Brooks Range Voices: Larry Bartlett
Alaska wilderness expert, hunter, and entrepreneur offers his perspective from 30 years of exploring the Brooks Range and shares why the proposed Ambler Road is a terrible idea for the region, its wildlife, and outdoorsmen and women.
Larry Bartlett is well known for having hunted and explored much of the best country Alaska has to offer. He’s the owner of Pristine Ventures, a company specializing in helping DIY hunters and adventurers make their Alaska dream trip a reality and selling and renting cool gear like rafts and canoes engineered for the wilds of the north.
Larry believes the Brooks Range is a national treasure worth bequeathing to our future generations of grandkids and their people. That’s why he’s against the proposed Ambler Road. If built, the project would be a publicly funded 211-mile private road across the southern Brooks Range to help develop an unknown number of foreign-owned mines. Larry points out the impacts could be catastrophic to the water quality and biodiversity of the central and western Brooks Range.
Here is his story.
Describe the types of activities you’ve enjoyed in the Brooks Range.
I’ve traversed most of the navigable rivers in the Brooks Range from Kotzebue to Canada, but my specialty is exploring non-navigable streams for rafting, hunting, archeological searches, and fishing.
Share one memory that stands out to you.
Well, it feels wrong to narrow the search to one memory! My exploration of the Brooks Range began in 1995. Since then, I have harvested dozens of caribou and moose, caught 40-lbs. sheefish, 15-lbs. char, and countless salmon. I have harvested other animals selectively, like Dall sheep, black and grizzly bears, and wolves.
My fondest memory is a recent fishing float trip with my two young kids, who were 7 and 9 at the time. The region is so visceral because of the latitude, remote mountainous setting, surface-depth archeology, wind-blown and treeless landscapes with gin-clear streams filled with chum and char. My son and daughter were amazed to find a ridgetop covered with 11,000-year-old stone tool artifacts. Miles downstream, we located an ancient burial mound. It was a treasure to share these rare experiences with my children. It imprinted something so special on them. My children had layers of daily experiences on that 8-day float which they will draw from the rest of their lives. What they don’t yet comprehend is that the totality of those experiences could have only occurred in the Brooks Range.
Think of your first trip to the Brooks – what was different than you expected?
In 1995 I invited my dad, a native Texan, on a “caribou hunt” along the Haul Road. It was late August, and we hiked 5 miles to where it was legal to hunt with a rifle. The weather was 50 degrees and sunny when we left the road. It was in the 40s when we made camp 6 hours later. Right before sunset, it was in the low 30s and blowing snow. The next day there was a thick disorienting fog and zero visibility. After a long hike out on the tundra, my dad refused to believe my GPS to get back to camp. He was convinced camp was one way and I trusted the GPS, which was pointing 90 degrees the opposite way. We’re both stubborn as hell, so we split up. He got lost and wandered around in the fog in a near panic for three hours. Finally, he heard my calls and used the sound of my voice to guide him back to camp. The wet snow collapsed the tents. Without that GPS we would have died. A rookie learns fast that Alaska is wrought with unexpected complexities.
What is most special about this place?
As majestic, vast, and formidable as the mountain landscapes appear, what’s most special about the Brooks Range is the fragility of its lifeblood. Soil depth is shallow and without ice to hold its shape, the land is literally melting from sustained warmer temperatures and other factors caused by climate change. Certain streams that flowed gin-clear and were filled with fish 25 years ago now have white, brown, and red minerals leaching into them from the erosion of permafrost caused by decadal warming trends. Still, the Brooks Range has an amazingly vast intact ecosystem that supports a huge variety of animals, fish, birds and people.
Another very special thing about the Brooks is the absence of roads and industry that would otherwise have catastrophic impacts on the wilderness experience.
Share at least one piece of essential gear you’d recommend packing or advice you’d share with someone going to the Brooks for the first time.
Besides a sharp and reliable pocketknife, bring at least a one quart-size Ziplock full of paper birch bark and a magnesium striker. You might suffer or die if you aren’t able to start a fire quickly in the Arctic.
Please share a favorite hunting or fishing memory or story from your time in the Brooks Range.
A few years ago, my family and two dogs made a week-long float in the southern Brooks Range. My daughter caught her first lake trout. I remember her being so proud as she reeled in that big fish. My all-time funniest memory is the look on the kids’ faces as they were drawn close, captivated by the vibrant colors of the side skin and fins, when I squealed and shoved the fish closer to them. It was a priceless memory found nowhere else but in the Brooks.
How do you think your experience in the Brooks would change if the Ambler Road was built? What do hunters and anglers stand to lose?
We stand to lose one of the last great wildernesses left in the United States. It’s a place that’s worth bequeathing to our future adventurous grandkids and their people.
Imagine a place you traveled by air or river to marvel at wild mountains, be self-reliant, and harvest fresh wild meat and fish. Would your vision of that place also have an industrial road connecting a string of open pit mines?
Larry Bartlett
What aspect of the proposed Ambler Road project concerns you most?
I’ve had nearly 30 years of experience on the ground in the Brooks Range and I’ve seen the alarming effects warming temperatures have had in the proposed road areas. Streams I once relied on for fresh water are now laden with minerals that taste like iron even after filtering. I’m concerned that a project of this scale will likely expedite harmful disruptions in critical areas. The impacts could be catastrophic to the water quality and biodiversity of the entire central and western region of the Brooks Range. An industrial mining complex connected to a 210-mile road does not belong in the Brooks Range.
What’s the biggest misconception you’ve heard about the project?
The biggest misconception is that there will be public access to the proposed road after it’s funded. This would be a private industrial road.
Another huge misconception is the proposed cost of the project. Every expedition and endeavor I’ve pursued in the Brooks Range typically ends up costing me 30-40% more than I budgeted. On an industrial scale, I believe the true cost it will take to complete the project will be two to three times what has been projected.
What might you say to someone who said, “I don’t understand why this road is such a big threat?”
Imagine a place you traveled by air or river to marvel at wild mountains, be self-reliant, and harvest fresh wild meat and fish. Would your vision of that place also have an industrial road connecting a string of open pit mines?
Why is it important that hunters and anglers across the nation speak up against the proposed Ambler Road?
It’s not just the Ambler Road we are fighting, it’s the processes of federal land transfers of vast swathes of public lands to private industrial use. This is being done seemingly without regard to public input. The Brooks Range represents the crown jewel of terra incognita, or what’s left of it in America.
Photo credit: Larry Bartlett
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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the above blog are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hunters & Anglers for the Brooks Range or partners. HABR does not accept responsibility for these views, thoughts, and opinions.
