American History Tellers - National Parks - Fire and Ice | 6

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Alaska: big, open, frozen and wild. In 1867, the acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire was widely derided as “folly.” Early explorers like John Muir saw its potential though, and clamored for its preservation in the face of increasing development and calls for statehood. But when oil is discovered, the real fight begins. Caught between angry Alaskan individualists and an ambitious federal government, the National Park Service struggles to do what’s right for the land and the people who live and depend on it.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's early evening on May 29th, 1867. You sit at a table in a tavern in Raleigh, North Carolina. The room is a mingle of townspeople and Northern Union soldiers. You are one of the latter, a soldier under the command of Major General Daniel Sickles, sent to the South to help keep order during Reconstruction. You're waiting for your cousin Edgar, who's gone to the bar to get drinks.

Edgar lives locally, and you've made a point of getting drinks with him each month, doing your part to mend fences. You're wrapping up your service soon, though, so this will be one of your last meetings. He comes back from the bar and slams the drinks down on the table. The bartender's name was Seward. Can you believe it? Just like that idiot in Washington. Made me mad all over again. Seward? What are you talking about? Seward. Can you believe it? Just like that idiot in Washington. Made me mad all over again. Seward? What are you talking about? Seward who? Don't you read the papers? William Seward, Secretary of State. That chowder brain paid the Russian government $7,200,000 for a frozen wasteland up north, Alaska. The name stirs your memory. Yeah, you've heard about this. Back in April, you read Secretary Seward made some treaty with the Russian government,

and the Senate approved it a little while later. Seward's icebox? Exactly. We've been scraping along down here since the war. And those porridge-brained Yankees? No offense. None taken. They're pissing away money on big tracts of nothing.

They ought to be spending it down here, helping the South get back on its feet. Well, there's plenty of Northerners who'd agree with you. But nothing? I don't know about that. At least Alaska's got polar bears, right? Edgar laughs grimly. President Johnson was born here. Maybe he'll have the good sense to veto this lunacy. As you both sip your beers, a man on the bench next to you leans over. Pardon me, I couldn't help overhearing. Thought you might care to see today's paper. He slides a newspaper across the table toward you. There, in a banner headline, you see it. Yesterday, Johnson formally ratified the purchase. Edgar

hits the table with his fist. Damn it. Alaska's not even connected to the United States. It's up in Canadian territory. Well, it's ours now. You scan the article for the number you're looking for. All 586, 412 square miles of it. Half a million square miles of what? Walruses? Fur traders? Probably too smelly to be allowed back on their boats to Russia? The man next to you shrugs. My cousin knows someone who did some trapping up there a while back. He said it was the most beautiful territory he'd ever seen. Wild, barren, but beautiful. God's country, he called it. Your ears prick up, but Edgar isn't impressed. No, thank you. Give me a southern winter any day.

I don't know, you say. A wide open frontier, different climate. Sounds like an adventure. Are you crazy? Well, I'll be done with the army in a couple of months. Don't suppose you'd want to come explore Alaska with me, meet some polar bears in person, and freeze to death, not on your life. It's all pretty much in jest at the moment, but the name stays with you though. Alaska. The idea of a distant wasteland isn't normally something that fills you with excitement, but as you finish your term in the army, you can't get it out of your head. Who knows what's up there? Cheap land, game, oil, gold. For all you know, this could be the best idea since the Louisiana Purchase.

Or is it, as your cousin thinks, an expensive disaster? Hey, this is Nick. And this is Jack. And we just launched a brand new podcast called The Best Idea Yet. You may have heard of it. It's all about the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In this episode, we'll see how a quick land purchase 10 years after the Civil War eventually leads to the largest expansion of national parks in U.S. history. Before 1867, Alaska was an undeveloped piece of land owned by the Russian Empire. It was mostly populated by fur traders, Russian Orthodox missionaries,

and the indigenous people the missionaries were trying to convert. While the Russians liked having an overseas colony, they had trouble making a go of it. Frozen land wasn't good for farming, and the distance from St. Petersburg made defense and communication difficult. And so, after Russia lost the Crimean War in 1856, it began looking for a way to sell the territory to raise some cash. Russia first approached the United States about a sale under President James Buchanan, but the outbreak of the Civil War delayed discussions. But after the war, Secretary of State William Seward jumped at the chance to renew negotiations. Most of the nation was perplexed, though. This was less than two years after the Civil War had

ended. Much of the country was still getting back on its feet. Spending money on a distant frozen wasteland that couldn't support farming didn't make sense to most people. But for Seward, the deal was a steal. To him, Alaska represented a vast array of possibilities. It could serve as a significant port of future trade with China and Japan, and it expanded American power on the global stage. Alaska would be a colony, similar to those owned by other world powers, whose strategic location could help the U.S. control the Pacific. And he was about to get it all for only two cents an acre. That reasoning didn't catch on, though. The purchase was ridiculed in Congress and newspapers as Seward's Folly, Seward's Icebox, and Wall

