Does Federalism Hinder or Help the States?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is federalism, or the division of powers between the federal government and the state governments. This site provided the following information on federalism. 

Another basic concept embodied in the Constitution is federalism, which refers to the division and sharing of power between the national and state governments. By allocating power among state and federal governments, the Framers sought to establish a unified national government of limited powers while maintaining a distinct sphere of autonomy in which state governments could exercise a general police power. Although the Framers sought to preserve liberty by diffusing power, Justices and scholars have noted that federalism has other advantages, including that it allows individual states to experiment with novel government programs as laboratories of democracy and increases the accountability of elected government officials to citizens.

Although the text of the Constitution does not clearly delineate many of the boundaries between the powers of the federal and state governments, the Supreme Court has frequently invoked certain constitutional provisions when determining that Congress has exceeded its constitutional powers and infringed upon state sovereignty. One well-known provision, regarded by the Court as both a shield and sword to thwart federal encroachment, is the Tenth Amendment, which provides that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people…. Other notable provisions addressing Congress’s power relative to the states that the Court has debated include the Supremacy Clause in Article VI, which establishes federal law as superior to state law, the Commerce Clause in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, which grants Congress the authority to legislate on matters concerning interstate commerce; and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants Congress the power to enforce that Amendment’s guarantees against the states through the enactment of appropriate legislation. More broadly, federalism principles also undergird many Supreme Court decisions interpreting individual rights and the extent to which the Court should federalize, for example, the rights afforded to state criminal defendants. But judges and scholars disagree on how basic principles of federalism should be realized, and a key point of controversy is whether the judiciary should enforce the interests of the states against the Federal Government or leave the resolution of such key questions about the relationship between federal and state power to the political process.

With the above cited information in mind, this essay will share a recent example about how the federal government can hinder or help the states. In her article published at The Daily Signal, Virginia Allen reported on the recent remarks of Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy about the differences in how “development and extraction of resources in Alaska” were managed by the Biden administration and the Trump administration. 

“Trump is all about opportunity. In other words, no limits, giving Alaska the opportunity to develop its resources, build things, market things, exactly the way it was supposed to be,” the Alaska Republican governor said.

“Under [President Joe Biden], it was the opposite. They were violently determined not to allow anything to happen in Alaska.”

“They put the environmentalists first, not the people or the needs of the state or country first,” Dunleavy said of the Biden administration, while talking with The Daily Signal at the Miami Security Forum….

Alaska: Resource Rich

Alaska was the only state to receive its own executive order on Trump’s first day back in the White House. The order, titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” again made it the policy of the United States to “fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources,” including Alaska’s liquefied natural gas.

Trump’s order “means hope” for Alaska because it compels the federal government to take full advantage of the state’s natural resources, from timber to mining, thus increasing investment in Alaska, the governor explained.

Trump’s executive order to further develop Alaskan oil resources is significant following the conflict with Iran that has rocked global oil markets. Iran threatens ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane.

Japan, for example, imports about 90% of its oil from the Persian Gulf. It takes, under normal circumstances, about 20 days for an oil shipment to reach Japan from the Middle East, but it would take just eight days for an oil shipment to reach Japan from Alaska, Dunleavy explained.

National Security

In addition to holding a wealth of natural resources, Alaska is also a critical U.S. national security asset due to its proximity to Russia and its location in the Arctic.

Both Russia and China demonstrate a keen interest in the Arctic. Russia, in particular, is extracting the region’s natural resources for economic purposes and asserting military dominance there.

In just the past 10 years in the Arctic, Russia has “revitalized Soviet-era bases, deployed missile defense systems, invested in domain awareness capabilities, increased aerial and maritime patrols, and stepped up its exercise schedule,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

While Russia has about 40 icebreakers, special ships that can navigate the Arctic’s icy waters, the U.S. has had only two, one of which never fully worked, according to Dunleavy. However, the Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed last year, included funding to procure an estimated 17 new icebreakers.

The new icebreakers “will position us as a year-round Arctic nation where we have icebreaking going on, we have shipping going on,” Dunleavy said, calling the investment “very, very important.”

While “a lot of administrations have fallen asleep regarding Alaska,” Dunleavy said, referring to the state’s natural resources and key security location, “the Trump administration has not.”

