NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
WAR IN THE WRANGELLS
TARGET:
PILGRIM FAMILY

MORE: PRESS PHOTO!
Wrangell-St. Elias News

 Wrangell-St. Elias News-Gary Green

MEDIA LOG & MAJOR EVENTS  = listen to audio!

DATE COMMENTS                       

1/5/15 NOTE:  Many links have now decayed.  Time permitting, we are going through and trying to recover them.  We have reworked the parts of the page in yellow.  [dead, unrecoverable links are in brackets]
12/12/03 More recent after this date 
11/30/03 Craig Medred - Anchorage Daily News - Hales wear Pilgrim mask to take from, not give to, Alaska - WARNING:  EXTREME MEDIA BIAS - ALRA COMMENT: Includes our  side-by-side correction of Medred's lies and misrepresentations, many of which he has repeated from previous media reports.  He's added his own and supercharged them with a disgraceful diatribe against the victim of NPS misconduct, the Pilgrim family, while avoiding the real issue -- NPS STRANGULATION OF ACCESS IN RURAL ALASKA!  The side-by-side will be a useful talking point reference for any discussion of this issue but also media professionalism and bias against rural residents.  

11/03

 Steve Borell - Alaska Miner - Issues update [significance of the Pilgrim access issue] - After more than two decades of problems for Alaskans, a situation has arisen that may provide opportunity to establish important case law regarding access to inholdings within Conservation System Units. Pacific Legal Foundation on November 3, 2003 filed a lawsuit against the federal government...the heavy-handed actions by the NPS have provided an opportunity to bring a suit on the issue. PLF looks for situations to protect private property rights and the facts of this case appear to be clear and strong enough to establish precedent for inholders, both under the promises of ANILCA and under Revised Statute 2477...Over the past several months it has become apparent that the NPS and USF&WS have been slowly (?) and deliberately changing their policies and requirements, continually adding further restrictions and hurdles for people wanting access to inholdings. The Pilgrim access issue has brought out many individuals that have been harassed by these agencies but previously thought they were alone in their problems.
11/27/03 Blaine Harden - Washington Post - Land-Rights Dispute Continues in Alaska - Man Who Bulldozed Road Is Still at Odds With Park Service - The curious case of Papa Pilgrim and the bulldozer he drove inside the largest U.S. national park continues to lurch across the legal and environmental landscape of Alaska...Pilgrim's self-assigned road repair infuriated the National Park Service, which quickly closed the freshly cleared track. That infuriated land-rights activists, who have embraced Pilgrim and his family as photogenic victims of federal bullying. And that infuriated national environmental groups, which are demanding that the Park Service enforce laws against impetuous bulldozing.  Similar:  Seattle Times  

11/26/03
   		 
Pacific Legal Foundation files Motion for Reconsideration of Judge Beistline's denial of emergency access for Pilgrim Family.
  
11/26/03 PAULA DOBBYN - Anchorage Daily News - National parks rake in big bucks - ALASKA: Outdoor playgrounds pull $100 million into state economy - Creating the national park system was the best idea America has ever had, said Stratton, quoting acclaimed author Wallace Stegner. But parks need to be funded better. Although Alaska has more national park land than any other state, it gets only about 3 percent of National Park Service funding, Stratton said.  "We're always in a deficit mode," said Marcia Blaszak, the agency's acting regional director in Alaska.  ALRA COMMENT:  The NPS-NPCA PR spin campaign to counter the Park Service public relations disaster is in high gear.  When you have just wasted $400,000 in the McCarthy Creek valley trumping up false charges against the Pilgrims and closed a visitor center because Madame Blaszak couldn't find $20,000 what does she do?  CLAIM POVERTY!
11/21/03 Tom Tierney - KBYR 800AM - Ray Kreig interview [15:12 min] - Alaska ANILCA access problems; Pilgrim case decision; new Alaska Land Rights Coalition - Access Project.
11/21/03 Anchorage Daily News [Opinion] - Pilgrims' progress - Judge's commonsense advice offers some useful guidance.
11/20/03 Peter Dunlap-Shohl - Anchorage Daily News [political cartoon] - Once more, from the top, this time with a little less feeling...[on music:  Pilgrim Permit Concerto - "Dueling Bozos"]
 