Russia, a Russian tundra fit only for walruses. But on April 9, 1867, the Senate ratified the treaty between the United States and the Russian Empire, and on May 28, President Johnson signed it. In October, the Russian flag was lowered, and an American one was raised in its place. Alaska belonged to the United States, but the value of the purchase wouldn't be understood in Seward's lifetime. It would take decades for William Seward to finally be vindicated in the eyes of the world. In the latter part of the 19th century, some Americans began exploring Alaska for the first time. One of those men was John Muir. In 1879, long before his falling out with Gifford Pinchot or the battle over Hetch Hetchy, and only four years after James Hutchings was evicted from his hotel in the Yosemite Valley,

Muir ventured north to what eventually became Glacier National Park. He wrote about his adventure in his book, Travels in Alaska. He wrote, To the lover of pure wildness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. It seems as if surely we must at length reach the very paradise of the poets, the abode of the blessed. Muir had come to the Alaska Territory in hopes of studying its landscape. He took particular interest in its glaciers. He traveled to parts of the region never before seen by white men in a canoe paddled by

Toya Tay, a Tlingit chief. But one especially stormy day, his native guides decided to stay in camp. Muir determined to go on by himself, braving the elements. Muir wrote, Pushing on through rain and mud and sludgy snow, crossing many brown, boulder-choked torrents, braving the elements. But at length, the clouds lifted a little, and beneath their gray fringes I saw a berg-filled expanse of the bay, and the feet of the mountains that stand about it, and the imposing fronts of five huge glaciers, the nearest being immediately beneath me. This was my first general view of Glacier Bay, dim, dreary, mysterious. Muir stayed on the peak another couple of hours, sketching the glaciers in his notebook with numb fingers. When he returned to camp that night, he was satisfied with his day's work.

But Muir's desire to learn about the glaciers was unsettling to his native guides. When told Muir had gone out seeking knowledge, Chief Toyate replied, Muir must be a witch to seek knowledge in such a place as this, in such miserable weather. That wouldn't be Muir's last trip to Glacier Bay. He returned 20 years later with more white men seeking knowledge, on a scientific expedition organized by wealthy railroad magnate E.H. Harriman.

One of the other men on the trip was George Byrd Grinnell, publisher of Field and Stream magazine. He and others were part of the Harriman Expedition of 1899, bringing together 23 scientists and three artists on a two-month-long journey aboard a luxury steamship to explore Alaska's coastal waters. The cruise covered 9,000 miles and included trips ashore to visit Eskimo settlements, hunt, and collect samples of insects, plants, and fossils. The explorers visited a volcano, shot a bear, mapped glaciers, and discovered a fjord 15 miles long. The trip photographer, Edward Curtis, took over 5,000 images. Grinnell was uneasy about what their trip and others like it would mean for the Native peoples living in Alaska.

He confided to Curtis, White men, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, already swarm over the Alaskan coast. In short time they will ruin and disperse the wholesome, hearty, merry people whom we saw at Port Clarence and Plover Bay. And those white men did come. The end of the 19th century brought more adventurers, along with miners and businessmen promoting the expansion and development of the region. And next came the hotels, businesses, and railroads. Alaska attracted an especially independent and self-reliant breed of people. But as their numbers grew, so too did the prospect that development would irrevocably alter the landscape.

In 1910, President William Howard Taft used Teddy Roosevelt's Antiquities Act to take the first step towards preservation in Alaska. He created Sitka National Monument, a site meant to commemorate the battle between invading Russian traders and the indigenous Tlingit people more than a century earlier. Two years later, Congress passed the Second Organic Act, formally establishing Alaska as an official U.S. territory and creating an elected legislature for the region. But with Alaska's new legal status came growing concern about the fate of its natural features. One of the most persistent voices was Charles Sheldon. Sheldon was a progressive hunter-naturalist in the vein of Teddy Roosevelt.

