By Poppy Benson, Vice President for Outreach
“As President, I saw that I could shape one of the most important outstanding questions that remained on the agenda of our country, and that was what to do with the massive amounts of land in Alaska.”
From a 6.15.17 interview in Alaska magazine
And he did. In “shaping . . . . the question” Carter sealed his legacy as the greatest conservation president since Teddy Roosevelt with more impact on Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges than even Roosevelt. Nine of our 16 refuges, Alaska Peninsula, Tetlin, Innoko, Becharof, Kanuti, Selawik, Yukon Flats, Nowitna and Koyukuk, owe their existence to President Jimmy Carter who died at age 100 on December 29. He was the driving force behind the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) which he signed as one of his last acts as president on December 2, 1980. The seven refuges that predate ANILCA, Alaska Maritime, Arctic, Kenai, Kodiak, Yukon Delta, Izembek and Togiak, were expanded, reconfigured and some renamed by the Act. In all, Carter added 54 million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System in Alaska tripling its size. Alaskan refuges now make up 80% of the terrestrial acres in the entire nation’s National Wildlife Refuge System.
Carter was no stranger to Alaska. He kept maps of Alaska in his office, visited many times, and was particularly fond of fly fishing. Carter has said his love of the outdoors came from hunting and fishing with his dad in rural Georgia and his sense of stewardship came from his church. PC White House Staff Photographers Collection.
All these new refuges also added diversity. Roosevelt designated the first refuges in Alaska in 1909 but they were small and coastal because the coast was where most of the exploration occurred. Subsequent refuges also bordered on the coast. However, six of the nine Carter refuges are interior refuges in the Yukon River watershed, rich in salmon, waterfowl, moose and furbearers with resources critical to the way of life of Yukon River people. Prior to Carter only two, the Yukon Delta and the Arctic refuges, were in the Yukon watershed, fourth largest watershed in North America. ANILCA also designated 13 wilderness areas and 7 wild and scenic rivers within the refuges. The Act also designated new national parks, monuments and wilderness areas within national forests and parks.
A key provision of ANILCA established rural subsistence as a purpose of all the refuges – new and existing except for Kenai Refuge – and this was at the direction of Carter. “That was a given, with Secretary Andrus and me from the very beginning, that the rights of Natives would be honored. It was a top priority,” Carter said in a 2017 interview. ANILCA acknowledged the importance of living off the land for rural Alaskans and the long cultural ties to the land of Alaska’s Native peoples by safeguarding subsistence rights.
President Carter’s defense of Alaska refuges continued throughout his life. He went to DC twice in the 1990s to convince Congressmen to defeat proposals to open the Arctic Refuge coastal plain to oil and gas drilling. As recently as 2022, at the age of 98, Carter filed a “Friend of the Court” brief ripping a court decision that approved a land swap in order to build a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Carter truly cared about Alaska wildlife refuges.
Rest in peace President Carter.
The Carters’ idea of a way to spend their 59th anniversary, fishing and birding on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. After speaking at the 25th Anniversary of ANILCA in Anchorage in 2005, Carter and wife Rosalynn stayed at a Skilak Lake lodge on an inholding in the Kenai Refuge. Kenai Ranger/Pilot Rick Johnston now retired, (center) and refuge volunteer Tom Griffiths (left) were flying the river on patrol when they stopped in to meet the Carters. Johnston described Carter as “kind, humble and curious.” Johnston speculates that Carter was the only president to have visited the Kenai Refuge.
PC: Kirk Hoessle/Alaska Wildland Adventures