Jim King oral history transcript

              INTERVIEW 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 of thing.

MR. KAYE: Okay, let’s go to the 1959 hearings that were held. Senator Bartlett held

them in Alaska, including one in Juneau. I think you attended those didn’t you?

MR. KING: Yeah, I went to one hearing that Bartlett had.

MR. KAYE: What was the tone of it. You told me a little bit last year about your

impression of Bartlett and what he was trying to get out of this hearing, and the approach

that he took to it.

MR. KING: There were a number of younger people expressing the kind of idealism that

you mention. These were kind of new thoughts in Alaska. Bartlett was without saying

so; he managed to kind of discourage that sort of thing as if it were not relevant. He

encouraged people that were talking about developing the resources up there. I remember

Warren Taylor, who was kind of an old bearcat from Fairbanks; he was a self taught

lawyer, and President of the Senator and head of the Bar Association. He was a pretty

political figure. He testified about how this wasn’t needed and how this was a silly idea.

All of these kids were just preaching a batch of foolishness. I don’t remember the words,

but that was the implication. Bartlett kind of drew him out, and some other Chamber of

Commerce types and he didn’t really draw out the opposition. Then, here came Bud

Boddie. He was an Assembly member, and Mayor of Juneau at times. He was really

well known and his work with the Sportsmen’s Council was well known. I think Bartlett

knew him personally. Boddie testified that this was a good idea. It may have been the

first time that Bartlett heard anybody who was part of the establishment as it was then,

and an important public figure speak in favor of it. There was another element about

Boddie. At some point, Clarence Rhode and Dave Spencer had begun working to get

Izembek Lagoon and Yukon Delta set up at refuges.

MR. KAYE: Was that the Kuskokwim Refuge proposal?

MR. KING: Yes. Dave Spencer had done a lot of work on writing reports and

proposals.

(Side B)

MR. KAYE: Go ahead.

MR. KING: Rhodes, and Boddie and Collins and these were important Americans.

They didn’t have any trouble getting a good proposal introduced in Congress. I don’t

know just who they were working with then. Bills were introducing several times for

making the Yukon Delta, under various names, and the Izembek Lagoon. They never got

anywhere in Congress. They may have been working on that before Collins really got

pushing on the Arctic. They may have been involved with him in deciding that the Arctic

may be better as a refuge than as a park. So the three places, the Arctic, the Yukon Delta

and the Isembek kind of turned into a package that they were supporting. Boddie and the

Sportsmen’s Council supported the three proposals. They took positions and wrote

letters and endorsed it. They turned into kind of a package. Finally, when Congress

wouldn’t do anything they went to Eisenhower’s Secretary of the Interior and he

designated these areas by Administrative Order. But everybody was in agreement that it

would be way better to do it through Congress than by Executive Order, in part because

the Yukon Delta had been a refuge going back to 1909 I think. It was established by

Teddy Roosevelt, but it was abolished by Warren Harding. With the same flick of the

wrist, an administration could abolish these areas.

MR. KAYE: Right, and that was of course a concern with ANWR, that it could suffer

the same fate if it wasn’t established by legislation. Do you know if Boddie ever intended

to come up to the Arctic for hunting of fishing? He was so strongly interested in a place

that he lived so far from. What was his personal motivation? What it just to know that

this place was here, or that he might use it, or what?

MR. KING: I think it was because he was part of this team of… I don’t know that he

ever thought he might go there. But he may have been up there. Rhodes used to go up

there flying around looking for Caribou up there. Boddie may have gone up there. He

always had some people from Juneau with him when he was up there. He would have

seen it I think. Of course Rhodes’ last trip was related to the refuge.

MR. KAYE: I wanted to ask you about that because I think you were involved in the

search; but first…Dave Spencer, you talked about him. Did he bring wilderness thinking

to the FWS in Alaska? And if so, what influence might he have had on Rhodes? Do you

think that might be related to why the establishing order for Arctic had wilderness listed

in it?

MR. KING: The wilderness thing, that wasn’t an idealistic thing. Wilderness was

established by Congress, so this was another gimmick. If they could get Congress to

establish wilderness, then future executives couldn’t abolish it. I think that was one of

the things that Spencer and Rhodes worked on. They wanted to get the Aleutians set up

as wilderness. Of course the Aleutians were badly abused during World War II. Then

along came the Atomic Energy Commission. The Aleutians were vulnerable. When I first

came to Fairbanks there was a strong feeling that heard feeling that was heard frequently

expressed in the press and by politicians for getting rid of the Kodiak Bear Refuge and

turning that over to the ranchers. Also, get rid of the Moose Range and turn that over to

the homesteaders and get rid of some of the Aleutian Refuge and turn them over to sheep

farmers. These refuges were interfering with progress in Alaska. I think that’s where the

impetus came from; not from idealism but from the practical sense that to protect these

areas, they’d be safer if they were declared wilderness by Congress.