He, too, was a member of the Boone and Crockett Club, and like Roosevelt, he combined a love of hunting with a sincere desire to protect wildlife. He was also a railroad and mining millionaire. By age 38, he had retired to pursue his favorite hobby, studying big mountain sheep. Sheldon was a scientist at heart, and his concern for the North American doll sheep drove him to Alaska in 1906. It was there that he first encountered the highest peak in North America, a mountain Native people referred to as Denali. The name had been eclipsed more than a decade earlier when a gold prospector had dubbed the formation Mount McKinley in an effort to support his favorite candidate's presidential campaign. The following summer, Sheldon returned and spent a year observing the sheep and other wildlife.

He was concerned that development from the impending railroad and overhunting would destroy the region for wildlife. That winter, in his diary, he first wrote about the idea for a Denali National Park that could function as a game preserve and tourist destination. Sheldon returned to New York, determined to make his vision a reality. But he would need some help. He would need the Boone and Crockett Club. Imagine it's January 1909.

You're in a ballroom at the Boone and Crockett Club's annual dinner. You spot Charles Sheldon making his way back to the table. As he passes, you clap him on the back. Great speech. Well done, Charles. Well, thank you. I figured start close to home. If I can't convince you all, I can't convince anyone. He takes a seat. Luckily, people seem to have enjoyed it.

So, will you support the park then? You weren't expecting to be put on the spot. Oh, I suppose so. I'm sure the club will at any rate. Hmm. You don't sound very convinced. That doesn't raise much confidence. I suppose it all seems just very far away.

Alaska, that is. The club has so many pressing concerns here, you know. Hmm. I understand. And I felt the same way until I went there. There are so many worthy priorities down here, but I'm telling you, there's no place like this I've ever seen. Well, but I don't have the same mania for sheep that you do, Charles. All right, fair enough. But truthfully, it's glorious. You've never seen a mountain like

Denali, but market hunters will destroy the whole area if we don't act fast. You've never seen a mountain like Denali. But market hunters will destroy the whole area if we don't act fast. You know, when I was in Alaska this last time, I met some of these men in the camp. They'd fed half the game they shot to their dogs before they ever took it to Fairbanks for sale. Oh, dear God, that's a horrible waste. Yeah, there's no place for that kind of thing among responsible sportsmen. And it's just going to get worse once the railroad is built. They'll be able to zip in and out, and then they'll have the workers to feed too. He sighs and shakes his head. I'm convinced a game preserve is the only answer.

His passion is bringing you around. But there's one problem. Even if the club throws its weight at this, and it probably will, Teddy's on his way out. Sheldon grimaces. Oh, don't remind me. How do you plan to bring Taff around to your mission? Sheldon takes a sip of his drink. Well, James, I'm discovering that conservation means playing the long game. And luckily, I have time. It was a long game. Sheldon would have to wait another eight years before Congress passed a bill to create a national park.

In the meantime, he lobbied influential people for support, including a newly appointed assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, Stephen Mather. Mather had just stepped into his role of unofficially supervising the parks. The national park system hadn't yet been created. He was busy trying to grow Yosemite, Sequoia, and Rocky Mountain National Parks, and to establish the Grand Canyon. But Mather eventually came around, possibly under the influence of his assistant, Horace Albright, and lent Sheldon his support. Eventually, in February 1917, Sheldon got his wish. Congress passed a bill establishing Mount McKinley National Park. Sheldon, who had moved to Washington from his home in Vermont for a year

to help shepherd the bill through Congress, was given the honor of presenting it to Wilson. But the president had other things on his mind, including his upcoming second term and the looming involvement of the United States in World War I. Sheldon showed up every day expectant and frustrated that the president hadn't yet signed the bill. After a week, Sheldon took a day off, and the next day he received a hearty congratulations from Horace Albright.