The effect on Anchorage shows in the number of schools and businesses that have closed over the past few years. When there are no high-paying, energy-related jobs in Alaska, employees and families move out of Alaska. This means that there are no adults to visit the businesses or students to attend the schools. Hopefully, Alaska, under the Trump administration, can get the jobs flowing to Alaska once again.

Alaska Highway

The Alaska Highway means different things to different people. Some people consider it to be a great adventure while others think of it as simply a long drive. I heard one young woman describe it as “a thousand miles too much scenery.” I have traveled the Alaska Highway about a dozen times, but I still find myself wanting to make the trip again – looking forward to it and enjoying every mile of it.

The idea of an overland link between Alaska and the Lower 48 was studied as early as 1930 during the administration of President Herbert Hoover. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, construction of the highway became a military necessity because Alaska was considered to be vulnerable to an invasion by Japanese forces. When the Japanese invaded Attu and Kiska islands in the Aleutians in June 1942, there was an added sense of urgency to complete the highway.

The highway to Alaska was approved by the United States Army on February 6, 1942, and construction of it was authorized on February 11 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Construction of this pioneer road officially started on March 9, 1942, and ended on October 25, 1942 = a period of 8 months and 12 days. The military name for this trail through the wilderness was ALCAN, and some people still refer to the Alaska Highway as the ALCAN. There were restrictions on civilian traffic on the highway during the war years. The highway was officially renamed the Alaska Highway in March 1943 and opened to the public in 1948.

The War Department determined that the Alaska Highway would be built on the same general route followed by aircraft flying from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska, as well as existing winter roads, old Indian trails, rivers, and “sight” engineering. Airfields along this route formed the Northwest Staging Route. More than 8,000 war planes were ferried along this chain of airfields from Great Falls, Montana, to Ladd AFB in Fairbanks, Alaska. The aircraft were flown from Fairbanks to Nome to Russia as part of the Russian-American Lend Lease Program.

A formal agreement between the United States and Canada in March 1942 secured rights-of-way for the road. The United States agreed to pay for construction and to give the Canadian portion of the highway to the Canadian government after the war. Canada agreed to furnish the rights-of-way, to waive import duties, sales taxes, income taxes, and immigration regulations, and to provide materials for construction along the route.

More than 10,000 American troops in regiments from the United States Army Corps of Engineers went north to work on the road. Civilian engineers and equipment were organized by the Public Roads Administration. They located and shipped trucks, road-building equipment, office furniture, food, tents and other supplies.

Soldiers and civilians worked seven days a week and endured mosquitoes and black flies in summer and temperatures below zero degrees in winter. Communication between headquarters and field parties was sparse, and there was never enough equipment. Crews worked from the western end of the road as well as from the eastern end and met at Contact Creek on September 25. Vehicles were traveling the entire length of the ALCAN by October.

The Alaska Highway was officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony at Soldiers’ Summit at Kluane Lake on November 20, 1942. It was rededicated on November 20, 1992, during the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Highway. It was also named an International Historical Engineering Landmark in 1996.

The Alaska Highway starts in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, at Mile 0. It travels in a northwesterly direction to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory (Historical Mile 635). It crosses the Alaska border at Port Alcan (Historical mile 1221.8). The official end of the Alaska Highway is at Delta Junction, Alaska (Historical Mile 1422), and the unofficial end of the highway is at Fairbanks, Alaska (Historical Mile 1520).

The highway is about 35 miles shorter today than it was in the 1940’s, and it continues to get shorter as reconstruction takes off more miles. The condition of the highway continues to improve with reconstruction. When I first drove it in 1973, there were vast stretches of mud. Today the entire highway is paved, but it is still plagued with frost heaves.

Driving the Alaska Highway is an adventure that everyone should take at least once. I recommend that anyone making the trip take along the latest copy of The Milepost. This book is a “must” for making the trip. In fact, much of the information for this post came from my copy of The Milepost (pages 97, 104).

I Drove the Alaska Highway

My husband and I recently completed a five-day trip from Anchorage to northern Idaho. Due to the lateness of the season, most of our travel took place on the Alaska Highway. I love this trip through the wilderness of beautiful western Canada and have made it about a dozen different times over a period of 37 years.

