NATIONAL
PARK SERVICE WAR IN THE WRANGELLS |
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TARGET: DOUG & JUDY FREDERICK |
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Wrangell-St.
Elias News |
NPS Persecution of Local
Landowners |
NABESNA AREA TRAILS BLOCKADED BY NPS
START HERE: Photo of Doug Frederick's trail protection demo that NPS insisted be called a "structure" or "bridge" for the purposes of inflaming the public and media against him and branding this upstanding citizen a criminal. The NPS used the same methods against Joshua and Joseph Pilgrim!
Briefing paper Maps: General area NPS Closure of Nabesna Area trails
DRAMATIS PERSONAE - Who committed this outrage against Doug and Judy Frederick?
EVENT CHRONOLOGY AND MEDIA LOG = listen to audio!
DATE | COMMENTS |
3/4/04 | Alaska Land Rights Coalition - COMMUNITY
INTERVENES TO PAY FINE OF MAN PERSECUTED BY PARK SERVICE AT SLANA FOR
TRAIL PROTECTION EXPERIMENT [Press Release] - Fairbanks – A petition
addressed to Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton, was presented to her
representative in Alaska, Cam Toohey at the annual meeting of the Alaska
Outdoor Council at Pike's Waterfront Lodge.
Related issues: PARK SERVICE ACTIONS SHUT OUT THE PUBLIC, WASTE TAX FUNDS AND DAMAGE THE ENVIRONMENT |
3&4 /04 |
Wrangell
St. Elias News - Community
intervenes to pay NPS fine Is Wrangell St. Elias National Park endangered? YES NO Editorial Cartoon - Department of Injustice ROW Meeting - NPS issues McCarthy Creek Access EA Letters to the Editor - |
2/19/04 |
MARY PEMBERTON - Anchorage Daily News - Associated
Press - Lodge
owner welcomes battle with National Park Service - "I was working with
the Park Service. Basically, they set me up," Frederick said.
"Somebody has to expose the Park Service. These people are clear out of
control." Frederick, 54, said his problems with the National Park Service
show an increasingly hostile attitude the agency is taking toward private
property owners inside the country's largest national park. "The
Park Service will do anything to get 'inholders' out," Frederick said.
"They don't want anybody living in their park." Despite
what many inholders think, park superintendent Gary Candelaria, said
the agency does not want to drive them out. "It is not our intent
to acquire the inholdings and move them out," he said. "None of
us, from myself down to the ranger, we don't like adversarial
relationships with our neighbors. We're just folks, too."
ALRA Comment: Yeah, but you have a big budget and dozens of
lawyers!
Frederick's attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, said the pallets were no more construction than somebody setting up a tent. If the Park Service didn't like the pallets, all they had to do was to ask Frederick to remove them. Ray Kreig, vice chairman of the Alaska Land Rights Coalition, a group that is fighting for inholders, said the Park Service is trying to undo rights guaranteed under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. Kreig said Alaska's national parks are increasingly being controlled by park supervisors with a Lower 48 park management mentality. "They want a green wall around the park that nobody can go in unless they're healthy hikers," Kreig said. "Our parks were supposed to be different." OTHER OUTLETS: San Francisco Chronicle (2/17) ; Juneau Empire (2/17) ; Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (2/17) |
2/8/04 | Anchorage Daily News - Slana resident ordered to pay $500 for putting bridges on [deteriorating] park trail - was ordered to pay $500 for the misdemeanor. Doug Frederick, who owns the Sportsman Paradise Lodge on Nabesna Road, said his case should never have gone to court and blamed it on an overzealous National Park Service, which issued the citation...residents including Frederick volunteered to help fix a trail damaged by ATV use after the Park Service held a meeting about the trail in July 2002. [They] put together wooden pallets...on damaged parts of the trail as an example of possible solutions...But the Park Service considered the pallets illegal structures...Frederick and [his attorney Wayne] Ross said they plan to appeal the magistrate's ruling. |
2/6/04 | Federal District Court (Magistrate
John Roberts) -
Sentencing hearing -
Wayne Ross (attorney for Doug Frederick): In the old days we picked
up hitchhikers because we looked out for folks ; we can't do so much any
more because when we try to help people, sometimes we get mugged. I
see that situation here. The NPS was duplicitous in this case.
Mr. Frederick, like picking up a hitchhiker, he got mugged. I am
taking the appeal of this case PRO BONO because...what the NPS has done is not correct, not credible, not honest.
MAGISTRATE
ROBERTS ABSOLVES THE NPS OF ANY ROLE IN TONYA FREDERICK's
DEATH
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1/12/04 | NICOLE TSONG - Anchorage Daily News - Judge
upholds trail upgrades citation - UNAUTHORIZED: Slana man's attempt to
bridge wet areas in national park may result in fine - Slana resident Doug
Frederick thought putting down wooden pallets on a deteriorating trail in
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to keep it open was a sensible solution
for him, other trail users and the National Park Service. The Park Service
didn't agree [and] cited Frederick in June for putting bridges in the park
without a permit...U.S. District Magistrate John Roberts sided with the
government...Residents volunteered to help fix it...Frederick and some
other residents put together wooden pallets around May to cover wet areas,
as an example of possible solutions...the wooden pallets were not
structures...rangers gave the impression that they wanted help fixing the
trail...the Park Service said the judge reached the appropriate
conclusion.