In his absence, Wilson had finally signed the bill, and Sheldon was crushed he'd missed it. Albright remembered later he kicked himself the rest of his life that that was the one day he didn't go up there. Sheldon had one other regret. He had hoped Congress would follow his recommendation to use the historic native name for the mountain, Denali, which means the Great One. In his 1930 memoir, The Wilderness of Denali, Sheldon would later write, The Indians who have lived for countless generations in the presence of these colossal mountains have given them names that are both euphonious and appropriate. Can it be denied that the names they gave to the most imposing features of their country should be preserved? Can it be too late to make an exception to current geographic rules and restore these beautiful names,

names so expressive of the mountains themselves and so symbolic of the Indians who bestowed them. But Congress didn't feel the same. The peak would be known as Mount McKinley for nearly a century. More new parks soon followed. The following year, Katmai National Park was created. Seven years later, in 1925, came Glacier Bay National Monument. In the coming years, although the territory attracted mountaineers and climbers, Alaska remained a remote destination to most Americans. But World War II drew attention to its strategic importance. During the Battle of the Aleutian Islands, Japanese troops took over two thinly populated U.S.-owned islands just west of Alaska.

A year later, the U.S. retook the islands, but the point had been made. Alaska had geopolitical and military significance the country was just beginning to understand. America's interest in Alaska continued to grow, but without statehood, it would remain nothing more than a territory. Over the next two decades, two different presidents would play hugely dramatic roles in the fate of Alaska. One was hailed for welcoming Alaska into the Union, while the other was reviled as a dictator and a tyrant. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed.

It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that define their journey, and the ideas that transform the way we live our lives. In our latest series, a young refugee fleeing the Nazis arrives in Britain determined to make something of his life. Taking the name Robert Maxwell, he builds a publishing and newspaper empire that spans the globe.

But ambition eventually curdles into desperation, and Robert's determination to succeed turns into a willingness to do anything to get ahead. Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. This is the emergency broadcast system. A ballistic missile threat has been detected inbound to your area. Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert. What do you do next? Maybe you're at the grocery store. Or maybe you're with your secret lover.

Or maybe you're robbing a bank. Based on the real-life false alarm that terrified Hawaii in 2018, Incoming, a brand-new fiction podcast exclusively on Wondery Plus, follows the journey of a variety of characters as they confront the unimaginable. The missiles are coming. What am I supposed to do? Featuring incredible performances from Tracy Letts, Mary Lou Henner, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Paul Edelstein, and many, many more, Incoming is a hilariously thrilling podcast that will leave you wondering, how would you spend your last few minutes on Earth? You can binge Incoming exclusively

and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Almost 100 years would pass after Seward's purchase before Alaska would gain statehood. Factors like the region's low population and the high percentage of federally owned land seemed to make it unlikely that Alaska would ever become a state. The U.S. government had also never properly addressed how to deal with land ownership

claims from the Alaskan natives. But for many Alaskans, living under territorial status was something they embraced. It meant more freedom, less federal oversight, and in some cases, more money to be made in business, hunting, and mining. But following World War II, interest and statehood grew. Many residents were tired of what they saw as Alaska's second-class political status and the indifference of the rest of the country. Inclusion in the Union would give them fair representation, boost their industry and economy, and bring an influx of people. The Anchorage Daily Times began to push for statehood, and President Harry Truman expressed

his support. As time went on, petitions for a vote came into play. In 1946, Alaskan citizens voted nearly three to two in favor of statehood. Over the next decade, Alaskan politicians began forming committees and drafting resolutions for a formal state constitution. On January 3, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an official proclamation making Alaska the 49th star on the flag. The Anchorage Daily News ran the headline, Ike says you're in now. The Alaska Statehood Act transferred 103 million acres of the federally owned Alaska Territory to the new state. It also included a clause ceding other lands to the Native people who had historically inhabited them and still claim them.

But with statehood came questions about how land should be used and about how best to balance the needs of development with the preservation of development with the preservation of wilderness. Emotions ran high, and Mount McKinley National Park was ground zero. In 1957, construction had been completed on 170 miles of winding gravel road that ran all the way to the park entrance. For the first time, the Denali Highway provided visitors with direct access to the park. It opened up a new world of tourism to the state, and many residents and politicians were excited.