We left Anchorage about 4:00 on a Friday afternoon with mostly cloudy skies and the thermometer at 46 degrees. We traveled the Glenn Allen Highway to Tok, 330 miles north/northwest of Anchorage. The road winds through Chickaloon Pass, along the Matanuska River, and between Chugach Mountains and the Talkeetna Mountains. The road was dry, but heavy snow was accumulating in the tops of the mountains. The scenery was absolutely spectacular with the snow-tipped mountains in the background and trees covered with brightly colored leaves.

We saw a red fox and three moose before we reached Glenn Allen about 7:00. After leaving Glenn Allen we traveled the Richardson Highway until we came to the Tok Cutoff at the Gakona Junction about 7:30 when darkness fell.
As we neared Tok, we drove into freezing fog, which lasted for several miles. The next morning we left Tok on the Alaska Highway. The thermometer stood at 19 degrees, and the trees, brush and weeds were covered with frozen fog. It looked as though we were driving through a Christmas wonderland. Tok usually has the worst weather on the whole trip as it is the furthest north so we were hoping for good weather for the rest of the trip.

Crossing the border into Canada was uneventful this year because we had our passports handy and the paperwork for our guns properly prepared. Soon after we entered Canada we hit snow. We drove on a snow-packed road for most of our second day. After traveling in snow for about an hour, we reached beautiful Kluane Lake, the first of many humongous lakes on our route. Kluane Lake is the largest lake in Yukon Territory and covers approximately 154 square miles. The road winds around a large part of the lake and at times right on the edge of the lake. The road winds between Kluane Lake and Sheep Mountain. We didn’t see any Dall sheep on Sheep Mountain this year, but we have at various times on previous trips – usually in the spring – counted dozens of sheep. We assumed that the sheep had found refuge from the storm in a more sheltered area than the open mountain side, but we understood that we might be looking right at the white sheep but couldn’t see them on the snow-covered mountain. The mountain pass between Kluane Lake and Haines Junction was open but snow packed. We were relieved to get over the pass as we had seen other vehicles struggling to get up the mountain.

We stopped in Haines Junction for a break and some brunch at Glacier Inn. The owner recognized us. Is this a sign that we have been there too many times? We drove on to Liard Hot Springs and took the time to take a swim. The water is very warm and even too hot in places. We always stop there when we travel this part of the highway. I recommend that all jewelry be removed before entering the water. My shiny white-gold CTR ring turned to a dark charcoal gray effervescent color. The flat areas of my ring returned to dull silver within about twenty-four hours; the edges are still dark after two weeks. I was told that gold jewelry also changes colors. I was also told that Liard Hot Springs is wonderful in the winter when the trees are covered with snow and frost. The hot water heats the body so well that it stays warm on the long walk back to the parking area.

I felt very grateful for all my previous trips down the Alaska Highway. Because I had previously traveled the highway, I knew that beautiful vistas of the Canadian Rocky Mountains lay just beyond the trees lining the road. On this trip, I could see nothing beyond the trees because of fog, clouds, snow and rain, and we were out of the mountains before we hit clear weather.

The road through the Rocky Mountains is narrow with no shoulders and almost continuous twists and turns. It is not a fun road to drive on dry pavement and becomes worse on wet and slippery pavement.

Businesses and towns along the upper portion of the Alaska Highway appreciate the dollars Americans spend while making the trip between Alaska and the Lower 48. The people are always friendly, and some of them show their appreciation by flying the Stars and Stripes side by side with their Canadian flag. Watson Lake lines the entire route through their town with Canadian and American flags. Watson Lake also has a “forest” of sign posts with streets signs and license plates from many parts of the USA and elsewhere. A business at Burwash Landing has a large sign that reads, “Long live the USA.” Businesses in the more populated areas east of the Rockies are not so dependent on American dollars, but some of them still fly the American flag.

Our trip along the Alaska Highway this year ended at Dawson Creek – Mile Zero. We usually leave the highway at either Watson Lake (Cassiar Highway) or just before Fort St. John (Highway 29). This year we drove to the beginning of the Alaska Highway in an effort to see some different scenery.

We always try to begin or end our trip through Canada with a drive through the Canadian national parks. We enjoy seeing the slanted mountains, hanging glaciers, ice fields, glacier streams, and beautiful mountain grandeurs of the parks. We always fill up with fuel in Jasper because it has the cheapest fuel on the entire trip through Canada.

Driving the Alaska Highway is an adventure for us. We usually drive ten to twelve hours each day. We crossed the border into northern Idaho in late afternoon on our fifth day. I can honestly say that I enjoy every single trip that I make on the Alaska Highway.