11/19/03

TOM KIZZIA - Anchorage Daily News - Pilgrims need permit to drive bulldozer on road - WRANGELL-ST. ELIAS: Federal judge urges family, Park Service to get along - U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline said legal precedents make it clear the government has a right to regulate access through Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, even where some kind of access is guaranteed by law. He urged the Pilgrims to apply for park permits to reach their homestead and return to court if they are unhappy with the outcome...  The Pilgrims got a boost from state officials Tuesday, even as they were losing in federal court. The state Department of Natural Resources said it does not consider McCarthy Creek to be an anadromous stream, despite a recent Park Service effort that turned up some Dolly Varden, including one that appeared to come from the sea. Unless that changes, the Pilgrims won't need to get stream-crossing permits from the state as part of the national park permit process, Tranel said.
11/19/03 RACHEL D'ORO - Juneau Empire (AP) - Judge denies Pilgrim family access - "This is just round one of a 15-round bout," he said. "We'd have liked a technical knockout in the first round, but we're just getting warmed up."  Full AP wire story ; also in Fairbanks News-Miner  

11/18/03

ALRA - Judge Beistline Says No To Pilgrims Emergency Access - "This is a like a 10 round fight," said Chuck Cushman, Executive Director of the American Land Rights Association that has been helping the Pilgrims gain access to their home. "Today we won one round when the State ruled that there is no permit required to cross McCarthy Creek as the McCarthy-Green Butte Road criss-crosses the stream 13 times. But we at least temporarily lost the fight for emergency access."  BEISTLINE DECISION  

11/18/03

 JOEL GAY - Anchorage Daily News - Pilgrims ask judge to OK road access - MCCARTHY: Family wants to haul supplies with bulldozer - Land rights activists believe the judge's opinion could liberalize access across protected public lands, something they say was guaranteed by Congress but has been stifled by agencies like the National Park Service.  "It's the case which is going to determine whether the compromises Alaskans agreed to in ANILCA are anything other than hollow words," said Ray Kreig of the Kantishna Inholders Association.  On the other side, lawyers for the Park Service and environmental groups say the judge must uphold the government's authority to limit access if necessary to protect natural resources. "If (the Pilgrim family) wins, who will be in charge of our national parks?" Bob Randall of Trustees for Alaska, an intervenor in the case, said in an interview....Joshua Hale, 23, said the family has food and a warm building after the airlift this fall. No one will die if the bulldozer use is denied, he said, but it will be a wasted winter.  "We'll spend the entire winter getting supplies, food and building materials instead of building a new house, shop, storage and bathhouse," he said. But, he added, "they're not going to run us out."

11/18/03

 MARY PEMBERTON - Juneau Empire (AP) - Judge hears arguments in Pilgrim family's case against Park Service - Family suing to get access to home inside Wrangell-St. Elias park - "The only reasonable and adequate access for the Pilgrims has been denied," said plaintiffs' lawyer Russell C. Brooks, at a hearing in U.S. District Court. "The Pilgrims are seeking to use a road."...A letter to the judge written by Nava Sunstar, also known as Joseph Hale, said temperatures on Saturday reached 31 degrees below zero.  "Windows need replacing, ceiling and floors need insulation badly, stove oil is needed for the heaters, fish and meat are needed to come home and hay and feed for the animals," the letter said. "We need your help and mercy your honor the judge."...  Joshua Pilgrim said despite the hardships the family won't give up.  "The Park Service will never drive us out," he said.  Seattle Times
11/18/03 KTUU Anchorage Channel 2 - Ruling due Tuesday on Pilgrims vs. Park Service - "The Park Service doesn't have authority to deny the Pilgrims their reasonable access," says Russ Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation. "And in this case they're trying to do that through a permitting process."
11/18/03 Jill Burke - KTVA Anchorage Channel 11 - Family Battles Feds for Land Access - 
Without immediate access, the Pilgrim's say they'll be forced to spend the winter hauling in goods instead of dealing with larger-scale needs...a situation they say isn't reasonable at all. [They] will be delayed an entire season if they are forced to haul in supplies one small load at a time. It's not fair, nor reasonable...to put their life on hold in that way.

