Join us, Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges for a lovely evening of Arctic Refuge art, adventure tales, and ideas for advocacy on Saturday, September 6 from 5 to 7 pm at Bunnell Street Art Center. Fairbanks artist Lynn Larsen’s Arctic Refuge landscape paintings will be on display at the gallery. Lynn and her partner, Arctic Refuge guide Ron Yarnell, will share their experiences from more than 35 years exploring the Arctic Refuge and their thoughts about its future. Friends Advocacy Chair, Nancy Lord, will update us on the status of threats to the refuge, what Friends, working with partners, is doing to counter the threat of drilling and how you can help. Light refreshments will be served.
In 1988 Lynn made her first trip to the Brooks Range, a journey that changed the direction of her life and her art work. After that trip on the Wind River, she started drawing and painting landscapes. Flying over the Brooks for the first time, she felt she had found what she had been seeking and returned to the Brooks Range every summer to raft, backpack, and hike.
Lynn’s art will be on display at Bunnell for the entire month of September. The show entitled Time – Arctic Refuge will open with a First Friday event on September 5 from 5 to 7 p.m. which will include an artist’s talk. Many of Lynn’s recent works can be seen at https://arcticrefuge.art/lynn-larsen/
Here are updates on issues with which we’re engaged.
FY26 Refuge System Budget: The House and Senate Appropriation Committees marked up the budget bills to provide $505 and $525 million respectively to the Refuge System, compared to $550 in FYs 24 and 25. Senator Murkowski played a key role in the Senate committee. After the August Congressional recess, both bodies will resume budget work, but it’s unclear whether a budget will be agreed upon or whether we may expect a continuing resolution or a government shutdown.
Izembek Refuge Road: This is an on-going issue with a coalition of partners. Survey work for the proposed road is underway. Hearings on a land trade will be held Aug. 18-21.
Arctic Refuge (with Arctic Defense Coalition): Friends is involved in the Trustees of Alaska’s appeal to the Dept. of Interior’s decision to reinstate the oil leases that were previously cancelled. Seismic work is underway. The reconciliation bill passed by Congress requires four new lease sales in the refuge within the next seven years.
Staff reductions – 37 Alaska Refuge system employees are gone; 220 are left. The staff reduction along with the ongoing hiring freeze have left refuges woefully understaffed.
Other issues receiving our attention and involvement include the proposed Johnson Tract Mine (potential impact on the Alaska Maritime Refuge’s Chisik Island), Selawik Refuge Broadband Project (80 miles of overland cable), oil and gas exploration drilling on state land adjacent to Yukon Flats Refuge, predator control on state lands adjacent to refuges, and several administrative actions including one designed to control refuge visitor center exhibits and signage.
As Friends newcomer Keith Jost of Anchorage said, “This is a really nice group of people.” And so they were – all 70 of them that converged at Kelly Lake Campground on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges on July 12. Friends came from throughout south-central Alaska to canoe, fish, hike, learn about wildfire on the refuge, eat great food, and enjoy the company of other refuge supporters. 31 camped overnight enjoying loon calls in the night and scolding by yellow-legs in the day.
The planning team was blown away with this enthusiastic response so we think we might need to do something similar every year. The demand is there for this type of experience. We more than met our objectives in getting people together to strengthen Friends bonds, getting people out on a refuge, making new friends, and learning about Friends, some of the issues facing refuges, the Kenai Refuge and the very significant Swan Lake fire.
We were fortunate in that two of the founding members – David Raskin our first president and Carla Stanley our first vice president were able to make the event. They were part of a handful of citizens that met at the Kenai Refuge Education building in November of 2005 and decided to form Friends. It has been quite a ride since then. We have grown to over 375 members, with 100 – 200 attending every meeting in person, at refuge watch parties or by zoom, dozens in the field volunteering and numerous refuge projects funded by Friends.
Could we make something similar happen in Fairbanks? Perhaps at the Tetlin Refuge? Want to be in on such fun times and show your support for Alaska’s National Wildlife efuges? Join us. We would love to have you.
Thanks to our photographers: Becky Hutchinson, Carla Stanley, Kieth Jost, Claire Holdaway, Kristine Sowl, Dan Musgrove, Marie McConnell, Paul Allen and Poppy Benson
By Jenna Berting, Friends member from Washington State
The walrus monitoring project gave me a chance to use my skills to help wildlife even though I was working remotely in Hawaii at the time! I heard about the opportunity on the Friends website and applied and volunteered with the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge to assist in a research project monitoring Pacific walrus populations. I volunteered 23 hours over the course of a month, working remotely, to help count walruses captured by remote game cameras stationed at five different haul-out locations within the refuge. This monitoring plays a critical role in understanding walrus behavior, population dynamics, and environmental impacts on these marine mammals.