Alaskan Aviation

The recent aircraft accident that claimed the life of former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens renewed national interest in aviation in Alaska and reminded Alaskan pilots of the perils of flying in this Great Land. The crash of the Stevens' Otter was not an uncommon event in Alaska. In fact, aircraft accidents here are fairly routine, almost like automobile accidents in any other state. Most of the accidents are fender-benders, some do serious damage to the aircraft, and a few cause death. Alaska has approximately 200 villages that are located off the road system, and Alaskans use airplanes much as Outsiders use taxis and four-wheel drive outfits. Most accidents happen in the summer months when more pilots are flying. There have been 21 airplane crashes in Alaska in 2010 with 17 of those crashes happening since June 1. At the time the Stevens' aircraft was plowing into the side of a mountain, another group of five airplane accident survivors was waiting for rescue on the Knik Glacier where weather conditions prevented rescue for several days. A Pave Hawk helicopter landed several miles down the glacier from the wreck and left four National Air Guard rescuers who hiked for twenty-one hours up the glacier before reaching the crash site. The Pave Hawk was then diverted to the Stevens accident, and a Black Hawk helicopter traveling from Fairbanks was sent to the Knik Glacier. While trying to land on the glacier, the Black Hawk rolled over and crashed, leaving additional people on the glacier to be rescued. A few days after the Stevens' accident, two more people were killed when their airplane flew into a mountain. Being a member of the flying community of Alaska, I am more than a little interested in the recent mishaps. There are numerous reasons for aircraft accidents, just like there are for automobile accidents. Most reasons fall into the category called "pilot error" while some are caused by the weather and a very few are caused by aircraft malfunction. Some conditions coming under pilot error are: lack of experience, making a wrong turn (such as going up the wrong canyon and not having room to turn the aircraft around), flying too low for the terrain, flying too fast to land safely, flying in weather conditions not suitable for flying, etc, My husband has been piloting small airplanes for nearly forty years and has been an Alaskan bush pilot for more than thirty-five of those years. He has about 5,000 hours of flying time compared to the 28,000 flying hours of the pilot of the Stevens' aircraft. He has already had his share of mishaps and near-death experiences, losing one aircraft completely. He has also gone on many search and rescue missions for missing aircraft. The accident that affected him most was probably the one where he found a friend whose airplane had augured into the ground while searching for wolves. My husband flies aircraft on wheels, floats and skis. When I first started flying with him, I spent whole trips searching the ground for safe places to land. Now I am more relaxed and at peace with the experience. My husband has postponed many fishing and hunting trips due to bad weather. Last winter his gear sat in a stack by the garage door for more than two months waiting for the weather to break. One day he actually made it across Cook Inlet before turning around due to a strong headwind. Return trips home are often delayed because of bad weather. In fact, as I drafted this post, I was sitting in a warm and cozy cabin in a remote part of Alaska waiting for the rain to stop and the skies to clear enough for us to return home. Alaskan aviation can be summed up as follows: There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots - but there are no old, bold pilots. Alaskan pilots have an especially difficult time with weather because conditions change quickly over the immense amount of country and single engine aircraft travel approximately 100-125 miles per hour. Pilots here must be aware of weather conditions all around the route they plan to travel. They must also maintain their aircraft in top condition as well as know their own personal capabilities. Taking proper precautions, aviation in Alaska is as safe as driving down a freeway in many other states.