11/17/03 		Hale v. Norton hearing in Anchorage before Judge Beistline requesting Temporary Restraining Order against NPS to stop blockade of Pilgrim home access.


11/15/03

 		PAULA EASLEY [COMMENT] - Anchorage Daily News - If Pilgrims lose land to park, we all do - 75 people gathered in Glennallen for a meeting of Residents of the Wrangells to pursue solutions to "access and other problems continuously encountered with the National Park Service."...Concerns included excessive shows of force and weaponry, selective enforcement of regulations, threats of extreme access fees, apparently illegal trail (road) closures, misuse of agency funds, disagreements over traditional uses, and more..."It's a police state when the Park Service won't say what the rules are until you break them," a meeting participant said...When park employees and their environmental allies continue to mislead the public with inflammatory wording as the Pilgrims "bladed a swath across park land to establish a road," they do not tell the truth...The Park Service desperately wants the Pilgrims' 410 acres, but it can be patient. Its employees have nothing but time and nothing to lose. With endless studies, litigation, fines, fee assessments and other delay tactics in its toolbox, the agency can easily wear the Pilgrims down and ultimately nationalize their land. Mark my words: Without a "Come to Jesus" intervention, the Park Service won't back down. Like the Pilgrims or not, if they lose their land, other property owners face some very bad times, and most know it.