Soon, discussions began for an all-weather highway that would follow the route of the Alaska Railroad, connecting Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the park. Some people wanted to pave the road through the park and bridge the glacial McKinley River. One idea called for developing a large hotel on the banks of the Wonder Lake where guests would be able to admire the lake's mirror-like surface and the crest of Mount McKinley from their windows, and they could refuel at a gas station nearby. However, others were concerned about what development would do to the region. As a letter to the editor in National Parks Magazine explained, we wish to be reassured the Park Service is not selling its soul to the public demand for easy comfort and amusement. Many conservationists wanted the land preserved as a place of study. Carefully balanced ecosystems they felt mustn't be fiddled with as they had been in other parks. Adolph Murie was one of these opponents,

a Park Service biologist who had come to Alaska starting in the late 30s to study wolves. Like George Melendez Wright, he concluded that wolves were essential to the ecosystem and urged the park service to stop killing them. Murie was inspired by Sheldon's original vision for the park, and he shared it. He wanted the sheep, caribou, wolves, and moose that made their homes in Mount McKinley Park to endure. He opposed the hotel construction and road plans. And in the end, Murie mostly prevailed. The Park Service abandoned plans for the hotel and stopped paving the park road after the first 13 miles. Murie's views were shared among environmentalists. Conservationist Sigurd F. Olson wrote to Murie, the reason McKinley is such a wonderful game sanctuary is because there are no interior developments beyond those at Denali and headquarters. Start developing elsewhere,

and the charm and wilderness will be gone. In Alaska, Olson thought, the Park Service had a unique opportunity, the chance to do what he felt it should have done from the very beginning, prevent all development within national park boundaries. By this point, the Park Service had nearly a half-century of experience under its belt and a growing list of lessons learned from parks in the lower 48. With Alaska, the organization began changing its approach to how parks had traditionally operated. Throughout the 1960s, it worked to limit overuse

of Mount McKinley's main park road by creating a shuttle system. It eventually introduced a road lottery for the fall off-season, which only permitted a few hundred people out of thousands to use the road. The Park Service was making a conscious decision not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Hotels wouldn't mar beautiful landscapes. Bears wouldn't be fed. No dams would be built. Indigenous people would be allowed to continue living life as they had. But when oil was discovered in 1968, the game changed. Commercial and industrial interests

swarmed the state. In 1972, the Department of the Interior authorized drilling on the north slope of Alaska near Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field ever found. But it couldn't be reached by oil tankers, and so a year later, as an oil crisis gripped the country, plans moved forward for a pipeline. In 1974, construction began. Suddenly, a war was raging in Alaska. Eventually, it rolled over state lines and into the halls of Congress. Environmentalists were adamantly opposed to a pipeline. They worried that it would melt permafrost and disrupt the migration patterns of caribou. They came together under the banner of the Alaska Coalition, a collection of 50 environmental groups that represented over 10 million Americans. It quickly became the largest grassroots conservation effort

in U.S. history and began lobbying politicians at both the local and federal levels. And many politicians listened. Congress moved to act. By the mid-1970s, Morris Mo Udall, a Democratic congressman from Arizona, sponsored a bill to preserve 110 million acres of federally owned land in Alaska. Udall's bill passed overwhelmingly in the House. However, in the Senate, Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, a Democrat, threatened to filibuster if the Senate attempted a vote. The bill died that day on October 13, 1978. Everyone, including Gravel, suspected what would happen next. Imagine it's December 4, 1978. You sit behind the counter of your shop, Great Hunting and Fishing Supplies, in Fairbanks, Alaska. Since your husband's grandfather started

this shop 40 years ago, his family has slowly built a reputation in the area as some of the best hunting guides in the icy north. You and your husband, Beau, are proud of this. However, right now, you're grinding your teeth. Any minute, Bo will be home from a four-day hunting trip with some rich businessman from Texas, and he's going to be furious when he hears the news. That's him. He looks happy, but he doesn't yet realize that his family business is on the line. Evening, Maggie.

How'd it go, honey? I'll tell you, those longhorn businessmen can't shoot a lick, but they fire enough rounds that they end up hitting something eventually. Well, they're back every year, so we can't complain too much. That's when he notices a strange tone in your voice. What is it, Maggie? Oh, he did it. He actually did it. What? Who? Carter. He signed over 56 million acres of land into national monuments. He what? President Carter. But the Udall bill died six weeks ago. It said in town hall that it wouldn't go through.

Carter used some antiquities act to lock up the land. Where? Most of our prime hunting spots. I don't know what we're going to do. Washington can't tell us what our land should and shouldn't be. We're frontiersmen, not hippies. But it's already done. He's not going to listen. Bo grabs the phone and starts dialing. We'll see about that. Those bloodsuckers in Washington are going to hear us whether they want to or not. And they did hear. Six weeks after

Congress failed to pass the Udall Bill to protect Alaskan land, President Jimmy Carter decided the best move was to bypass Congress by invoking the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt. And so, on December 1, 1978, Carter used the Antiquities Act to preserve 56 million acres of land, creating 17 new national monuments that would join the national park system. It was the single largest national park designation ever made by a sitting president, and it doubled the size of the national park system overnight.