Iditarod Trail

Since we celebrated Seward's Day in Alaska this week, I thought I would add some Alaska history about the Iditarod Trail. There were about 30 serious gold rushes in Alaska between 1880 and 1914, and they were a major part of the history of Alaska. The last old-fashioned, frontier-style gold rush in the United States came to life at Iditarod in 1909. Iditarod was located 629 trail miles west of the future site of Anchorage and half the distance to Nome. In 1910 Iditarod briefly became the largest city in Alaska with about 10,000 people. There were several banks and hotels as well as a newspaper, all of which were supplied by boat service up tributaries of the Yukon River, including the Iditarod River. By the early 1920's, settlers were streaming to Alaska by boat to Seward and Knik, two coastal towns; then they traveled by land to the gold fields. They followed a trail that is now known as the Iditarod Trail, which is one of the National Historic Trails designated by the United States Congress. The original Iditarod Trail started at Seward and wound along Turnagain Arm through the area known as Girdwood, over Crow Pass, down the uninhabited Eagle River Valley and northward to the tiny trading post of Knik. After leaving Knik, the trail went west through the wooded valleys of the Susitna and Yentna Rivers, climbed over Rainy Pass in the Alaska Range, and went across the Kuskokwim Valley to the hills west of McGrath to the town of Ophir. From Ophir, the trail went southwest through the Kuskokwim Mountains to the town of Iditarod. From there it went northwest to the Yukon River and then directly north to Kaltag. At Kaltag the trail went back southwest along the 90-mile Kaltag Portage to Unalakleet. From there it went north and then west through Shaktoolik, Koyuk, and Golovin. About fifty miles out of Nome, the trail dropped down to the beach and ended on Front Street in Nome. The Iditarod Trail soon became a way to travel through Alaska and was used to carry mail and people from place to place as well as transporting supplies. In the winter, the only means of travel was by dog team, particularly for judges, ministers and priests who traveled from one village to another. Dog teams were the standard mode of transportation for many years. When the gold mining began to lessen, the people went back to their homes, and there was far less travel along the Iditarod Trail. In the late 1920's airplanes began carrying the mail and passengers. The appearance of the snowmobile in Alaska ended the use of dog teams, and people soon forgot about the Iditarod Trail and the important part of Alaskan history played by dog teams. In the late 1960's, the late Dorothy G. Page, a resident of Wasilla, recognized that Alaskans needed to remember the importance of the Iditarod Trail and the dog teams that traveled along it. She presented an idea for a race along the Iditarod Trail to Joe Redington, Sr., a dog musher who lived in the Knik area. Redington and his wife liked the idea and helped promote the first Iditarod Race, which was held in 1967 and covered the first twenty-seven miles of the Iditarod Trail. A $25,000 purse was offered in that race. A second race was held in 1969. The organizers planned to have the race go to the ghost town of Iditarod in 1973. When the US Army reopened the trail as a winter exercise in 1972, the decision was made to take the race to Nome, a distance of more than 1,000. There were many people who thought that it couldn't be done and that it was ridiculous to send a bunch of mushers out into the Alaskan wilderness. The race took place, and twenty-two mushers finished that race. Since 1973, over 400 mushers have finished traveling the Iditarod Trail to Nome. Mushers have come from Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Japan, Austria, Austrailia, Swe3den, and the Soviet Union as well as about twenty different states in this nation. Dorothy Page is known as the "mother of the Iditarod," and Joe Redington is known as its "father." There are a couple of interesting traditions with the Iditarod Race. One tradition is the "Red Lantern" which is awarded to the last musher arriving in Nome. This tradition started as a joke but has become a symbol of "stick-to-itiveness" to people in mushing circles. The other tradition is the "Widow's Lamp." When sled dogs were freighting and carrying mail along the Iditarod Trail, the mushers relied on the roadhouses located between the villages. Word was relayed along the trail that a musher was coming so a kerosene lamp was lit and hung outside the roadhouse. The lamp was not extinguished until the musher arrived safely at his destination. Following this tradition, the Iditarod Trail Committee lights a "Widow's Lamp" at 10:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in March at the trail's end in Nome. The lamp is attached to the Burled Arch, the official finish line, and remains there until the last racer reaches Nome. The extinguishment of the "Widow's Lamp" signals the official end of the Iditarod Race each year. When my children were in elementary school, they would each choose a musher to "follow" along the Iditarod Trail, and we went to downtown Anchorage several times to see the ceremonial start of the race. The official start of the race takes place in Wasilla the following day. This year our oldest daughter had the opportunity to ride on a friend's sled for the first few blocks of the race, and her friend won the "rookie of the year" award this year.