But Frederick...said he would have removed the pallets if asked. "How the judge could even remotely think I was guilty is way beyond me," he said. And the trial has been devastating to him personally. His 21-year-old daughter died in a car accident while returning his truck to him because he needed to get to Anchorage to deal with his court case. "This has cost me everything I had," said Frederick, 54. Jim Stratton, Alaska regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, is sympathetic with Frederick's desire to have better access. The government works slowly, he said. But "it's a national park," he said. "We need to treat that land differently." |
1/6/04 | FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT DECISION - Magistrate John D. Roberts - Doug Frederick guilty of building "structures" in park! |
1&2/04 | Wrangell
St. Elias News - Kurt Stenehjem - Doug
Frederick’s day in court -
What cost “justice?” - The Park Service told Mr. Frederick that they did not have money for trail repair. Actually, during the summer of 2002 the NPS Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program was the recipient of a $30,000 grant from the State Recreation Trail Grant program. Incredibly, they elected to spend the money on a trail 30 miles outside the park, on BLM land. Yet the NPS had money to prosecute Mr. Frederick....So, over $40,000 dollars later, the trails are exactly as they were when this whole thing started. We now know the cost. On a cost-benefit analysis, what was the benefit? Was it necessary for the Park Service to take this course to stop Mr. Frederick? We will never know because they tried no other means; no telephone call, no letter, no nothing. According to Mr. Frederick a phone call would have been plenty. Is there a pattern? - Individuals like Mr. Frederick actually become tools in the hands of the Park Service. Regardless of how this trial turns out, whether he is found guilty or innocent, the Park Service wins. They have exerted tremendous pain and suffering on Doug and communicated loud and clear to all those watching that they are a force to be reckoned with. Every one on their team goes home, well paid, and never inconvenienced. Mr. Frederick however has suffered incalculable costs. |
8/11/02 | On Sunday morning, two Park Service rangers banged on Doug Frederick's Sportsmen's Paradise Lodge (a public place) stepped away and waited for him to come out. They said that they were delivering to him personally the notice that the trails were closed, The Notice of Route Closure is for 1,000 feet each side of these trails to All ORV/ATV users, including both Subsistence and Recreational Users. Frederick stated that he needed to get supplies to his caretaker at his Copper Lake inholding. The rangers told him that he would have to find a different way. Frederick stated that there is no other route and that he has been going that way for 35/40 years, first with track rig and now ATV. They told him they would issue citations if he used these trails. |
8/8/02 | Gary Candelaria and Hunter Sharp contact Doug Frederick to meet with them at the Slana ranger station. Ole Bates and Thumper Williamson come with Doug. When the three showed up, Candelaria and Sharp would not let Ole or Thumper into the meeting. |
7/24/02 | National Park Service holds meeting (with very
little notice) about what to do about the trail. Eighty-five people showed
up and recommended that the Park Service shut down the impassable original
trail and work on the higher ground trail. Also included is a trail that
extends from Doug Frederick's Sportsmen's Paradise Lodge on the Nabesna
Road to Jack Lake that people have been using since the late 30's. The
Park Service never designated this trail because the trail head originates
on Frederick's private property but nevertheless told users that since
Frederick's Lodge was a public accommodation that the users could go
through the Frederick property to access Jack Lake. The Fredericks
had no objection to that.
See article: Rick Kenyon - Nabesna ATV trails closed - Wrangell St. Elias News - NPS accused of pandering, harassment - The NPS had announced that several ATV trails in the area were causing ecological damage to the parklands, and they were considering closing these trails. Trail users said the trails had been used for years, long before the area became a national park, so instead of closing them, how about we just fix them up a bit?...Although many people at the Slana meeting testified against the trail closures, and no one spoke in favor of them, it seemed to have little effect on the outcome. According to those present, anger and dismay grew more evident as the evening progressed. Most people called for increased access into the Park, not less, lamenting that in the 13 million acre park there is very little road access. Many accused the NPS of pandering to outside interests instead of listening to the local subsistence users. Frederick and [former State Legislator Dick] Shultz tried to partnership with the NPS. They proposed that the NPS provide materials to stabilize some of the trails, and that locals would volunteer their time for the improvements. Sorry, said Chief Ranger Hunter Sharp, no money in the budget for that sort of thing. Chief Ranger Hunter Sharp threatens Doug Frederick : Sharp:
Mr Frederick, you scare me |
early 8/01 | NPS Rangers Marshall Neeck and Hunter Sharp meet with Doug Frederick about the trail. It was discussed to have a better trail to Tanada Lake. They asked if Frederick would go with them and look at a better trail. He agreed and we went out in early Oct. He asked them for supplies to place on the places where it could turn into a bog hole. Ranger Neeck said that he would get back with Frederick which he never did. |
7/7/01 | Frederick reports that on this day that his father passed away, he was over at Copper Lake with his wife, a Doyon shareholder, and a couple friends. The Park Service followed them with an airplane for the whole 5 hour trip coming out. Frederick says the other trails in this area are being tore up because the National Park Service will not let us fix them and they will not consult the people that use these trails. He feels the Park Service is trying to force him into becoming a so-called "willing seller". He says they are only shutting down trails (in good condition) that affect him and not the trails heavily used by others that are being badly torn up. Frederick insists he is not a "willing seller". This is where he and Judy want to live! |
1988 | Runway washed out at Richard Frederick's Copper Lake inholding. NPS refused to allow repairs. |
1967 | Doug Frederick helped his folks build the Sportsman's Paradise Lodge on the Nabesna Road. It opened in 1969. |
1950's | Fredrick family begins to use an overland route to haul freight, supplies and materials to Copper Lake. In the late 60's started using a route that went around Tanada Lake and over to Copper Lake. |
1949 | Doug Frederick first comes to the area. |
Late 1940's | The trail that goes to Tanada Lake was built by track rigs. This is now (in 2004) the designated Park trail. This trail is in the swamp and is impassable. The Fredericks have been using the high ground all these years. In 2002 several subsistence users started using this higher trail to access Tanada and Copper Lakes. |
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