MR. KAYE: So would you say that Spencer was the one who brought this thinking or

refined it for FWS in Alaska?

MR. KING: Yeah, a lot of these things were more practical administration than idealism.

The idea was that we wanted these refuges for wildlife, and we didn’t want the military or

other wheeler-dealers tearing them up. Spencer did have his background with Leopold

and Olaus Murie, so did Pete Nelson, although I never heard Nelson talking about that

sort of thing. He was right there in the office with Rhodes all of the time here in Juneau.

John Buckley was another of the players. He was the Wildlife Unit Leader. I think those

people that I mentioned were the ones that I knew who were kind of involved with

getting refuges set up.

MR. KAYE: Do you know why Arctic became an Arctic Range as opposed to a refuge?

Was there any discussion about that terminology?

MR. KING: The Kenai was a range, and I think Kodiak was a range, I’m not sure. But

the range concept kind of endorsed the idea that these places were open to hunting, I

think. They weren’t sanctuaries; they were ranges for these species. It was more for the

protection of habitat than for providing sanctuary for big game.

MR. KAYE: So it would be more comfortable for a sportsman to support it I guess.

MR. KING: Yeah.

MR. KAYE: Do you know of Clarence Rhodes was a member of the Territorial

Sportsmen himself?

MR. KING: I don’t know for sure. I think perhaps he was. I know he was involved

with them a lot. Maury Kelly was the Predator Agent through the period of the 1950s.

He was a very active member of the Territorial Sportsmen. Ed Zigler who was the FWS

Engineer at the time, and Ray Nevin who was the administrative officer.

MR. KAYE: How about yourself Jim, were you involved?

MR. KING: I didn’t live here then, I lived in Fairbanks during the 1950s. I guess I was a

member of the Tanana Sportsmen’s Association. But I think that the Game Wardens, or

Enforcement Agents tended to be a little standoffish than the other types like the

Biologists and the Refuge Managers. They didn’t have this feeling that it might interfere

with their other dealings with people. I think maybe I was a member, but I didn’t really

participate.

MR. KAYE: The last thing I wanted to talk to you about was Clarence Rhodes’ search.

Clarence disappeared in the Arctic Range area in 1958. You were involved in that search

weren’t you?

MR. KING: Yeah. Actually, I was at Tetlin, banding that summer. I came in to vote

because that was the fall when they had the elections about Statehood. I was way up at

Last Tetlin. I took my little skiff and went chugging down through Tetlin Lake and on

down to Tanana Bridge. I drove on down to Fairbanks. I had a car waiting there. I got to

the office and there was all of this activity going on. This was on about the third or

fourth day that Rhodes had been missing. They had just that day called the military. At

that time, we didn’t use the FAA for flight plans. The FWS had a hundred and fifty or so

radio stations of the air. A lot of the wives had radios in their kitchens and logged calls

from airplanes. There were boats as sea. But it was all HF radio.

MR. KAYE: Had Clarence set up that system for FWS?

MR. KING: Yeah. He was in charge. He guy that did it was Hans Wicca. They got

truckloads of surplus radios from the military. Wicca made them work. I know that the

radios we had in our cars came out of airplanes. They weighed about a hundred pounds

or more! Wicca got those mounted in our trucks. We used Chevy Suburbans then. We

could sit in those cars when conditions were good and talk to people all over Alaska. We

could talk to airplanes and the boats at sea.

MR. KAYE: So you went to Fairbanks and learned that Clarence was missing?

MR. KING: Yeah. The first day or two FWS pilots had gone up there to look around.

Nobody was quite sure where he had been headed. They had some ideas. Then on about

the third day BLM sent their planes up there. Then the military was called in. A fellow

who was a Major came to the FWS office and looked around. He saw the radio there and

saw that Fairbanks was working fine, and had contacts with all of the planes. I think

there were five or six searching. There were people with vehicles standing by who could

go get stuff. This Major decided that he was going to run the search. Once you called the

military, they were in charge. And he decided that he was going to run it out of the little

office there on Airport Way. So he went back to the Base and got all of his maps and

took over one of the offices. He was running the search from there and at about the time

that he got, or maybe the next day, the head of the Alaska Command in Anchorage who

had known Clarence decided that he was going to come up and see what was going on.