William Henry Seward

Alaska is celebrating Seward's Day today in commemoration of the day that Alaska was purchased from Russia. It is named for William Henry Seward who signed the treaty. William Henry Seward (1801-1872) was born in Florida, New York, and educated in Schenectady, New York. He became a lawyer at age 21 (1822) and was elected to the state legislature at age 29 (1830). He was governor of New York (1839-1842) and was elected to the United States Senate in 1849. He was against slavery and fought against its spread. He was the leading Republican in the nation in 1860, but Abraham Lincoln was nominated for President. Seward campaigned for Lincoln and became his secretary of state. Seward did such a good job in foreign affairs that no foreign nation joined the Confederacy in their fight against the Union. Seward was with Lincoln on the night he was assassinated. Seward was wounded by an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth. He recovered and remained as secretary of state for Andrew Johnson. An important accomplishment of Seward was the purchase of Alaska from Russia. The fur trade in Alaska had dwindled by the 1850s and Russia was weakened by the Crimean War (1853-1856). Russia was eager to sell Alaska. Seward accepted the sale price of $7,200,000 or about 2 cents per acre. Seward signed the Treaty of Cession of Russia America to the United States on March 30, 1867. Americans were divided about the purchase of Alaska. Many were in favor of the purchase, but others called it Seward's Folly or Seward's Icebox. Congress approved the purchase, and the United States flag was raised in Sitka by America troops on October 18, 1867. Seward has a town (Seward, Alaska) and a state holiday (Seward's Day) named in his honor. Facts for this post came from an article by Mark E. Neely, Jr. in World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 17, p 331, and an article by Patrick Fitzgerald and Claus-M Naske in Vol. 1, p 301.

Alaska Railroad

My family has been involved with the railroad in Alaska numerous times, beginning with my father. During World War II, my father left his home, his wife and six children to look for work. He ended up in Alaska digging railroad tunnels through the mountain from Portage to Whittier. He went home for a few months and then returned to Alaska a second time to work on the railroad. Many years later, Dad was thrilled to take my mother, my youngest sister, myself and some of my children on the train to Whittier to show us where he worked. Several of my children worked on the railroad as young adults to earn money for college. The hours were long and the work was difficult but the pay was good. The Alaska Railroad was owned and operated by the federal government for more than sixty years. Ronald Reagan signed the legislation in 1983 that transferred ownership of the railroad to Alaska. This year on January 5 Alaska celebrated twenty-five years of ownership of the nation's only full service (passengers and freight) railroad. The people of Alaska are the real owners of this railroad, but it is run by Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC), a self-sustaining State of Alaska corporation, which is overseen by a seven-member, governor-appointed board of directors. Alaska paid the federal government $22.3 million for the Alaska Railroad. This price included 655 miles of track, 38,000 acres of land including all rights-of-way, four terminals, and 1,545 units of rolling stock including locomotives, freight cars and passenger cars. Total railroad assets were valued at $37.2 million in January 1985. The value was reported to be $854.1 million by December 31, 2008. In January 1985, the revenues of the railroad were $61 million. Annual revenues had grown to $180.4 million by the end of 2008. New locomotives and passenger cars have been added, new facilities have been built, the Whittier Tunnel was opened to vehicle traffic, and other capital and operational improvements have been made. The acquisition of the Alaska Railroad was a good decision twenty-five years ago. It should remain a valuable property for the people of the great State of Alaska for many years in the future.

Ptarmigan Hunting

I exercised my Second Amendment rights again yesterday. My husband and I left the Lake Hood airstrip in our Super Cub just as the sun was coming over the Chugach Mountains about 9:30 a.m. We flew across Cook Inlet to the area around Beluga Lake where we landed on a huge meadow to hunt for Ptarmigan. Our friends landed in their Maule just a few minutes before we landed. The sky was mostly clear, and there was almost no breeze. The temperature when we landed was just below freezing but it warmed up to about forty degrees, just about right for hiking around but cool if sitting for any length of time. Willow Ptarmigan is the state bird for Alaska. Ptarmigan can be recognized by the short feathers covering its feet, which help it to walk on the snow. The feathers of the ptarmigan change colors for specific seasons. In the summer, its feathers are reddish-brown and black, and in the winter, its feathers are white. The change in coloring is apparently brought about by the change in daylight hours. Yesterday the ptarmigan were almost all white, which made them really easy to see in the background of green and brown. The three hunters seemed to be satisfied with the number of ptarmigan they shot. I'm not a hunter but was along for fun and friendship. We spent hours walking through meadows and brush or hiking up and down mountains. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be out in this beautiful country. There was no snow on the ground, but there was ice around the edges of lakes, etc. Our excitement for the day was crossing streams of water too deep to wade by stepping from ice covered rock to ice covered rock. I am not a hunter and don't even like to carry a rifle or shotgun; however, I believe very strongly in the Second Amendment. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what the Second Amendment actually says. I don't understand the confusion because the words seem to be very plain to me: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Our Founding Fathers must have known what they were writing and why, but later generations certainly are confused. Now there cannot be any question about what the Second Amendment means. "In a radical break from 70 years of Super Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a `militia'" (The New York times Editorial Board, June 27, 2008). The Second Amendment is actually the Right that protects all of our other rights. When people are armed, as King George discovered, they become a populace that refuses to be pushed around. Thomas Jefferson observed, "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny" (Walter E. Williams, Do the Right Thing: The People's Economist Speaks (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1995), 149, http://books.google.co/books?id=SxGurfTCNZcC).