11/11/03

 		Norm Bomer - God's World News TOP STORY - Big Government and Little Pilgrims [Warning 685k PDF] -  [for children Grades 6-9; EDITORIAL] - Federal park officials ... spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars investigating the Pilgrims.  "We have had it" says chief ranger Hunter Sharp.  "We are not going to back off. We represent the people of the United States. The Pilgrims are cantankerous and possibly dangerous."  "False", says Rick Kenyon, editor of the Wrangell St. Elias News.  "These folks are a law-abiding, God-fearing family, loving, caring people who have been a real blessing to their neighbors."... Do park officials really “represent the people of the United States” as chief ranger Sharp claims?  Or do they represent big government bureaucrats with too much power?  [Question for the children:] What do you think is the real reason park officials closed the McCarthy Creek road?  DEFINE LINE: Which meaning best fits its use in the story? 1. cantankerous a) disobedient b) violent c) feisty.   Used by permission of God's World News.  
11/6/03 Erich Veyhl - Capitalism Magazine - How the National Park Service Treats Alaskans - The Pacific Legal Foundation, a prominent constitutional public interest law firm, has sued the Federal government over its denial of a family's only access road to its property trapped inside the Wrangell-St. Elias Park in Alaska. The National Park Service has been bullying this family for most of the year, refusing to allow it access over an existing right of way. The Bush Administration has so far refused to intervene and reign in the agency. This case is typical of National Park Service behavior and should be a clear warning against this agency's presence anywhere.
11/4/03 [PRESS RELEASE] Conservation Groups Intervene to Protect Alaska's National Parks - The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), Alaska Center for the Environment (ACE), and The Wilderness Society (TWS) today came to the defense of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska, intervening on behalf of the National Park Service in a lawsuit filed by a family who have illegally bulldozed a road through the park. The conservation groups are represented in the case by Trustees for Alaska.
11/4/03 Audrey Hudson - Washington Times - Family battles U.S. over road - The Pacific Legal Foundation, in a lawsuit filed yesterday, accused the National Park Service of trying to force a family to abandon its Alaska ranch, which is surrounded by federally owned property, by closing a mining road in violation of state and federal laws.  "The Park Service wants to starve out and crush the Pilgrim family," said Russ Brooks, managing lawyer for the PLF...Brooks said the timing of the closure "is not a coincidence.  It's a federal land grab...They don't want people living in national parks, this is their own personal brand of religion where they worship trees"...The Park Service conducted a survey of potential environmental damage that critics said cost the government $350,000 and caused more damage than the bulldozer. "They are wasting and destroying the environment to crush this family," said Mike Hardiman, spokesman for the American Land Rights Association. 
11/4/03 TOM KIZZIA - Anchorage Daily News - Law firm sues for family to get access to McCarthy-area land - Feds say laws require Pilgrims to go through public process - 
Pilgrim lawyers argued that access should be guaranteed under the Alaska National Interest Lands and Conservation Act of 1980, which created the Wrangell-St. Elias park and guaranteed "adequate and feasible" access to inholders. They say the Park Service has gone beyond "reasonable regulation" in preventing the Pilgrims from using their bulldozer. No environmental studies should be necessary, they said.
11/4/03 DAN JOLING, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – [Legal group sues to open park road] - A legal foundation has sued the National Park Service on behalf of a family that wants road access to its backcountry property within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.  Also abbreviated in the Juneau Empire. 
11/3/03 Jason Moore - KTUU Channel 2 Anchorage - [Land-use lawyers back Pilgrim lawsuit against Park Service] - A public interest law firm has joined the "Pilgrim" family in its battle with the National Park Service - Groups such as the American Land Rights Association claim the Park Service is simply trying to force in-holders out.  "This macho, aggressive, militaristic attitude of the Park Service is why people all over Alaska are angry at the National Park Service," says Mike Hardiman of the association.  
11/3/03 Alaska Public Radio Network - Lori Townsend - PLF Sues NPS for Pilgrim access - We have EXTREMELY STRONG arguments and we're confident we WILL bring the Park Service to their knees and make them do the right thing!  (Russell Brooks, Pacific Legal Foundation attorney) 
11/3/03 ALRA ALERT - PARK SERVICE ACTIONS: Shut Out The Public, Waste Tax Funds, Destroy the Environment - Pilgrim's Access Battle Gains National Support

11/3/03
   		 
Pacific Legal Foundation Sues Park Service to Break Blockade on Pilgrim Family’s Only Access Road to their Home!   Hale v. Norton will go down in history as the line in the sand against NPS oppression of park visitors and local residents.
 
11&12
/03

 