The move followed an action two weeks earlier by Carter's Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus, temporarily protecting another 54 million acres of federal land from development. Together, the two parcels made up an area bigger than the state of California. Carter explained his reasoning for the radical step in a release from the White House. Because of the risks of immediate damage to these magnificent areas, I felt it was imperative to protect all of these lands. These areas contain resources of unequaled scientific, historic, and cultural value, and include some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife in the world. He added, in Alaska, we have a unique

opportunity to balance the development of our vital resources required for continued economic growth with protection of our natural environment. We have the imagination and the will as a people to both develop our last great natural frontier and also preserve its priceless beauty for our children and grandchildren. But the Alaskan people did not see Carter's actions as a bold move to protect the environment. They viewed it as an infringement of their basic rights as Americans. Alaskan politicians like Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young claimed the federal government was at war with their state, and many of their constituents agreed. One town passed this resolution.

The City Council of the City of Eagle, Alaska does not advocate violence, but we can no more be responsible for the actions of an individual citizen than we can be for any animal when it is cornered. Protests and civil disobedience swept the state. Within days, the Fairbanks post office was being circled by nearly 200 people carrying signs deriding Carter and his administration, with messages like, When I grow up, I want to live in a democracy, not a dictatorship, and Antiquities Act of a peanut brain. On December 11th, TV cameras rolled as a protester stuffed a set of coveralls

with straw and attached a photo of the president's face, strung it up by a noose, and soaked it in lighter fluid. An angry crowd cheered as the effigy of the president was set ablaze. To follow up on the protests, sportsman groups organized the Great Denali McKinley Trespass. Participants aimed to violate all 27 National Monument regulations within two days by partaking in prohibited activities like target practice and skydiving. Attendance estimates vary, but the demonstration attracted somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 people with guns and snowmobiles in tow. Two days after the trespass, in the thick of winter, a Fairbanks resident named Mike Hartman set up camp in front of the Fairbanks post office and announced a hunger strike. He promised to refuse food until President

Carter and the Congress repeal the ridiculous law, or until my feet and hands freeze and I keel over. Hartman ended his fast after 12 days. Alaskans weren't the only ones unhappy with Carter. In 1980, Americans frustrated with the Iran hostage crisis and the state of the economy overwhelmingly voted him out of office, electing President Ronald Reagan in his place. The Republican Party also took control of the U.S. Senate. Suddenly, the lands Carter had set aside looked vulnerable. They were protected under the Antiquities Act

only so long as Congress chose not to pass laws changing their purpose. Two weeks after the election, Carter, the Alaskan Coalition, and their opponents came together on a compromise bill to settle all outstanding land claim issues. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, signed by Carter on December 2, 1980, provided various degrees of protection to more than 104 million acres. To date, the bill remains the largest expansion of protected land in the history of the planet.

Among other things, it created or added to 13 national parks, 16 wildlife refuges, two national forests, and two national monuments, and protected lands for subsistence use by Alaskan natives. It also officially changed the name of Mount McKinley National Park to Denali National Park. The peak itself, though, wouldn't change its name till decades later. Even though the battle between President Carter, the Alaskan Coalition, special interest groups, and the Alaskan government had come to a close. The National Park Service was still left with the aftermath. Just because a compromise had been made on paper

didn't mean the tension in the region had gone away. If anything, resentment began to fester and the National Park Service was going to have to deal with destructive, even dangerous consequences. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target.

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that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Imagine it's 1985 in Wrangell, Alaska. You're driving back from the market with your new partner, Jamie. He's just arrived to the National Park Service here. Before, he spent a little time down at the Grand Canyon, but when a request for more rangers in Alaska came, he gladly answered the call. As you drive your truck down the icy road, he reaches back and pulls a chocolate bar from the grocery bag filled with supplies for the next month. How much longer to this station? It's about an hour's drive, so we should be there soon.

