Northern Landscapes

by Nelson, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9781891853845
• ISBN10: 1891853848
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-08-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Alaska in the early l950s was one of the world's last great, undeveloped areas. Yet sweeping changes were underway. In l958, Congress awarded the new state over l00 million acres to promote economic development. In l971, it gave Native groups more than 40 million acres to settle land claims and facilitate the building of an 800-mile oil pipeline. Spurred by the newly militant environmental movement, it also began to consider the preservation of Alaska's magnificent scenery and wildlife. Northern Landscapes is the first comprehensive examination of the campaign to preserve wild Alaska through the creation of a vast system of parks and wildlife refuges. Drawing on archival sources and interviews, Daniel Nelson traces disputes over resources alongside the politics of the Alaska statehood movement. He provides in-depth coverage of the growth of Alaskan environmental organizations, their partnerships with national groups, and their participation in political campaigns into the l970s. Engagingly written, Northern Landscapes focuses on the activism that led to the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of l980, which set aside more than l00 million acres, doubling the size of the national park and wildlife refuge systems, and tripling the size of the wilderness preservation system. Arguably the single greatest triumph of environmentalism, ANILCA also set the stage for continuing battles over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Alaska's national forests.

Author Biography

Daniel Nelson is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Akron.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Prologue: Washington, December 1980	1	(8)
Part I. Seedtime: Alaska to the 1960's
1. The Emergence of Alaska	9	(29)
2. Conservation in Transition	38	(31)
Part II. Wilderness Politics: Alaska, 1960's-1976
3. Alaska Upheavals	69	(31)
4. Congressional Responses	100	(30)
5. Southeast Alaska and the Wilderness Movement	130	(19)
6. Oil Age Discontents	149	(32)
Part III. The ANILCA Campaign: Alaska and Washington, 1977-1980
7. Congress Deliberates	181	(36)
8. Birth of ANILCA	217	(32)
Postscript: Alaska in the 1980's and Beyond	249	(20)
Notes	269	(30)
Index	299