issue cover

Wrangell St. Elias News - An Angel Falls to Heaven - by Kurt Stenehjem - Excerpts from a book in progress being written about his supply flights into Hillbilly Heaven, his week with the Pilgrims after his crash, his time in McCarthy waiting to recover the wreckage and his musings and observations of the family and the conflict.  ROW inter-community meeting - by Susan Smith - The Residents Of the Wrangells (ROW) held their third meeting at the Caribou Restaurant Banquet Room on October 25 at 2:00 p.m. Seventy-five people from across the community, state, and country met to discuss access and other problems encountered with state and federal agencies, the National Park Service (NPS) in particular, within the Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST).  Pilgrim Family airlift news - by Laurie Rowland, Local Airlift Coordinator - I am happy to report that the Pilgrim Family Airlift has been a “flying success!” To date, we have had four volunteer drivers and eight volunteer pilots who have ferried at least 51 plane-loads of supplies to Hillbilly Heaven, the Pilgrims’ home.  Want to go home? Just get a permit! - When the Pilgrim family found the only ground access to their home “closed to all motorized vehicles” by the park service, they were told they needed a permit. (Although the notice posted by the National Park Service said the route was an “illegal route” and was “closed to motorized vehicles,” NPS later said the route was not closed to motorized vehicles—only to the Pilgrims. Others who were local residents were free to travel in pursuit of subsistence activities.)  State officials were only mildly supportive of the Pilgrim’s right of access. Bob Loeffler, Director of the Alaska Division of Mining, Land & Water said, “Since...the park service appears willing to give a permit, we recommend people just go ahead and deal with the Park Service and get on with their life.”  ALRA Comment:  Easier said then done Bob, Would you like to apply for such a permit?  Customary & Traditional access in WRST—a primer   FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION - An airplane is an airplane - By Father J. Michael Hornick, J.C.L. - In the late 1980's Senator Stevens carried on considerable negotiations with Federal managers over several aviation issues. Federal managers refused to recognize helicopters as having been included in ANILCA’s term “airplanes;” and aircraft access was being managed too restively.     
10/28/03 Dan Bross - Alaska Edition, KUAC-FM Fairbanks - [Susan Smith, Chairman of Residents of the Wrangells (R.O.W.)] not recoverable from KUAC - PILGRIM FAMILY - The Pilgrim family’s access battle with the Wrangell St. Elias National Park Service Officials has inspired formation of a new citizens rights group in the Copper Valley.
10/22/03 Alaska Public Radio Network - Gabriel Spitzer - Glennallen mass meeting ;  "Controversial" Chuck Cushman comes to Alaska.   
10/21/03 Meg McKinney - KCHU Valdez - Glennallen - McCarthy - Coffee Break program -  Mass meeting in Glennallen to form Residents of the Wrangells - Susan Smith, Rick & Bonnie Kenyon - [52 min]  VERY IMPORTANT!!!  PLEASE ATTEND:  Saturday, October 25th,  2PM at The Caribou Restaurant Banquet Room in Glennallen.        MEETING NOTICE  -- WSEN Report on the meeting     
10/16/03 Tom Kizzia - Anchorage Daily News - Plane crashes during airlift for Pilgrims
PILOT OK: Volunteer effort continues; new complaints surface - Volunteer pilot Kurt Stenehjem, 52, walked away from his Cessna 180, which crashed Friday on a remote gravel airstrip while landing with supplies for the Pilgrims, the controversial family locked in an access dispute with the National Park Service.  

Stenehjem stayed on to help with the airlift even after the wreck of his $100,000 plane. Chuck Cushman [ALRA], which has likened the effort to the Berlin Airlift of 1948, called Stenehjem an "airlift hero."  "What frustrates me the most is I am grounded and I can't fly this mission of support," Stenehjem told The Associated Press.

Organizers say more than 40 flights have been made so far, shuttling food and winter gear 14 miles from the settlement of McCarthy. The flights could continue for weeks, they say.
 10/15/03 Meg McKinney -KCHU Valdez - Glennallen - McCarthy - Coffee Break program -   Interview with Park Superintendent Gary Candelaria - Candelaria claims that no one had access to isolated homesites, homesteads, and patented mining claims before the parks were created unless they were already touching a state highway!! 
10/13/03 ALRA ALERT - Pilgrim Airlift Plane Crashes – Airlift Continues - A humanitarian flight to help save the Pilgrim family from the Winter elements in Alaska, and overcome the Park Service access blockade, crashed on Friday, October 10th. The Pilot walked away but the plane was a total loss.  The Pilot, airlift hero Kurt Stenehjem, was so supportive even after the accident that he tried to console local McCarthy airlift volunteers and the Pilgrim family who were so saddened and upset by his loss.  Everyone connected with the airlift suggested immediately that this accident was completely unnecessary and was a direct result of the Park Service denial of ground access.

10/12/03

 Tom Kizzia - Anchorage Daily News - Supporters fly in food and supplies for Pilgrims   7/12/13 reprint   - Pilots reach family locked in dispute with National Park Service - "The response has been overwhelming here in the valley," said Lee Adler...There's a lot of stuff waiting on both sides of the river and even more in Glennallen"...