Moose

I saw my first moose of the season today. It was a small cow moose eating shrubs in my neighbor's front yard right across the street. I guess the moose are moving down from the Chugach Mountains and back into town for the winter. Anchorage is home to approximately one thousand moose every winter. It is a common experience to see moose walking down our street. After living in Anchorage for more than thirty years, I am surprised at how much I still enjoy sharing the city with the moose. It seems that I feel just as excited to see a moose now as I was when I first came to Alaska. I love to see moose - at least as long as they are not in the road in front of my vehicle or standing between me and a safe place. I think that they are very interesting animals with their long legs, big ears, and big noses. I actually think that moose are ugly. Some animals such as deer, caribou, Dall sheep and even buffalo have pretty faces. Moose do not, but I still love to see them. Our family has enjoyed visits from moose for many years. One winter my younger son jumped over a fence into our backyard and came almost face-to-face to moose. The moose charged but was not able to get my son because he ducked behind our shed and got to the house before the moose got him. Another time we had a moose come into our yard in the early spring. She was so skinny from the winter that we were afraid that she would starve to death in our yard. We were grateful when she moved down the street. The visits that we enjoy the most come in the early spring when the moose mamas are having their babies. We often have a mama bring her newborn baby into our yard and stay for a few hours. Several times twins have come to visit us. A couple of years ago, a mother moose brought her twin calves into our yard and kept them there for several days. She, with the help of her babies, stripped all the green leaves from our raspberry bushes and ferns. When she had eaten all the new leaves in our yard, including my newly potted geraniums, she started venturing out for short periods of time without her calves. She seemed to know that the calves were safe in our yard because she would leave them several times a day and be gone for about thirty minutes or so before coming back to them. We so enjoyed having them here that we really missed them when they moved out during the night. Having been through childbirth myself several times and also having daughters who are in their child-bearing years, I have very tender feelings for mothers with new babies and have found that those feelings extend to our visiting moose. I am very appreciative of the opportunity to share my yard with mama moose and their new babies. I am grateful to live in a country where wild animals are protected and available for all to see.

Montague Island

I am back from my trip to Montague Island where I spent a few days deer hunting with my husband and a couple of long time friends. This trip was a spur-of-the-minute one, giving us another opportunity to exercise our Second Amendment rights as well as other American liberties.

My husband spent most of Tuesday helping our friend remove the floats and install the tires on our two aircraft. Removing the floats is a big job and an important one to complete before the lakes freeze. While working on their aircraft, the two friends decided to go to Montague Island the next day to hunt for deer. We spent a few hours getting equipment, food, and clothing ready for the trip - and then waited on the weather.

The weather in Anchorage was mostly clear on Wednesday with temperatures around 50 degrees, but thick clouds were hanging around the mountain tops and had completely closed Portage Pass over to Whittier. The two pilots kept a watch on the weather, which cleared enough to take off from Lake Hood air strip about 3:00.

We took off first and flew across Cook Inlet where our friends caught up with us and passed us. We flew through the mountains at around 2000 feet to Seward. The weather was better at Seward so we were able to fly at 3000 feet across the water. We saw about 20 mountain goats on the mountain tops and the cliffs around the water.

By the time we arrived at Montague Island, we were seeing rain drops on the windshield and lower visibility. When we arrived we could see that our friends were already on the ground and setting up a cooking shelter. Their Maule flies about 30 miles per hour faster than our Super Cub so they always arrive long before we do. We flew around for five minutes or so to look for deer but didn't see any.

We landed without any problems just after 5:00 on a wide, sandy beach with the tide going out and taxied as close to camp as possible. Immediately upon exiting the aircraft, we broke out our rain gear. The rain gear apparently had magical powers because the rain stopped as soon as we were suited up. All the grass, bushes and trees were dripping with rain so we needed the rain gear to stay dry even without rain falling.

