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Denali: Symbol of the Alaskan Wild : An Illustrated History of the Denali-Mount McKinley Region, Alaska
Book by Brown, William E.
223 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1993
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February 16, 2012
The concept of wilderness is highly complex. It seems simple, but as soon as you start describing it as wilderness, it almost stops being wilderness because someone wants to go there and it no longer is wilderness. Excepting the original immigrants, who came 13,000 years ago or more, nobody went to Alaska for anything but fur and later, gold.
So Alaska's start was extractive industries. And aside from tourism, it always will be extractive industries. Nothing could be further from the wilderness concept than extractive industries. So as soon as the white guys set foot on Alaska, wilderness has been in decline. It is in decline at the same time that people have begun to realize its value. Hence they (we) want to go see it before it becomes even more despoiled, accelerating its decline.
Denali Park is the best and purest example of this worship/destruction I know about. There is nothing there except the mountain and the wildlife. There are minerals, but not in any significant amount. Over the decades, maybe an average of ten people a year were able to make a living (as in not die) mining gold and antimony in the whole park. The Denali park was set aside as a wildlife refuge by the Boone and Crockett Club types for the preservation of the charismatic megafauna (I love that phrase). They didn't even care about the mountain.
One of the great heros of the refuge was Charles Sheldon, who studied the mountain sheep from Mexico all the way to Denali. He went to Denali in 1906 to study the sheep. He covered hundreds of miles wandering the park, looking for sheep. After a long time, he saw a dozen lambs and ewes at a great distance, but no rams. Soon he found many more lambs and ewes, but no rams. After covering more ground, he finally found a grouping of nine rams. He wanted a specimen to study. So he shot seven of them. This is the perfect metaphor for white guys in Alaska.
This author, as well as John McPhee, talks a lot about the Alaskan (Sourdough) mentality, which is basically, "This is my land, and don't tell me what to do with it. In fact, don't tell me what to do about anything. I came a long way to get away from responsibility, so get out of my face." When you are involved with extraction industries, this is a very convenient philosophy.
So, I'll be making the hypocritical mecca to Denali this summer. I will try very hard not to bring anything back, not even a single ram's head or a small ingot of gold.
Oh yeah, the book. This is a large format book with a lot of black & white photos, most historical. As with most books about Alaska, the maps are inadequate to discover what the text is talking about. However, it is ironic that the 1921 Rand McNally map reprinted in the book is superior to the Rand McNally map published in 2008. I found the National Park Service map on the computer in a PDF file to be the most helpful. There is a lot of quoted text from original sources, which I found very fascinating. The personalities of the people are very important to the history of the park and the author does a great job of describing the conflicts involved. The ignorance of Washington bureaucrats, and their constant sending of people for studies, draws one of the most humorous original passages in the book from the sitting governor of Alaska.
I think this book will appeal most to those people who enjoy the evolving wilderness ethic, particularly the heroic efforts of individuals in the Teddy Roosevelt era.
So Alaska's start was extractive industries. And aside from tourism, it always will be extractive industries. Nothing could be further from the wilderness concept than extractive industries. So as soon as the white guys set foot on Alaska, wilderness has been in decline. It is in decline at the same time that people have begun to realize its value. Hence they (we) want to go see it before it becomes even more despoiled, accelerating its decline.
Denali Park is the best and purest example of this worship/destruction I know about. There is nothing there except the mountain and the wildlife. There are minerals, but not in any significant amount. Over the decades, maybe an average of ten people a year were able to make a living (as in not die) mining gold and antimony in the whole park. The Denali park was set aside as a wildlife refuge by the Boone and Crockett Club types for the preservation of the charismatic megafauna (I love that phrase). They didn't even care about the mountain.
One of the great heros of the refuge was Charles Sheldon, who studied the mountain sheep from Mexico all the way to Denali. He went to Denali in 1906 to study the sheep. He covered hundreds of miles wandering the park, looking for sheep. After a long time, he saw a dozen lambs and ewes at a great distance, but no rams. Soon he found many more lambs and ewes, but no rams. After covering more ground, he finally found a grouping of nine rams. He wanted a specimen to study. So he shot seven of them. This is the perfect metaphor for white guys in Alaska.
This author, as well as John McPhee, talks a lot about the Alaskan (Sourdough) mentality, which is basically, "This is my land, and don't tell me what to do with it. In fact, don't tell me what to do about anything. I came a long way to get away from responsibility, so get out of my face." When you are involved with extraction industries, this is a very convenient philosophy.
So, I'll be making the hypocritical mecca to Denali this summer. I will try very hard not to bring anything back, not even a single ram's head or a small ingot of gold.
Oh yeah, the book. This is a large format book with a lot of black & white photos, most historical. As with most books about Alaska, the maps are inadequate to discover what the text is talking about. However, it is ironic that the 1921 Rand McNally map reprinted in the book is superior to the Rand McNally map published in 2008. I found the National Park Service map on the computer in a PDF file to be the most helpful. There is a lot of quoted text from original sources, which I found very fascinating. The personalities of the people are very important to the history of the park and the author does a great job of describing the conflicts involved. The ignorance of Washington bureaucrats, and their constant sending of people for studies, draws one of the most humorous original passages in the book from the sitting governor of Alaska.
I think this book will appeal most to those people who enjoy the evolving wilderness ethic, particularly the heroic efforts of individuals in the Teddy Roosevelt era.
Displaying 1 of 1 review