The American Land Rights Association, is calling the Park Service's road closure a "blockade" and likening the effort to the Berlin Airlift of 1948, when President Truman ordered planes to carry supplies after the German city was cut off by Soviet troops.  "If Alaskans -- both rural and urban -- don't rally now to stop this agency in McCarthy, large parts of our state will be next for the Green Iron Curtain of Exclusion"...

Park officials say they have spent more than $250,000 investigating damage and preparing a civil case against the Pilgrims...The Pilgrims' plight is drawing national attention and financial contributions, though these would barely be enough to cover costs of the airlift, said Rick Kenyon, a McCarthy pastor and newspaper publisher.  "They're wonderful, loving people who I find to have a high degree of integrity," he said. "We're helping them because they're American citizens wronged by their government."...

Pilgrim...express[ed] misgivings..."It's pretty rotten that we're having to go to this much trouble," he said. "People are risking their lives" because of the park's intransigence.  

10/10/03 Alaska Public Radio Network - Gabriel Spitzer - Pilgrim Airlift (Interviews Lee Adler, Ray Kreig, Rick Kenyon) - This is a very important line in the sand for access across the state + Steve Heimel - RS2477 Assertions - Draft MOU from State of Alaska to Sec. of the Interior Gale Norton.

10/10/03
 		MIKE CHAMBERS - Juneau Empire - Airlift supplies family fighting Park Service - Park Service closed road that allows family of 17 to get supplies to cabin in national preserve - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - CARRIED AROUND THE WORLD! - CNN International - [Guardian (London, UK)] - ABC News - [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] - OTHERS LISTED BELOW

Volunteer pilots have begun flying winter supplies to a family in Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve that is embroiled in a fight with the National Park Service...Pilgrim accused the Park Service of trying to starve his family out, but said they are resolved to stay.  "I just trust before this is all over, we will all be on the same side and we are going to see the needs of people, and the basis of it all is to love each other," Pilgrim said...They drove the bulldozer along an old 14-mile mining road, sometimes with the blade up and sometimes down, carving a way through the overgrowth...Pilgrim has tried since June 17 to get permission to use the road, said attorney J.P. Tangen.  