I collaborated closely with Jannelle, a wildlife biologist at the refuge, who guided the process and served as a supportive and knowledgeable mentor throughout the project. Working with Jannelle was the highlight of the project – the encouragement and willingness to assist made this not only a learning experience but a truly enjoyable one.
We used QGIS, a geographic information system tool, to overlay various data layers that supported visual analysis and improved accuracy in our counts. In many instances, we reviewed side-by-side images from dual-camera setups to match and align photographs before finalizing the counts.
Walrus at Bird Rock haulout, Togiak Refuge. I applied the dots as I identified each walrus and the QGIS program tabulated them. Pc USFWS
Walrus counting was occasionally visually challenging due to factors such as lighting conditions (e.g., sunset or overcast skies), weather interference, and the sheer density of walruses in the images—sometimes stacked on top of one another or spread out across vast distances. Despite these difficulties, I thoroughly enjoyed the process and learned so much.
This experience expanded my knowledge of walrus behavior, particularly their haul-out patterns, social groupings, and how tightly they cluster in large groups along the shoreline. I gained valuable skills in remote data analysis, wildlife monitoring techniques, and spatial mapping using QGIS tools. I look forward to supporting similar conservation initiatives in the future!
I’m writing this on July 4, a day we normally celebrate for our American freedoms. This year is different. Today, President Trump signs the big bill that encompasses his agenda for reforming American life. In nearly a thousand pages, policy and funding changes will influence nearly every aspect of our lives, including the management of our public lands.
This comes on top of what we’ve already experienced in the refuges–huge staff losses through unrelenting pressure, incentives to quit and firings, a hiring freeze, and interference with public communications, exhibits and programming. The bill mandates the opening of public lands to increased extractive industries with reduced environmental oversight or mitigation and curtails scientific research–especially anything related to climate. Incentives for wind and solar projects have been replaced with incentives for fossil fuels.
An effort to sell off public lands was successfully beaten back but may well return in another place or form. One proposal would administratively transfer BLM lands in Alaska to the state to expedite development projects.
Your Friends organization has repeatedly reached out to Alaska’s congressional delegation to emphasize the importance of our refuges and the need to fund their protection and management, not just for their resident fish and wildlife but for human visitors, communities, and future resilience. We asked you, our Friends, to do the same.
Alaska Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and Representative Begich all fell in line with the Republican party to approve the bill. They are particularly happy with the requirement that four lease sales be scheduled within the Arctic Refuge (as well as others in sensitive areas in Alaska) and the loosening of environmental regulations. They consider it a win to “unlock Alaska’s resources.”
While close analysis of the bill’s provisions and their specific effects is just beginning, we can say for sure that Alaska’s public lands are and will be losing the protections and management that they require.
While it’s easy to be discouraged, we must not let up our advocacy!
Please continue to let your elected representatives know that you value our refuges and all they provide for wildlife, environmental quality, recreation, public enjoyment, and the future. Their values cannot be maintained without adequate funding and staffing, adherence to environment laws, and mitigations for environmental harm. Stress that climate change in the north is a very significant threat, not only to plants and wildlife but to the safety of people and the future of the entire warming planet!
Please visit our website regularly for updates and action alerts, and do the same by friending us on Facebook.
And make sure you get out this summer to enjoy some reflective time in one or more of our national wildlife refuges. Join us this Saturday on the Kenai Refuge to recharge with other refuge supporters. Be especially kind to refuge staff who are working very hard in difficult circumstances.
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge staff on this nearly two million acre refuge is down to 19 employees from the 33 who worked there at this happy time when Friends helped them on a trail clearing project in 2017 (pictured here). With that staff they manage incredible varied habitat and wildlife resources including important salmon runs, a dense moose population, caribou, Dall sheep, bears, eagles and waterbirds and a large public use program of visitor centers, campgrounds, public use cabins, an extensive trail network and two canoe systems all of which attracts a million visits a year from all over the country.
Friends have been caring for our Alaska refuges for 20 years and that is worth celebrating, so let’s do it! – outdoors, on a refuge, and with new and old Friends, salmon, canoes, and fun. Join us Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges for our 20th Birthday at Kelly Lake Campground on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Saturday, July 12, mile 68.1 Sterling Hwy. Come for the day or campout with us Friday and or Saturday night. It is also a great chance to inspect the Swan Lake Wildfire Scar and learn from refuge experts how the land is recovering.
1:00 pm: Guided bird walk with Kristine Sowl, retired FWS bird biologist, may also do early morning TBD
3:00 pm: Guided plant walk through the regenerating 2019 burn area with John Morton, retired Kenai Refuge biologist
6:00 pm: Salmon and hot dog BBQ
7:00 pm: Fireside talk by Leah Eskelin, Kenai Refuge Ranger — The Swan Lake Fire Six Years Later
This is a members only event. Not sure you are still a member? Just ask us or rejoin here.