I have to admit, I was surprised by the coldness. The coldness? You mean the cold of Alaska? You ever go to Seattle and say, huh, never realized it rains here? No, no. I mean the coldness of the people at the store. When we used to walk into diners near the Grand Canyon in uniform, they'd offer me coffee on the house. Here, the butcher, the pharmacist, even the 16-year-old girl behind the counter looked at us like we were there to steal something. This doesn't surprise you. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

If you ask any of them, we did steal something. They think we stole their land, banned them from hunting, fishing, drilling for oil. But they can't blame us for that. That was Washington's doing, wasn't it? Four, four years ago? Five. Five years. And they still blame you.

You smile at him and wink. Us? Oh, look out! You suddenly slam on the brakes. In the middle of the road stands a moose. He stares at you languidly and totters forward into the woods and darkness. You have to understand, Jamie. These are modern frontier

people. They pride themselves on their independence. When the government suddenly came in telling them what they could and couldn't do on their own land, they were pissed. But things really went south with Doug Vaden. Doug Vaden. Yeah, a homesteader. A couple months ago, Vaden's land in Wasilla was flooded by the White River. When Vaden tried to divert the river's flow, we had to stop him. Really caused some massive damage to his property, though. Why did we stop him? Park service policy.

You can't just change the course of a river. I was back in Cincinnati with family during all of that, but it did not go over well. Ever since then, the locals have turned on us. Jamie starts to open his chocolate bar. Well, I can deal with a couple of nasty glares here and there. You pause. He's young, and he's excited about his new post here in the icy north. You don't want to scare him, but things have been bad lately.

Yeah, I won't sugarcoat it for you, kid. Glares might be the nicest reaction you see for some time. A while back, someone burned a cabin near Strelna. Down south, a buddy of mine's Cessna was vandalized. See those? You point to three pieces of duct tape on the inside door of your truck. Those are covering bullet holes. Someone shot at my door a while back.

I wasn't in the truck, but their point was made. I don't venture into town that often anymore. Jamie looks shaken. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to give you God's honest facts. You need to be careful. But these are good people. If we smile at them every day at the store and greet our neighbors as friends,

it'll be a hell of a lot harder for them to stay angry at us. You really believe that? I know it. Treat them with respect, and they'll learn to respect you. We've made some mistakes, but so have they. And we'll get back to where we need to be. Hey, what's that? He points up the road to your cabin, and you see light through the trees.

You don't like the feeling of this. When you make the turn to your parking spot, you see it. The ranger station is ablaze. It's going to be quite some time before things settle down in Alaska. After the creation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980, one of the most disputed areas in the state was the newly created Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Initially, after its establishment, there was little trouble between the park and the locals. Unfortunately, the incident with homesteader Doug Vaden caused an eruption of anger from the public towards the Park Service and its protective mandates.

One Chitna resident, Jay Seske, compared the situation of Alaskans to that of American colonists. The American Revolution was fought against similar tyranny that Congress and the federal government impose on our docile, as yet, citizens. And I'm sure you've already felt that the National Park Service is unwelcome here. Tim Jacobson, a miner who worked inside Wrangell St. Elias, vented, Christ, the Park Service has 400 years to drive you out, and they'll keep their same salary as they fine you and delay you and permit you to death. They have total power. They can keep you in court forever. If they want to close you down, they'll do it. I look at them as an adversary. The arsonist who burned down the Jack Lake Ranger Station in Rangel was never caught, and tensions continued. A year later,

the Park Service made a proactive attempt to improve relations with locals. Many Alaskans believed the agency was stripping them of their rights to access and use lands that were meant for them. The Park Service tried to make it clear this wasn't their intention. So in 1986, the organization initiated outreach programs to allow locals better access to park rangers. The hope that better communication would improve the situation was well-founded, and for several years things were better. Visitors to the state and parks increased, bringing dollars into the pockets of local businesses. Some critics who had once denounced the parks were quietly changing their tunes. In 1987, the Wrangell-St. Elias Division of

the Park Service was invited to join the local tourism community. Local businesses even began promoting the Glen Allen area, calling it the gateway to Wrangell-St. Elias. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when another ranger station mysteriously burned down in 1992. Many Park Service employees feared this would egg on others with anti-park sentiment, and tensions increased the following year as the Park Service worked to acquire Kennecott,

an early 20th century copper mining town. Plenty of Alaskans saw grim irony in the Park Service working to carefully preserve a way of life they seemed eager to get rid of. Rick Kenyon, publisher of the Wrangell St. Elias News, wrote, It's hypocritical of the Park Service to spend millions of dollars running miners out of business, then to turn around and manage Kennecott as a ghost town. Park Service Superintendent Karen Wade became a flashpoint for these kinds of hostilities, but she maintained that the Park Service had no secret agenda. It's not my intention to create another Denali or to destroy the unique qualities