OTHER OUTLETS:  San Francisco Chronicle ; SignOn San Diego ; New Jersey Online ; Seattle Times ; Philadelphia ; Myrtle Beach ; Dayton ; Oregon online ; Macon ; Herald Sun (North Carolina) ; CBS National News ; Penn State News ; Tallahassee ; Minneapolis ; Newsday ; TimesLeader ; Monterey Herald ; KDKA PA ; Star-Telegram ; Aberdeen News, South Dakota ; Bradenton ; San Luis Obispo ; Duluth ; Twin Cities ; Kentucky ; [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]  
10/7/03 Joyce Morrison - The Illinois Leader - Is there no compassion? [OPINION] - The Pilgrim family is being pressured to leave their home located in Alaska's Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve - Fifteen children and their parents isolated with no way of receiving supplies except by air. They and their animals are at risk of starving and freezing this winter if help does not arrive. A militant government regime has them blockaded with no way in or out.... Their home has been burned.... With winter coming on they are desperately in need of supplies. This is not a headline from a foreign country. This is a Christian family living in Alaska - with the last name, appropriately enough, "Pilgrim."   ALRA Comment:  Their home burned from natural causes, not government action.
10/7/03 Dan Bross - Alaska Edition, KUAC-FM Fairbanks - [Gary Candelaria interview] not recoverable from KUAC - PILGRIM FAMILY - Property Rights activists from across the country are rallying to the cause of the Pilgrim family in Wrangell Saint Elias National Park.  Park superintendent talks about the ongoing battle over access in the Park.
10/6/03 Tom Kizzia - Anchorage Daily News - Papa's passage - A long-ago tragedy, fed-up neighbors, and a mysterious blue Chevy Corvette - [NPS refuses emergency access] - The Pilgrims' political allies reacted angrily, calling the park's response a clear effort to stall and lock the family out..."We're getting ready for a nationwide culture war," said Chuck Cushman...the Pilgrims were being "crucified because they are different."  ...Ray Kreig called the wait-for-freeze-up request exasperating since most of the route is over gravel, not delicate tundra. "They need to get materials in to rebuild the cabin that burned down," he said. "Are they supposed to wait until January and do construction at minus-30?"..."When their cabin burned, if they came to us the next day, jeez Louise, we would have probably flown stuff out to them ourselves," [Superintendent Gary] Candelaria said.  ALRA:  So what's stopping you now Gary, are you going to join the Airlift?
10/5/03 Alaska Public Radio Network - Gabriel Spitzer - Pilgrim Airlift (Ray Kreig)
10/5/03 Tom Kizzia - Anchorage Daily News - Pilgrims vs. Park Service - High in the Wrangell Mountains, an unusual family takes on the feds.  View a Pilgrim family photo gallery.  See and hear the Pilgrims playing their music at home (Flash player required) by pressing link at top of the photo gallery page.
10/3/03 Meg McKinney - KCHU (Valdez, Glennallen) - NPS park superintendent Gary Candelaria interview - Example where Park Service exempts themselves from the very same draconian environmental regulations they inflict on private landowners who try to exercise their access rights. [At 11:45 minutes] Superintendent Candelaria states they gave themselves a National Environmental Policy Act Categorical Exclusion for their own activities when they did unnecessary extensive damage to natural vegetation in the McCarthy Creek valley from a property boundary survey cutline. They won't give a CE to the Pilgrim family for their inconsequential traverse of a 100 year only mining road. For that they get sued.   
9/29/03
 		BBC Radio Five - Anita Anand - Interviews Rick Kenyon WSEN News on the Pilgrim access situation -  ALRA comment:  Of dozens of media interviews on the NPS blockade of the Pilgrims' access, most were extremely biased, inaccurate and misleading.  But not this BBC interview.  It was one of the best, most accurate and very fair.   
9/18/03 ALRA ALERT - Park Service Starving Pilgrim Family Out - Family winter quarters burned; very short of winter provisions.  Local churches are gearing up because the Park Service has thrown every barrier possible in the way of the Pilgrims getting in their own supplies.
9/18/03 Meeting in Cam Toohey's office of JP Tangen (attorney for Pilgrims); Ray Kreig and Lee Ann Gerhart (attending at request of Pilgrims); Cam Toohey - Special Assistant for Alaska to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton; Marcia Blaszak - Acting NPS regional director; Gary Candelaria - WRST Superintendent; Chris Bockmon - Staff Attorney - Office of Regional Solicitor.  Short result of the meeting:  Basically the Pilgrims emergency access application will be denied or effectively frustrated to uselessness through delay and procrastination by NPS and they have nothing realistic in the way of a solution to offer.  Blaszak - We'd love to help; we've thought about this morning noon and night and even in our sleep to come up with a way to help but we just can't, "our hands are tied." We can't see any way around the NEPA process. "This would be a NEW USE since the beginning of the park!" It has to go through an EA and probably an EIS. They have to wait until winter snow cover (after Dec, Jan) unless they use only non-motorized methods.   Candelaria - Let them fly their stuff in. They have an airport. Others are doing it.  They can use horses.  Seven environmental groups had met with the NPS at the NPS headquarters a few days before this meeting on the Pilgrim request.  Pilgrim reports that the horses need feed, are looking "poorly". They have slaughtered a third goat because of dwindling goat feed. They are disheartened and worried.
9/15/03 ALRA ALERT - Park Service Attacks Pilgrim Family - NPS is carrying out a culture war on rural America.  Park Service rangers dressed like they were going to parachute into Iraq including automatic weapons and shotguns.  Is this the Park Service good neighbor program?
9&10/03