RSVP to us at info@alaskarefugefriends.org as we need to plan food and camping spaces. Tell us
How many coming
What days
Are you camping and tent or RV because we need to save space (not enough space for really big rigs).
You need to bring
sides or dessert to contribute to Saturday night feast
camp chairs
your own beverages
bug dope and your good company.
Wish List
More salmon
Another BBQ grill big enough for a salmon fillet
It was at the Kenai Refuge Education building in November of 2005 that a handful of citizens met and decided to form Friends. It has been quite a ride since then. We have grown to over 350 members, with 100 – 200 attending every meeting in person or by zoom, dozens in the field volunteering and numerous refuge projects funded.
But now as summer bathes the refuge and salmon swarm the rivers, let’s celebrate what we have accomplished – 20 years of supporting Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges. July 12. See you there.
Presented by Tyra Olstad, 2024 Voices of the Wilderness Artist in Residence on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 5 pm Alaska Time Thank you to Tyra for a wonderful program! You can watch the recording below:
Fairbanks – Tyra Olstad in person at the Morris Thompson Cultural Center, 101 Dunkel St. Reception follows.
Homer– Watch Party at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterling Hwy.
Soldotna– Watch Party at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Ski Hill Rd.
Anchorage– Watch party at BP Energy Center,Spruce/Willow Room, 1014 Energy Ct.
Zoom
The “Voices of the Wilderness” program connects artists of all different media and styles to federally managed Wilderness areas in wildlife refuges, national parks and national forests in Alaska, with the hope that the artists help give voice to what might otherwise seem like remote, unknowable places. In return for the trip of a lifetime, artists provide to the refuge a work of art based on the residency and that is what you will experience at this presentation. With her spoken word and visual images, Tyra Olstad will invite you to envision the Arctic Refuge, to actively immerse yourself in what she has experienced, and to imagine the Arctic from different perspectives and at different scales. (Think like a tussock!) It’s intended for audiences who know little about Alaska or the Arctic, much less the Refuge, to experienced Arctic travelers who will be encouraged to consider the place with fresh eyes. An Arctic Refuge staffer described her presentation as “goose-bumpy good”. Come let her help you imagine the Arctic.
Voices of the Wilderness artists are paired with staff and/or scientific parties to assist with stewardship and/or research projects and learn about the Alaskan wilderness. Tyra Olstad joined two research teams: a group of botanists, collecting data in the central Brooks Range as part of a long-term, global project tracking changes to alpine vegetation; and a team of hydrologists and permafrost experts, embarking on a multi-year study of relationships between permafrost, small drainages, and tundra ecosystems on the edge of the Coastal Plain. The piece that emerged from these experiences is an illustrated, creative, non-fiction audio-essay about the Arctic Refuge.
Our “home” in a vast landscape. Field camp on the edge of the Brooks Range. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Biography
Tyra A. Olstad is a creative non-fiction writer, photographer, and illustrator, whose books and essays explore concepts such as sense of place, place-attachment, and wilderness (Zen of the Plains and Canyon, Mountain, Cloud). Her work is informed by her education as a geographer (BA in Anthropology, Earth Sciences, and Russian Language & Literature from Dartmouth College; MA in Geography and Environment & Natural Resources from the University of Wyoming; PhD in Geography from Kansas State University) and inspired by her time working as a park ranger, visitor services specialist, paleontology technician, and physical scientist at national parks, forests, and other public lands around Alaska, the Intermountain West, and Upstate New York. She currently lives in Fairbanks with her partner, Phil, and their Aussie, Taiga.
Flying over the Jago River on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain.
Want to do hands on field work? Share your enthusiasm for refuges with visitors? Be a campground host at a very lovely spot? Eight refuges have submitted their wish lists for volunteers and they are now posted on our Current Volunteer Opportunities webpage. Add some wildlife to your summer. Check them out, check your calendar and apply!
There are someintriguing multi week field projects including hare monitoring on Yukon Flats Refuge and biological monitoring and maintenance at Kanuti’s remote cabin. Both these will require some training so talk to them right away to arrange this. Izembek is looking forblack brant surveyteam members but this year they want two. Friends will pay airfare Anchorage to Cold Bay. And that always fun project ofbanding ducks at Tetlin Refugefor a week is back for a 5th year. Alaska Peninsula Refuge wants help with their visitor center and summer events for the whole summer but two people could split the summer. Airfare, food allowance and refuge housing are provided. Izembek also wants visitor services help but we don’t have money to cover airfare although lodging would be provided. Kenai Refuge needs a campground host at Hidden Lake.
