From: [email protected] Subject: Emergency Pilgrim Family Airlift Land Rights Network American Land Rights Association PO Box 400 – Battle Ground, WA 98604 Phone: 360-687-3087 – Fax: 360-687-2973 – E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] Web Address: http://www.landrights.org Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE – Washington, DC 20003 Phone: 202-210-2357 – Fax: 202-543-7126 – E-mail: [email protected] Emergency Pilgrim Family Airlift Your help is needed to get supplies to the Pilgrim Family. The Berlin Airlift in 1948 was America’s response to a totalitarian top down command and control regime that tried to starve out the citizens of Berlin after World War Two. The Soviets closed the roads, cut the rail road tracks and all other means of access. Heavily armed military guarded the access routes into Berlin. They could not shut down airplane flights. For many months America and other countries joined to keep a starving city alive and supplied with food, fuel and other materials. Now it is time for the citizens of America and especially Alaska to rise up again against a top down command and control heavy handed bureaucracy, the National Park Service, and keep the Pilgrim Family from being starved out in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve. As in Berlin, heavily armed Park Service personnel dressed like a swat team are preventing access for the Pilgrims. Access on a designated RS 2477 Right of Way that is also protected under the terms of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). The Pilgrim Family Airlift will take place Saturday and Sunday, October 11-12, weather permitting. Supplies including food, money, and materials must be gathered at three locations, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Glennallen-Copper Center by Thursday, October 9th. They will then be trucked to McCarthy. The Pilgrim Family Airlift will begin on Saturday, October 11th. Volunteer pilots are needed to ferry the flyable supplies into the Pilgrim Family Marvelous Millsite in upper McCarthy Creek Valley. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY AND WE CAN’T POSSIBLY GET ALL THE SUPPLIES THAT ARE NEEDED IN WITH THIS AIRLIFT. THAT CAN ONLY COME WITH THE PARK SERVICE COMING TO THEIR SENSES AND STOPPING THIS HEARTLESS WAR AGAINST THIS FAMILY. This is a massive effort to relieve a family in distress responding to a National Park Service-caused and instigated crisis. The crisis was made worse by the fact that the Pilgrims winterized home burned to the ground last spring with much of their winter supplies inside. This is a mother, father and 15 children so their needs are extraordinary. If they had not had to deal with Park Service harassment and its road blockade all summer they would be much farther along in taking care of themselves. Much of the material that is needed is not flyable and will have to be taken in some other way. If the Park Service continues their access blockade, we have a contingency plan in the works for Alaskans to attempt to take the required supplies in. An announcement will be made later about that plan. The central place for fuel, supplies, and food to be received and stockpiled for airlift to the Pilgrims at Marvelous Millsite in upper McCarthy Creek valley will be at the McCarthy B&B hanger on the McCarthy WEST airstrip located off the Mile 58.5 turnoff across from the National Park Service closed Kiosk. Donated supplies will be received there. Call John Adams at 554-4433 or 554-1133(cell) for more information. In McCarthy the local coordinator of Airlift logistics is: Laurie Rowland at 554-4498. When it comes time for an airlift flight to begin, the goods will be transferred by local volunteers in McCarthy across the foot bridge with four-wheelers and pickups to the McCarthy state airport. This will be an expensive rescue effort. Please do your part by sending a contribution for $25, $50, $75, $100, $500, $ 1,000 or whatever you can afford to the McCarthy-Kennicott Community Church or MKCC to meet some of the family’s immediate needs. Right now that is food, sleeping bags, fuel and feed for the animals. Make a notation on the check or money order that it is for the Pilgrim Fund. Mail to McCarthy-Kennicott Community Church, McCarthy #42, PO Box MXY, Glennallen, Alaska 99588. For more information, call Rick Kenyon, pastor (also the editor of the local Wrangell-St Elias News) at (907) 554-4454. When it comes time for an airlift flight to take off, the goods will be transferred by local volunteers in McCarthy across the foot bridge with four-wheelers and pickups to the McCarthy state airport. Flights by Wrangell Air, McCarthy Air and volunteer pilots will shuttle the supplies between the McCarthy State Airport and the Pilgrims (a 15 minute flight one way) as needed and as donations received for flight costs allow. McCarthy local residents and businesses have agreed to make space available for volunteer pilots to stay at no charge (must bring your own sleeping bags). The McCarthy-Kennicott Community Church has made its heated basement available as overflow if necessary. Presently, no other facilities are open for food and lodging. That may change if there is a massive outpouring of interest and participation. LOCAL COLLECTION POINTS – COORDINATORS Volunteers are needed to get the supplies by truck from some collection points to Copper Center or McCarthy. Please call Laurie Rowland at 554-4498 if you can help. Copper Center -- Please drop off donated goods at Copper Basin Assembly of God, Mile 112 Richardson Hwy. Call Clarence Catledge at (907) 822-5523. Glennallen - Please drop off donated goods at Glennallen Quick Stop Truck Stop (next to Homestead Supply) – Kathy Stratton (822-5545) Wasilla – Please drop off donated goods at home of Dan & Pat Sentz, 901 McAdoo Way, Wasilla (376-4574). Anchorage – Please drop off donated goods at 201 Barrow Street (RA Kreig & Associates), contact Mary Duville, 276-2025 Fairbanks – Materials, food, money and other supplies are to be dropped off at Summit Logistics, 3453 Truck St, Fairbanks, Alaska. The Coordinator is Warren Smith at (907) 456-3733. Drop off material between 8 and 5 weekdays. A volunteer is needed to truck the supplies to the Glennallen-Copper Center collection point where it will be trucked in to McCarthy and prepared for the flight in to the Pilgrim Family. Emergency Relief Supplies: (A larger list including construction supplies to winterize their living quarters is at www.landrights.org/ak We have attached a list of the items needed by the Pilgrim Family. Items must be on the following list to be brought in. See website for updates: www.landrights.org/ak Sleeping Bags (Go to –20% and if possible, zip together). Lewis Chain Saw Winch (essential for horses, wagon, logs, building, moving rock etc.) Food staples – beans, rice, flour, sugar, etc Dried Milk – Powdered or Liquid Boxed Milk. Non-perishable foods, meats etc. Cloth Diapers. Liquid Tide Soap. Material for winter women’s dresses. Good quality back packs for carrying supplies. Cross counrty work skis. Artic Coats (socks, gloves, snow suits for the little children). Winter Boots and Hiking Boots. Sizes 4,5,6,7,9,9,10,10, 11, 11, and 12. Dog Food (50 bags) Hay for the horses. Some hay is critical as the horses are declining. They are short of food. A total of 1,000 bales is needed for the winter. Axel for Track Machine (Bombadeer Type). Diesel Fuel and gas for generators, snow machines and tools. Chainsaws. First Aid Supplies. Fire Extinguishers. Thank you for any help you can give. Chuck Cushman PS. The airlift flights by themselves will be expensive. Please send your contribution for whatever you can afford to McCarthy-Kennicott Community Church, McCarthy #42, PO Box MXY, Glennallen, Alaska 99588. Be sure to mark your check “Pilgrim Fund.” For more information, call Rick Kenyon, pastor (also the editor of the local Wrangell-St Elias News) at (907) 554-4454. -- To unsubscribe from this mailing list; please visit http://governance.net and enter your email address.