We unloaded our airplanes and set up camp. We were eating dinner by 6:30. The temperatures were still quite warm and enjoyable. We spent a leisurely evening and went to bed about 9:00.

A cold front came during the night, leaving a thin layer of frost on everything. Knowing that the frost would melt, leaving the grass, bushes and trees wet again, we again donned our Healy Hanson rain gear. My husband and I chose to hike in our Danner Winter Light hunting boots, and our friends chose rubber boots and hip waders. We like our boots because they keep our feet dry and are easier to hike in; however, we have to be careful where we place our feet and how we cross streams. Our friends like the rubber boots because they are better for crossing streams and boggy marshes.

Montague Island appears to be volcano based. At least, most of the rocks I've seen appear to be made of lava. The beaches are nice and sandy with occasional places with lots of rocks. The moss-covered ground on the inner island is very spongy and water logged with many small streams and holes filled with water, some of them hidden in the grass. The trees are thick except in the many meadows. The middle of the island contains very tall mountains and cliffs.

We were just heading out of camp about 8:00 a.m. with our friends going up the beach past the aircraft and us heading the other direction. We had gone about 50 feet when our friends called to us and wanted us to go back. We returned to where they were and saw the very large tracks of a brown bear that had walked down the beach sometime during the night, going the same direction that we were heading.

I was kind of spooked to be walking into thick trees and tall grass with a known bear in the area. I made sure that I stayed right on my husband's heels for two reasons. I wanted to be close enough for him to protect me plus I figured that two people together would look larger and perhaps cause a bear to think twice before attacking. I was somewhat relieved a couple of hours later when we crossed the bear trail going down the middle of a meadow - heading in the opposite direction to where we were going.

We hiked up through a pass in the mountains and down the other side to the beach. We found a very large rock and climbed to the top of it to eat our lunch. We took our time with lunch, watching the beach in both directions for deer as well as enjoying the ocean waves as they crashed against the rocks at high tide.

The deer on Montague Island are Sitka Black Tails, which are quite small, about the size of a large dog. They flourish well on the islands but don't survive the deep snow of the mainland the few times that they have been seen there. Most of the deer on Montague spend the summers and early fall in the high mountains and cliffs until they are driven down lower by snow. We have often seen deer on the beach so we hoped to find success there. They seem to like eating the kelp washed up by the waves.

We were just finishing lunch and repacking the pack when I looked down the beach and saw a deer a few hundred yards away. My husband grabbed his rifle and told me to come with him. I took my time and loitered behind him. He got close enough to the deer that he thought he might scare it into the trees. The deer was in a little dip on the beach so only the head and chest could be seen. My husband took a first shot from a standing position but shot low. The deer just stood there looking at him so he took a second shot. The deer jumped and ran towards the grass and trees. I had a difficult time believing that my husband had missed twice. When I got to the spot where he waited for me, I could see blood on the sand. The deer was hit in the heart/lungs and ran about twenty feet before dying in the grass.

In the fifty plus years that my husband has been hunting deer, he has become professional in the way he cares for and handles the meat. Since we moved to Alaska and began hunting for moose, he has perfected his skills at removing the four quarters, back strap, and any other usable meat without the need to clean out the insides of the animal. Within a very short time, we had the meat harvested and in our pack.

We headed back towards camp, all the time looking for more deer. I was carrying the pack with the deer meat. The main reason was because it seemed to be the lighter of the two packs. A second important reason was that I preferred to have the meat on my back and the rifle in my husband's hands rather than the meat on his back and me trying to shoot a bear. A few years ago, one of our family friends was killed by a brown bear while carrying deer meat so I'm a little sensitive in the matter.

Our trip ended after a couple of days and nights of clear weather. Our group harvested four deer - far fewer than the legal amount of sixteen deer between the four of us. The weather was clear enough that we flew back at 8000 feet, over the tops of the mountains containing the Harding Ice Fields - glaciers that stretch for miles and miles and miles. We had a 35 mile per hour tail wind and were back in Anchorage about an hour after leaving the island.

I have just one question: how could I hike up and down mountains, climb over log jams, and carry heavy loads for the better part of three days - and end up gaining two pounds? My husband always comes home from hunting trips several pounds lighter so why did I gain weight? Even in a free country life isn't always fair!