issue cover

 Wrangell St. Elias News - “McCarthy Annie” - In Which, NPS Works 'Em Over  When the Park Service flew in their swat team and all the supposed experts to tear apart the country around the Pilgrim property, there was a writer there who recorded much of the activity including taking some important pictures. Read her story to see how the Park Service is really treating this family. The pictures are remarkable.  Psalms bakes cookies for the Rangers    Country Rose speaks    Delegation pays visit   FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION [EDITORIAL]    Letters to the Editor   
7/9/03 Gary Candelaria - Anchorage Daily News (Voice of the Times) - Public's collective rights at stake (go to bottom of link to see it) - 
7&8/03
issue cover 		Wrangell St. Elias News - In Which, NPS gets a S.W.A.T. - Permits - DNR talks to McCarthy - LETTERS — EDITOR  
6/27/03 Gary Candelaria - Open letter from NPS park superintendent regarding the Pilgrim family.  An astoundingly unprofessional diatribe by a senior NPS manager:  "The Pilgrims have broken the law, openly, deliberately, repeatedly." 

PLEASE NOTE:  But Mr. Candelaria, "the Pilgrims have not been charged with any crime, there has been no trial, nor have they been found guilty by a jury or judge." wrote the Wrangell-St. Elias News in: WRST Superintendent defames Inholders in "Open Letter", July & August 2003 p. 15-16.
6/27/03 Rick Kenyon - Anchorage Daily News (Voice of the Times) - Is Park Service trampling on Alaskans? (go to bottom of link to see it) - PDF Image 
6/27/03 Sarah Foster - WorldNetDaily - PARK WARS: PART 2 - Net users go to bat
for 'Pilgrim' family - Feds back down from plan some saw as possible '2nd Ruby Ridge'
6/26/03 Sarah Foster - WorldNetDaily - PARK WARS: PART 1 - 'Pilgrim' family butts
heads with feds - Alaska 'hillbillies' take on bureaucrats over access to private land
6/25/03 Jason Moore - KTUU Anchorage Channel 2 - Pioneer family blazes road to controversy - 
6/19/03 Tom Kizzia - Anchorage Daily News - Inholders clear 13 miles of park - 
BULLDOZED: Family needed access, cited old law and often missed mark
6/16/03 Jessica Cochran - Alaska Public Radio - McCarthy report #2 (6.5k) - Bob Loeffler, Director of the Alaska Division of Mining, Land & Water said, "Since...the park service appears willing to give a permit, we recommend people just go ahead and deal with the Park Service and get on with their life."  Alaska Region NPS Director Robert Arnberger comments near the end of this clip.
6/13/03 Jessica Cochran - Alaska Public Radio - McCarthy report #1 (28k mono) - 
5&6/03
issue cover		 Wrangell St. Elias News - Dorothy Adler - The Pilgrim Story 
“McCarthy Annie” - In Which, NPS Rewrites history & law
 Rick Kenyon - Is the McCarthy-Green Butte route a legal road?  
 Rick Kenyon - NPS comes to town
[editorial] - Ill Winds Threaten Inholders 
3&4/03
issue cover		 Wrangell St. Elias News - “McCarthy Annie” - Is NPS monitoring your phone?
Rick Kenyon - Trails in the park, Where can I go, and how can I go there? 
4/18/03
 BONNIE KENYON'S POIGNANT AND ELECTRIFYING COMMENTS at NPS Meeting in McCarthy on the Pilgrim access 0:1:48.  PANDEMONIUM BREAKS OUT LATER IN THE MEETING WHEN PARK SUPERINTENDENT GARY CANDELARIA BLAMES THE PILGRIMS FOR MCCARTHY'S ACCESS PROBLEMS 0:2:34.   
1&2/03
issue cover		 Wrangell St. Elias News - Rick Kenyon - The RS2477 Question  

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