The Base Commander at Ladd Field didn’t know what was going on and suddenly

discovered that the commanding General was coming up to look at something that was

going on in town, and not on the Base. This funny sequence had been happening all day

long where first some Captain came out and told the Major he had to get back to the Base.

The Major said that he couldn’t because he had ten airplanes in the air and that he

couldn’t move. He said he had to stay there and tend to business. The Captain went

back and reported. Then a Lieutenant Colonel came. He got the same message. Then the

full Colonel came. When I got there, I guess I went and voted. And I guess I was hanging

around and watching what was going on and reading my mail. I had been out for a while.

Here comes the General. I can’t remember what his name was. Could it have been

Twining? It may have been somebody else. He barged into the office and said, “I want

to make it clear right away; I’m not here to run this thing, I am here to help!” That was a

little endorsement of this Major. The Major stayed there for a whole month!

MR. KAYE: What was your role on the search?

MR. KING: At that time I had quit FWS and was going to college at Washington State. I

came back to band ducks that summer, so I was a temporary employee. I had to go back

and get my stuff, and I had a young guy working for me at Tetlin. I had to clean up my

operation there. When I came back, they were looking for observers. I didn’t fly any of

the airplanes then, but I flew with Tom Wardley and Al Kropt and Tony Schultz. We

did a bunch of flying with a Wien airplane. I can’t remember who else I was with, but I

was up there for about two weeks.

MR. KAYE: Were you in what is now the Refuge?

MR. KING: The way searches are run, they block off the countryside and the blocks are

each assigned to different pilots. I stayed at Bettles for a while. We were flying out of

there. Then we stayed at Umiat for a while, and flew out of the. Everybody was kind of

in the act. The Major was the one who was managing the maps and coordinating things.

For a few days I was in Fairbanks. But I remember that for that first day that he was

being very careful of all of these civilian pilots. He didn’t know what his authority was

going to be. I remember him asking, “Well, could we get together at seven o’clock in the

morning?” He was very apologetic to get everybody out so early. Well, everybody that

was there wasn’t thinking about the hour. They were thinking about getting up and

finding this airplane. He didn’t have any trouble getting people out at seven in the

morning. He was great, that guy.

MR. KAYE: That’s interesting. Well gosh Jim, that’s all the questions I have. Is there

anything you’d like to add for the record on the Arctic Refuge? Is there anything that I

didn’t ask that I should have? Do you have any other comments?

MR. KING: I don’t know. I think there was a lot of local support for it that didn’t

really come out. It was a little different that the sort of things that you documented so

well last year at the history meeting. It was people looking forward and asking what kind

of Alaska did they want to have. Then, as now, it turned out that a lot more people were

interested in retaining the natural values. In fact, the Statehood vote passed, but the only

real opposition to it was not necessarily from idealists; it was from the old-timers and the

trappers. They were afraid that when Statehood came along that live would suddenly

become complicated. The things that they enjoyed about Alaska would be lost.

I am glad that you asked about Boddie. He was a very interesting person and had

a lot to do with various regulations and activities that welled up from through the

Sportsmen’s Council. I don’t know where you’d have to go to get records of that

Council. They might have them there in Fairbanks at the Tanana Valley Sportsmen.

They started out very early and built a lodge.

MR. KAYE: It’s still there.

MR. KING: The Territorial Sportsmen never did that. I don’t know, but their records

had a way of disappearing. Maybe the Tanana Valley group kept better tract of theirs!

There other guys there who might still be around. Bud Weasey, is he still there?

MR. KAYE: I don’t know if he is. Chuck Gray was involved at the time. I have taped

him. But there aren’t too many left. Glen Despain is out at Shoshanna. I am hoping to

try to get out there visit with him.

MR. KING: You might try and find out about Bud Weasey. Do you know him?

MR. KAYE: I know of him.

MR. KING: Chuck would know. He was active in those days in the sportsmen. I don’t

know all that many here. But I could give you the information on Boddie’s son. He is

still here.

MR. KAYE: Okay, well I’ll tell you what; I’ll catch that in a minute from you. I am

going to turn the recorder off. Gosh, I want to thank you for this information!