of the communities and lifestyles that pre-existed the park, she wrote in a letter to another resident. She called for constructive recommendations within an atmosphere that is free of retribution. But people like Kenyon didn't find Wade's defense of the Park Service persuasive. He argued, they say they don't want another Denali here, but apparently they want something even worse, another Yellowstone or Yosemite. Wade generated more backlash when she addressed Congress in 1994 to request more funding for park operations. She seemed to criticize Alaskans who, after 1980, suddenly found their private land was now surrounded by National Park. She said,

In this great Northern Kingdom, our ranger workforce deals with threats to park resource values generated by one million acres of dispersed inholdings upon which timbering, hunting, mining, and commercial activities of all kinds take place. In order to protect park resources, these rangers need trained backups to ride shotgun while they patrol for poachers and contact locals with frontier mentalities who scoff at rules and regulations. Alaskans were less than enthused by her comments. The Copper River County Journal called Wade's tone decidedly superior and said she portrayed Alaskans as lawless. Wade's comments seemed to reveal she believed her main job was to keep

local inholders, miners, and hunters in check, the paper said. In a letter to Voice of the Times, Will Sherman wrote, while it's true that there aren't too many copies of Amy Vanderbilt's etiquette up here, I know of no park ranger who has ever been shot. I do, however, know of scores of Alaskans whose businesses have been ruined and whose rightful land, property, and access have been regulated out of their hands by Karen Wade and her predecessors. Is there no way that we can stop having to help pay the salaries of these people? They come from thousands of miles away. Tell us what our values should be, complicate our ability to make an honest living, tear apart our communities, and then have the temerity to whine that we don't pay them enough.

Wade never returned to Alaska. After reactions to her testimony, she transferred and became superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. She was replaced that October by Jonathan Jarvis, who had previously been superintendent of Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. When he arrived, Jarvis made it his first priority to improve relationships with the locals. Once again, he opened up communications and made a point of speaking with the media about welcoming input from the public. In his first interview, he said, I've got an open door. If anyone wants to come down and talk to me about any of these issues or any other issues, they can call me. As things got better, Jarvis insisted he wouldn't impose national park standards on local residents. We're starting to

develop a relationship, he said. I want to continue with that, have an open relationship. This park is a neighbor and can be a very good one. Jarvis's tactics worked, and resentment for the parks gradually started to dwindle. His approach set a course for his successors. Though tensions over land use continue in Alaska today, by the time Jarvis left in 2000, the relationship with local residents had markedly improved. Jarvis eventually went on to serve as the 18th director of the entire National Park Service. The American national park system holds a unique place on the world stage. No other country can boast so many places of such varied beauty so open to the public. Americans can

walk into any national park in the country and proudly say to themselves that they own a piece of these remarkable places. Writer and environmentalist Wallace Stegner called them the best idea we've ever had. Absolutely American. Absolutely democratic. They reflect us at our best rather than our worst. But since their creation, the national parks have been like the country they represent, an experiment. We made mistakes, many of them disastrous. Indigenous peoples were slaughtered. Animals were hunted to near extinction. Valleys were flooded. Private interests battled and sometimes defeated the public good.

The fight to balance preservation and conservation still continues today. As our country has grown and changed, so have our parks. What started out as an idea to protect land and animals has evolved into a desire to teach others about their world, their country, and themselves. In our next series, we head back to World War II as the roots of a new movement are taking hold in the country's Black communities. Join us in two weeks as we start our six-part series on the civil rights era. But first, an interview with the head of one of the least visited national parks in the United States. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, sound designed, and edited by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Additional production assistance by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Jarrett Palmer, edited and produced by Jenny Lauer, produced by George Lavender. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis, created by Hernán López for Wondery. Richard Bandler revolutionized the world of self-help all thanks to an approach he developed called neuro-linguistic programming.

Even though NLP worked for some, its methods have been criticized for being dangerous in the wrong hands. Throw in Richard's dark past as a cocaine addict and murder suspect, and you can't help but wonder what his true intentions were. I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the hosts of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. We recently dove into the story

of the godfather of modern mental manipulation, Richard Bandler, whose methods inspired some of the most toxic and criminal self-help movements of the last two decades. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid and Kill List early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.