and in the high country where they were transported by helicopter. They collected reams of valuable data and numerous specimens that led to some pretty groundbreaking discoveries at the time.
One of the more interesting subjects of the scientists’ work was the Kathul Mountain area, near the mouth of the Kandik River. The mountainside supported a unique sagebrush/steppe microbiome that contained some of the rarest species in Alaska, and was believed to be a remnant of the Ice Age and Bering Land Bridge era. Cool stuff.
Scientific field work doesn’t come without risk, and the men nearly perished when their helicopter pilot ditched them during poor weather, going five days without food or communication with the outside world. But resupplied and relocated, they got right back into data collection mode.
The research crew helped politicians in D.C. better understand what they voted to protect, but whether or not they made the right decision depends on your perspective. From Peter Marchand’s perspective, and that of McPhee, O’Neill, myself, and many others, they probably went too far. Removing the long term habitat destruction from large scale mining in wild places is one thing, but removing the human element that was light on the land – the homesteaders who hunted, fished and trapped, took some from the land and left little trace, that was another thing altogether. When those people left, we lost a good part of what that land was, and how humans interacted with it.
The Yukon-Charley is still wilderness, but it’s managed wilderness. In Marchand’s words, you can still get out, get lost in its vastness, and maybe find yourself. But you may need a permit.
“Life and Times of a Big River” is Peter Marchand’s 2015 recounting of the 1975 expedition on the upper Yukon. Full of reflection, excitement and some great pictures, it tells the story of a special group at a unique time in Alaska’s history. Marchand is a heck of a story teller, and I’m glad he finally decided to tell this one.
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