One day or afternoon projectsinclude three big outreach events – theKachemak Bay Shorebird Festival,Seabird Festand theKenai Sports and Recreation Show; help with fencing the banks of the Kenai to prevent erosion during the salmon runs; and cleanups on the Alaska Maritime (April 19) and Kenai (date TBD).Friends cosponsors the Shorebird Festival, May 7 – 11 in Homer and volunteers are neededfor staffing the Friends Outreach Table and the Birder’s Coffee and for helping the refuge with Festival events. You can sign up for either or both Friends and refuge work. The Festival is our biggest project and traditionally our best source of new members and, it’s really fun! Come on down to Homer and help out. May 3 and 4 is the Kenai Sports and Recreation Show in Soldotna and May 30 – 31 is Seabird Fest in Seward. Friends are needed to help the refuges with activities and education at these events.
You can findall projects listedhereincluding who to talk to for more information.Applicationsare needed for most projects and you must be a member for most projects. You can join or renewhere. In addition, refuges with visitor centers – Kodiak, Kenai, Yukon Delta in Bethel, Alaska Peninsula in King Salmon and the Alaska Maritime in Homer can always use help. Contact those refuges if you live in the area.
Volunteering at the Friends Outreach Booth at the 2023 Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival. We need at least 25 volunteers to cover all 5 days of Festival events and outreach.
I was surprised we got as many projects as we did given the DOGE induced chaos at the refuges – uncertain job futures, stripped staff, credit card use suspended making acquiring field supplies impossible and no budget yet for this fiscal year. Should government uncertainties resolve, I think we would get some more projects so stay tuned to our volunteer current opportunities page.
Presented by Matt Conner, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Services Supervisor
This meeting was held on Tuesday, March 18, 5 pm Alaska Daylight Time
Soldotna – Matt Conner in person at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, Ski Hill Road. Reception follows talk. Homer – Watch Party at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterliing Hwy. Anchorage – Watch Party at REI Community Room, 500 E. Northern Lights Blvd. And Around the Country on Zoom
Matt Conner crossing Skilak Lake on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in his drift boat.
It is a stressful time. Many of us struggle with less than optimum health. Join Ranger Matt Conner of the Kenai Refuge as he describes how refuges can improve our mind, body, and spirit. Matt went through a personal transformation as the result of a health crisis and is now a certified personal trainer eager to incorporate health benefits in management activities. He was instrumental in adding outdoor exercise equipment to the Kenai Refuge Multi Use Trail with the exercises tied to animal adaptations so that wildlife appreciation and exercise can go hand in hand. Interpretive panels pair the unique abilities of Alaskan wildlife, like balance and core strength, with the same physiological traits in humans. Combining his passion for nature and wildlife and a new found love of fitness training, Matt brings these two themes together in his talk.
He will also discuss the importance of nature and refuges for both physical and mental health. He is knowledgeable in the research on the effects of nature on mental health. Learn about how refuges are a source for whole foods as well as a source for mental and spiritual connection.
Skilak Lookout Trail on the Kenai Refuge provides an aerobic workout as well as stunning views and wildlife watching opportunities.
Biography
It was all because his mom would not let him have a BB gun. That is why Matt said he got into the outdoor field. He was only allowed to have a bow and arrow. By age 13 he was competing on the national level in archery. A family friend took notice of his proficiency and invited him bow hunting starting a lifelong interest in hunting and the outdoors. Matt has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the human dimensions of forestry from the School of Forestry at Southern Illinois University. He worked at several national parks, the White River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas and the Fish and Wildlife Service Prairie Wetlands Learning Center before coming to the Kenai Refuge in 2014.
Three years ago a medical crisis changed his life. Matt utilized his scientific background to investigate the ideal lifestyle of exercise and diet to turn his health around. Along his journey he earned certifications as Personal Trainer, Nutritional Counselor and Correctional Exercise Therapy from the National Association of Sports Medicine. In addition to managing the large recreational program at the Kenai Refuge, Matt also works in his spare time as a personal trainer and volunteers at Central Peninsula Hospital in the Behavioral Health Division teaching group classes in fitness and nutrition. His life style changes have reversed his medical problems leaving him symptom free. He is a strong proponent of a healthy life style of which exercise and immersion in nature are key components.
Matt is an avid fly fisherman and hiker and loves to spend his falls harvesting free range protein by stick and string!!! (bow and arrow and fly rod). He lives in Soldotna with his wife and has two grown children.
Winter recreation offers serenity plus a good workout. Skiing across Dolly Varden Lake to the Dolly Varden public use cabin on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. pc. Lisa Hupp/USFWS
PC for lead photo: Joseph Robertia courtesy of the Redoubt Reporter
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